Talent Ph.Beads

Channels:

Crafts, Art, and Fashion

Genres:

Arts and Crafts, Jewelry, Jewelry

Roles:

Jewelry Designer, Craft Artist, Silversmith

Specialties:

Gemstone, cast and fabricated silver jewelry

When I was little I couldn’t decide between wanting to be an astronaut or a fashion designer when I grew up. As it turned out I now hold a Ph.D. in Marine Science from the College of William and Mary and spent time as an Aquanaut living underwater off the Florida Keys!

My friend Shirley got me hooked on beads(she's a fellow Marine Biologist - works on clams- hence Ph.Beads -get it?).
I went on to study metalsmithing and jewelry making at Miami Dade College and have now been making silver jewelry for about 5 years.

Being a marine biologist was misshaping my head. Logic, analysis,deduction...the left side of my brain was huge! The right side was shrinking! Using precious metals and the finest stones I started to create these pretty things to rectify the problem. Now my head looks pretty normal.

When not underwater or on some island collecting fish specimens, I design eminently wearable jewelry that is feminine and attention grabbing, yet clean and easy to wear. My customers love them because they become wardrobe staples they reach for again and

I find I like things that are a little off, almost the wrong colors together, slightly off center proportions. And then I edit. Like the science manuscripts I write. I file the ring until the width is just right, until the corners are just rounded enough but not too much, set a stone whose size in proportion to the band is just unexpectedly a bit too small. A bit wrong in just the right way and then it just sings! It’s delicious! How’s that for self-analysis and navel gazing?! Pretty good for me. I think I really just learned something about myself! Huh, go figure.

My jewelry can be as simply made as to use just gemstones, wire and chain but I also form, solder and forge metal. I cast in the lost wax technique and many of my items are set with gemstones.

I’m proud of my Ph.D. because I am really A type and I did the best work I could do and I still read it and feel it’s good work. But I’m even more proud that I have never stopped being a good person, a good daughter, wife, sister, aunt, niece and friend. I try to do my best work there too.

Gemstone, cast and fabricated silver jewelry

I thought about this a lot and was going to say nature, blah blah but that’s not really all of it, is it? The truth is that I get a lot of magazines, not necessarily jewelry magazines but fashion, interior design and fine art magazines. I use them for inspiration for colors and shapes, but it goes beyond that. By looking at lots of them, studying them really, I have developed a specific aesthetic sense. I have developed “an eye”, a feeling for the kinds of things that I gravitate toward. Almost subconsciously I’ve developed a particular sensibility and this is what I express in my designs.