Cabinet of Curiosities
MA and MFA degrees in painting and drawing have provided me footing as I venture into other media (metal, wire, enamel, lapidary, leather, polymer, and then some.) I’m as likely to be influenced by the exhibits in a natural history museum or a hike along a shore as I am by the galleries in an art museum.

Like the stream of consciousness lyrics of “Aguas de Marco” (Waters of March), the sweetness and poignancy of life is present in the everyday.
As far as I can tell, my unrelenting inclination to look hard, collect, and make things is driven by a similar thrumming litany. A stick, a stone, a lump, a joy in one’s heart.

Making jewelry allows me to build wearable pieces that pair traditional materials with the less-than-
conventional bits that make their way into my cabinet of curiosities  (think fossilized camel tooth), and to
embrace a free association style of story telling. Which brings me back to “Aguas de Marco.” Go ahead, take a
listen to the Portuguese version. My guess is that you might find yourself tapping your foot or at least swaying
a little. Read on for the English translation of the first stanza and refrain.

“Waters of March”
Antonio Carlos Jobim

A stick, a stone
It’s the end of the road,
It’s the rest of the stump,
It’s a little alone,
It’s a sliver of glass,
It is life, it’s the sun,
It is night, it is death,
It’s a trap, it’s a gun,
The oak when it blooms,
A fox in the brush,
A knot in the wood,
The song of the thrush
The wood of the wind,
A cliff, a fall,
A scratch, a lump,
It is nothing at all

And the river bank talks
of the waters of March,
It’s the promise of life,
It’s the joy in your heart.