About

Personal adornment is not merely accessorizing. It's a connection, a provoked feeling, a historical leap, and a transporter of being. My work as a maker expresses and integrates history of place, people, and materials. I believe that it's all connected....that we are all connected. The phrase, Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ is a world view concept which means "we are all related" or "all my relations”.  As an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sičháŋǧu Oyáte (Sicangu Lakota), I believe in this prayer of oneness and harmony with all forms of life: other people, animals, birds, insects, trees and plants, and even rocks, rivers, mountains and valleys. I strive to bring that oneness into each object I create. My jewelry is a narrative conceptual sculpture that is both architectural, organic and talismanic. They are powerful and seductive bold forms that bridge my environment, my material and my history and the connection I have with the wearer that was meant to be experienced by the select few. I hope you will enjoy my handcrafted work and become part of my relations.
  1. I love making jewelry and doing interiors (I have a degree in Interior Design and Marketing).  For me it's more about the process, telling the story, exploring the materials and technique, not the end result.  After 20 years as a metalsmith/maker I am just now becoming an emerging artist selling my work.  Crazy!  I guess I like to do things backwards.
  2. For 10 years I owned 2 paint-your-own pottery stores.  I started a "side business" selling tools and supplies for jewelry making during that time, which became one of the 3 largest metal clay suppliers and mixed media dealers for an additional 10 years.  This closed in 2012 after my business partner, my mother, died of Bile Duct Cancer.  
    I was also a senior instructor/educator for Rio Grande, PMC Connection and Art Clay World for 14 years combined. I've been part of 3 best-selling anthology books in art. I innovated techniques and processes and enjoyed teaching workshops all over the country for many years.
  3. After being a coach for artists and their business for many years, I took a diversion to start a company that innovated gamification software.  We sold software licenses that would support the coaching industry with their memberships for increased engagement of their clients.  I also designed websites for artists. The coaching programs Foundations for Artful Success and Building Profits for Artful Success had 168 artists complete the program in that 1.5 years before I closed it to take care of my father who later died from Glioblastoma.
  4. My biggest love is spending time with family or out in nature. I am an ambivert, but enjoy the occasional outing.  Honestly I’d rather be home, in a museum, bookstore, hiking, riding my bike or down by the river.  
  5. I love animals and wish I had a big farm full of dogs, horses, baby goats, chickens, and bunnies. There is nothing like fur love.
  6. I spent most of my childhood competing in sports (ski racing, swimming, volleyball, and competitive English/western/jumping horse shows). So I'm more than a little competitive about everything else too.  The acorn didn't fall from the tree as my son was a starter at the D1 football program, University of Montana. I loved being a football mom.
  7. I buy books that I never have time to read. I can't resist. I am a hoarder of information.  I am always reading (business, jewelry or self-help).  In fact I carry a book with me wherever I go.
  8. I am an enrolled Sičháŋǧu Oyáte (Sicangu Lakota) and I rent out/co-farm wheat, milo, sunflower, soy beans and pasture rent for cattle on over 1000 co-owned acres in South Dakota, of which the original land has been in my family since the late 1890’s.
  9. I run several groups on Facebook: JewelryMakersGuild, TucsonGemShowHappenings, RockYourIGAccount, and JMGJewelryToolsForSale, among a few others.  Please check them out!
  10. I grew up in the great outdoors on God's magnificent rural land in Colorado, hunting for food, fishing, camping, hiking, biking, showing horses and more. I’m still a little country girl but I also need a Home Goods/TJMaxx and Barnes and Noble for some retail therapy. Any Gemini can understand there are two of us. Completely fulfilled and a bit nuts.