Awards, Recognition and Exhibits
2000 - Finalist Uptown Art Fair, Minneapolis, MN
2000 - June Lapidary Journal Opal Butte Agate Amulet photo credit page 17
2000 - February JCK Open Bypass Bracelet featured in 'What's New' page 152
1999 - Vision Awards, Excellent marks in catagory of Beauty for 'Empress Amulet III' and 'Empress Bypass Bracelet' American Pearl Company Design Competition
1999 - Finalist Uptown Art Fair, Minneapolis, MN
1999 - Spring Inspirations Studio 56, Waconia, MN
1998 - Finalist for 1999 Niche Award
1998 - Passionate Obsessions Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI
1997 - Trashures' Show Facere Jewelry Art, Seattle, WA
1996 - Stillwater Fine Art and Jazz Fest, Stillwater, MN, Best of Show
1995, 1994, 1992 - Honors Award, Uptown Art Fair, Minneapolis, MN
1993, 1992, 1991 - Highland Art Fest, St Paul, MN, Best of Show
1992 - Featured on "Down to Earth" local news segment
1991 - Dubbed "Eco-Chic" by Mpls/St Paul Magazine
1990 - Ec-community Mall of America, Bloomington, MN
1989 - Wilenski Arts Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
History
I have been creating jewelry since high school and crafting custom designed work since 1982. I graduated from the University of Minnesota with a focus in jewelry design and advanced studies in art history. After a brief season of ski-relief in the Rockies, I went on to do some technical training at the Gemological Institute of America. I then apprenticed for three years with a local jeweler. I also spent three years as a diamond consultant, buyer and custom designer for a fine jewelry store. I have seventeen seasons of successful craft fair experience and currently run a studio that employs five and contracts out to three others. I've spent five years teaching found object assembled jewelry to high school students at Minnesota Center for Arts Education. I also have been involved with their mentor program, providing an artist's role model for a protege student.
Artist's Statement
My current passion is weaving 24 kt. and platinum. I love attempting to blur boundaries of craft and art by translating textile techniques to precious metals. Creating metal work that has an aesthetically textural feel like fine fabrics but that wear worthy to everyday active lives. I have always been drawn to the interaction of colors. Perceptual opposites whose boundaries vibrate in each other's presence. I've been having fun with unconventional techniques like setting stones upside down or obscuring one stone with another. My goal is to create designs and pieces that are unique, beautiful, functional and lasting.
It feels comforting that so many of the objects and shapes I work with are circles. It's a multicultural eternity symbol with no beginning or end, a shape that soothes the viewer's eye. I always design and craft my jewelry for myself, to please myself. It seems that this is the path to my passion and the vehicle that gives me access to more custom designs than I could possibly make in one lifetime. The first piece will lead me to its sisters and I keep going in this way until I have exhausted the series and I am satisfied.
Professional Organizations
American Craft Council, Minnesota Craft Council, Society of North American Goldsmiths