As a maker of objects, I have navigated the waters of sentiment and studied the point when an object becomes a beloved object. This often involves a transaction: a gift, a purchase, the exchange of wedding vows. It involves time. The years spent wearing (or living with) the piece – getting to know it a little more each day. In the case of a wedding ring, it requires understanding its relationship to your body, the weather, the environment, the work one does, one’s age. The Mexican essayist, poet, and diplomat Octavio Paz, in one of my favorite essays, said, “The handmade object does not charm us simply because of its usefulness. It lives in complicity with our senses, and that is why it is so hard to get rid of – it is like throwing a friend out of the house”. I am humbled that some of the objects I have made live daily with friends and strangers alike. Over the last five years of making jewelry, I’ve returned to this idea of making the quiet things that are worn daily, that are impossible to part with. What would make your list?

Alluvial Deposits (after Carboplatin chemotherapy)
July 26, 2023

Alluvial Deposits (after Carboplatin chemotherapy)

This poem is part of a series in which I explore traditional jewelry materials and the ways in which they relate to the body. When I was undergoing treatment for breast cancer, I tried to keep my material curiosity alive by tracing the medicines back to their roots, in this case the element platinum. I thought a lot about how systems within the body mimic systems without, veins and arteries echo streams and rivers, sediments accumulate in silt and bone. Thank you to Metalsmith Magazine for inviting me to publish this poem. 

 

Alluvial Deposits (after Carboplatin chemotherapy)

 

My friend with size 12 fingers insists on platinum 

so I set to work carving wedding ring from wax block

refining the crude hacks of my handsaw 

with a file and a multitude of sandpapers.

 

It weighs barely a gram, this brittle model

but transformed into metal it will become 

a heavy ballast, it will right the ship,

at least that is what my friend imagines.

 

I carve slashes into satiny 600-grit surface

as if it has been mauled by a bear my friend directs me

he is watching a Werner Herzog movie 

about caves and signs, man and animal.

 

He wants the animal present in the ring I craft.  

I could hone a bear claw, make a tiny tool

become a Wild Thing scratching at ring’s surface

instead, I use precision tungsten burrs to engrave an ursine alphabet.  

 

II

 

What constitutes treasure is subject to interpretation. 

Aguirre, spun round on a river raft, searching 

for El Dorado. The contents of the treasure chest

are usually gold and gems, perhaps feathers

ink, bone, water.

 

I’ve never seen a chest full of silver’s dull, heavy relative

 

But I’ve tasted it. Platinum flowed through my veins.

I have known it to be a precise poison

that lingers still

as heavy metals do.

 

When my living is done 

when blood and bile leach back into earth

when my seas evaporate

and my fascia lets go

the well-built pyre of my bones

will reach substantial temperatures

capable of drawing platinum out

and you will find that all along  

deep in marrow   hair follicle 

it’s been mating with the gold.



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Conversations in the Middle - Metalsmith Magazine article
April 06, 2023

Conversations in the Middle - Metalsmith Magazine article

I’ve written an article that appears in the new issue of Metalsmith Magazine available digitally or in print. The piece asks the question, How to begin again?, in the studio and beyond. I hope you’ll read the stories about the three artists I profile in the piece.

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Friendly Tides Exhibition at Marin Civic Center
February 27, 2023

Friendly Tides Exhibition at Marin Civic Center

 

Friendly Tides at Marin Civic Center 

Feb 6th - May 18th

Reception: Thursday, March 16th, 5:00-7:00pm

Friendly Tides showcases the work of artists from Marinship Studios, a studio complex in the Marinship neighborhood of Sausalito, California. Located on a site that has been a beacon of creativity for artists, philosophers, writers, and poets since the 1950’s, it has been a workplace and residence for the likes of Maya Angelou, Gordon Onslow Ford, Allen Ginsberg, Jean Varda and Ruth Asawa among others. Marinship Studios was founded in an effort to continue this creative history and support the arts in the Bay Area.

The neighborhood of Marinship began as a shipyard during WWII before blossoming into a creative enclave defined by houseboats, marine businesses and the ebbs and flows of the bay. The title of the show - Friendly Tides -  is a nod to the neighborhood’s inextricable link to the tides of the bay and how everyone in the community is impacted by them for both good and ill. All on the waterfront are subject to the pull of the tides, especially when the seasonal king tides threaten to breach our doorways. Many buildings flood during these times, recently including the studios of some of the artists presented here.

In addition to Sausalito's very tangible shores, Friendly Tides also refers to the tidal force of artists in the Bay Area. Unlike many art scenes, it is common here for artists to include the work of their friends and peers in their exhibitions out of an instinct for making space for others and sharing conversations with one another. In this spirit the exhibition includes a group of works by artists from Sausalito and the greater Bay Area who are friends of Marinship Studios. We watch the waterfront to live with the movement of the bay, but we are the friendly tide.

Marinship Studios Artists

Mary Button Durell

Tania Houtzager

Maya Kini

Ari Lurie

Susan McKiney

Daniel Melo Morales

Bay Area Artists

Matt Goldberg

Tracy Kessler

Lynn Marie Kirby

Anna Landa 

Natasha Lowey

Cait Malloy

Beril Or

France Viana

 

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