My Beginnings
People often ask me what my training was. Architect? Graphic designer? Engineer? In reality, I started out as a jewelry artist.
I developed my artistic voice through this medium. From the beginning of my artistic career, and even as a child, I have always been interested in movement, transformation, and optical illusions. With jewelry, I am interested in the way that a form interacts with the body: how the jewelry changes when you pick it up, how it hangs and connects to the body, and how the wearer can change the final look of the piece. In sculpture, I am excited about the way the body interacts with the art, the way a person is immersed in an installation and can even climb on, under, or move around the form.
I design experiences that capture how I feel when I am working with a material or concept, moving it around, layering shapes together to explore light, shadow, color, movement. Inspired by math and nature, each work has its own intelligence, a set of rules that governs the way it is built and also allows for infinite possibilities and growth. I make visible the mechanical, fractal, and mathematical nature of the way the world is put together. Those everyday moments of exploration, when we look closer and discover something magical, are extraordinary and worthy of deep attention and experimentation.
Two of my most successful jewelry pieces capture the essence of the experiences I envision creating through sculpture.
Two of my most successful jewelry pieces capture the essence of the experiences I envision creating through sculpture. Collapse/Expand Pendant illustrates the way I use simple mechanisms to surprise viewers with an object that changes size and shape when it is picked up. I wanted to entice people to interact with the form before understanding it as a piece of jewelry. The accompanying sound the movement creates adds to the joy of sensorial discovery.
In a similar way, the Topography Necklace appears to be a drawing but when picked up the lines magically hold together. When worn, it conforms to the curves of the body and again gives the illusion of being a drawing or tattoo. The potential for transformation through movement, sound, and optical illusion continues to fascinate me and remain core concepts in my work. My vision is to create sculptures that elicit a similar experience of discovery and surprise as these two necklaces.