For many years I was a studio artist…a painter and printmaker. I stopped making art in 1983 and became an art administrator, art advisor, curator and art dealer. 16 years ago I began making jewelry because I needed to be making things again. So I started restringing my existing necklaces. I took a basic class on beaded jewelry and I was off and running.

Making jewelry is akin to painting and drawing with beads and wire. I work in complete silence...an almost Zen state...loosing track of time, making each piece myself. The beads talk to me…compelling me to assemble them.

I create jewelry thinking about women of all sizes, skin and hair color, heights, body types, neck lengths, and bosom sizes. For me, the female torso is an empty canvas. I try to imagine how each piece will look on different women. And I am always pleasantly surprised and happy when a piece looks perfect on someone.

My beloved collectors motivate and inspire me. They constantly tell me they enjoy and feel happy when they are wearing my jewelry.

I come from a family of fashionistas. My maternal grandmother, Madeline, was a diminutive woman of 4’11”, who never knew she was short. She never felt limited to wearing petite things. My earliest memories of her were going into her crowded bedroom, closets overflowing with clothes, shoes, purses, belts, hats, and accessories. Drawers filled with silk flowers. Leather gloves in all lengths and colors. Costume jewelry, colorful cabbage flower hankies. Drawers of silk scarves, still with the aroma of her perfume. A cacophony of colors and textures. As a young woman she severely burned her arms while (what else?) cleaning a pair of leather gloves. She was left with severe scarring on both arms, which she never hid. Instead she wore short sleeve tops in the summer, with her arms loaded with noisy bracelets. I loved to see her get off the train when she came to visit us. She was always impeccably dressed…never without hat and gloves. I remember a beautifully fitted purple wool suit with a fur collar... a fox with beady eyes, biting its tail. As she aged and needed a cane, she would painstakingly adorn it with rhinestones, and silk flowers that she changed with the seasons.

My mother, Madeline, was a multi-faceted artist... singer, writer, gourmet cook, and painter. She sewed, crocheted and knitted beautifully, and made all my clothes. How I hated those dresses! I longed for store bought clothes, so I wouldn't look so different from everyone else. When we would go to the department store, where I lusted after displays of identical clothes, she would say with disdain, “Look. Rack after rack of identical clothes, they are so ordinary. Why would you want to see yourself coming and going in the same dress as everyone else?”

So it is against this background of two creative women named Madeline… beautiful, irreverent, fiercely independent and stylish, from whom I developed my own sense of personal style and love of fashion…particularly jewelry. And heaven forbid…. nothing ordinary!

For many years I was a studio artist…a painter and printmaker. I stopped making art in 1983 and became an art administrator, art advisor, curator and art dealer. 16 years ago I began making jewelry because I needed to be making things again. So I started restringing my existing necklaces. I took a basic class on beaded jewelry and I was off and running.

Making jewelry is akin to painting and drawing with beads and wire. I work in complete silence...an almost Zen state...loosing track of time, making each piece myself. The beads talk to me…compelling me to assemble them.

I create jewelry thinking about women of all sizes, skin and hair color, heights, body types, neck lengths, and bosom sizes. For me, the female torso is an empty canvas. I try to imagine how each piece will look on different women. And I am always pleasantly surprised and happy when a piece looks perfect on someone.

My beloved collectors motivate and inspire me. They constantly tell me they enjoy and feel happy when they are wearing my jewelry.

I come from a family of fashionistas. My maternal grandmother, Madeline, was a diminutive woman of 4’11”, who never knew she was short. She never felt limited to wearing petite things. My earliest memories of her were going into her crowded bedroom, closets overflowing with clothes, shoes, purses, belts, hats, and accessories. Drawers filled with silk flowers. Leather gloves in all lengths and colors. Costume jewelry, colorful cabbage flower hankies. Drawers of silk scarves, still with the aroma of her perfume. A cacophony of colors and textures. As a young woman she severely burned her arms while (what else?) cleaning a pair of leather gloves. She was left with severe scarring on both arms, which she never hid. Instead she wore short sleeve tops in the summer, with her arms loaded with noisy bracelets. I loved to see her get off the train when she came to visit us. She was always impeccably dressed…never without hat and gloves. I remember a beautifully fitted purple wool suit with a fur collar... a fox with beady eyes, biting its tail. As she aged and needed a cane, she would painstakingly adorn it with rhinestones, and silk flowers that she changed with the seasons.

My mother, Madeline, was a multi-faceted artist... singer, writer, gourmet cook, and painter. She sewed, crocheted and knitted beautifully, and made all my clothes. How I hated those dresses! I longed for store bought clothes, so I wouldn't look so different from everyone else. When we would go to the department store, where I lusted after displays of identical clothes, she would say with disdain, “Look. Rack after rack of identical clothes, they are so ordinary. Why would you want to see yourself coming and going in the same dress as everyone else?”

So it is against this background of two creative women named Madeline… beautiful, irreverent, fiercely independent and stylish, from whom I developed my own sense of personal style and love of fashion…particularly jewelry. And heaven forbid…. nothing ordinary!