About Me

I've always had an affinity for metals and minerals. I started working with metal at a young age. I used the copper wire my dad brought home from train engines to make bubble blowers and necklaces for my mom. As a teenager, I discovered a 'sixth sense' with gems and minerals while working in a jewelry shop. I can decipher and decide mineral quality like the flash of a camera. This sixth sense combined with my deep yearning for stones and sent me on a journey which led me to the other side of the world. After studying metalsmithing at Kent State University, I travelled to Coober Pedy in the Australian Outback. There I met a miner with a generous heart and opals sparkling in his eyes. He provided me with opal rough, which was the beginning of an exciting collaboration with my newly-retired dad.

Back in the states, my father acquired and repaired lapidiary equipment which we used to learn stonecutting over six months. Dad took to the cutting work naturally, but I went back to setting stones in my own metal wire creations. I began selling jewelry of own design in 2002. Sitting with an umbrella and a table on the deck of The Wharfside, a Put-in-Bay bait shop, I enjoyed the summer days making jewelry for happy vactioners and exploring the island. Fast forward fifteen years and more than five-thousand handmade pieces, I have fallen in love with the Lake Erie Islands and I'm reaching out to the world to share the healing joy of gemstones.