My passion for jewelry stems from my youth spent in New Mexico and Colorado. A foster uncle, who happened to be Navajo, made me my first piece of jewelry when I was 5, a turquoise pendant on a silver necklace. I spent hours at rock and bead shops and was one of the youngest members of the Colorado Springs Gem & Mineral Society. I won ribbons for my rock collection while learning about the stones that made the jewelry I loved.

I studied art in school and majored in art history, but my real education took place as I visited museums and monuments throughout South America and Europe. I marvelled at the obscure display of an Egyptian beaded collar, an ancient Greek glass bracelet or delicate pre-Columbian filigree earrings. I remember my first museum experience when I was ten. At the King Tut exhibit in Berlin, I was amazed at the magnificent collars, armbands, bracelets and hair adornments. Jewelry was everywhere, detailed even in the wall paintings and on a sarcophagus.

I admire craftsmen and women of years ago, from various cultures, who valued quality for the sake of quality embroidery so fine, the back looks as beautiful as the front; woodwork as finished on the inside as the out. I believe handmade items in our mass-produced consumer society represent a bit of that pride in quality that sometimes seems lost in today's values. I hope to impart some of that pride in my work.