“First you learn the instrument, then you learn the music, then you forget all that s**t and just play.”
― Charlie Parker
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Feeling this quote right now as I get ready to release my new collection into the world and also begin work on my next one. This cycle of overlapping phases is part of my process. Someone recently asked me how long I have been making jewelry and I had to stop and think...I've been studying jewelry for almost 10 YEARS now! Not just making, but studying. Studying from some of the most wonderful metalsmiths and studying my own discoveries and mistakes. I'm so grateful for all my teachers (the kind ones and the tough as nails) and the wisdom they have passed down to me over these years. And I am grateful for the teachers who are still to come, because I will always be a student of this craft. But I am also simultaneously learning to forget all that learning...and forge my own way every time I sit down to play. A cycle of overlapping phases.
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Photo of me by my friend Eva Kolenko in my first shared workshop space in SF.