I am a careful curator of the rusty, the cast off, and the overlooked. When collecting materials for wearable works, I make choices based on attractions to textures, colors, smells, and evidence of age. My selected materials are then combined to create interactions between tactile qualities and functional associations. In their raw state, all of the collected materials were once perceived to have little to no value, and certainly had no immediate future as fine jewelry.
While considering the active process of collection and our passive relationships with common objects, I reclassify the mundane through the context of jewelry. Sterling silver, nickel, and blackened steel serve as the foundation for nontraditional components to be elevated. Dismantled wooden shelves, unplanted seeds, rusted hardware, and leather scraps become gracefully simple forms of body adornment. The resultant disparity between raw material value and contextual value creates a space in which both can be reevaluated.