When I began working with silver several years ago, I took a class from a woman who, over time, became my mentor. She invited me to assist her at several classes and we had a lot of fun teaching together. In all the time I spent with her, she taught me much more than silversmithing skills. I remember lengthy marketing conversations about building a body of work and compiling materials I could use to promote myself. We talked about galleries and specialty shops, craft shows and direct sales. Even though I was new to the fine craft industry, I quickly developed strong opinions about how I would create and sell my art.

With my marketing goals in mind, I have worked steadily for years to create pieces of jewelry that express my artistic vision within an interconnected body of work. My current work embodies three general design concepts: heaven, earth, and ocean. Each line includes several pieces that conceptually express the design idea. Some pieces within the lines match, others coordinate through similar patterns.

It has been my goal from the beginning to always make as many of the components of my pieces as I can, which means I spend some of my time making clasps, jump rings, ear wires and other functional elements. While this work is not the most exciting I perform at my bench, it is important to me to create my art, not assemble it. Plus, it's always good to have something to do on those less inspired days...