Ever since I was a young child I was mesmerzied by nature. I could play outside in the woods behind our house for hours. As a teenager, I made simple earrings and sold them to a local store as well as at high school. Around this time I started seeing the Grateful Dead. I went to collage at SUNY Binghamton and received my Bachelors of Science in Psychology with a concentration in Human Services. All the while, making beaded jewelry to sell at the Dead shows.. as many as I could get to! After graduating and taking a year off to travel (more shows including through Europe and all across the USA selling my handmade jewelry) I went to Leslie College Graduate School in Cambridge Mass and received my Masters degree in Expressive Arts Therapy. I worked with many different populations through the years including at risk youth, elders with Alzheimer’s and dementia and mentally ill adults. However, working the 9-5 grind really didn’t suit me and I started doing my handcrafted jewelry full time at high end craft shows throughout the east coast. I sewed tiny glass beads in intricate patterns creating webs to hold semi precious stones without the use of glue. Each piece was one of a kind. After getting married in 1997 living outside Woodstock NY and having 2 babies (all natural, at home, waterbirths) we moved to Maui Hawaii and lived for 11 years. I continued as a high end jewelry artist selling at local markets as well as part of the Lahaina Arts Society for years. Around 2002 I learned how to make lampworked glass beads. This entailed sitting at a torch melting rods of different colored glass onto a thin metal rod (which creates the hole in the bead) then painting with thinner handmade “stringers “of glass onto the bead. I also used fine silver and gold leaf, dichroic glass, enamel powders etc.. before putting them into a kiln to cool slowly overnight. I became a member of the Maui Crafts Guild and sold my handmade beads and jewelry there for years. Also during these years I learned how to do mosaics using sea glass, shells, stones, as well as tiles and broken dishes.