Your work feels like a museum of your inner world. Is there a memory you haven’t yet turned into a piece?

Many! I hope there will always be. 

I don't have a lot of memories from childhood - but mostly feelings about certain experiences and environments. When i am able to tap into a specific memory, place or thing, I try to show that in my work, because it is rare. I am working on bringing more of my memories back to life through therapy and embodied healing practices but yes there is still a lot for me to share - both about my inner world and what I observe in the world around me.

Do you design from longing, from gratitude, or from something else entirely?

I design from a mix of nostalgia, longing and fantasy, but also presence -  it’s a combination. It’s not really something I can put into a box - It just is. And it depends on my mood, the phase of my life, the phase of my business, where I am in my menstrual cycle - Ha! 

A lot of my designs feel heritage-inspired. I am deeply connected to my French and North African roots, these cultures and lands inspire so much in me creatively. For example, my first collection, La Mer, was inspired by a summer I spent in the south of France with my grandparents when I turned 10. We spent this summer collecting sea urchins, basking in the sun, driving to chateaus and getting fresh seafood from the marche. The limoncello is another example of my french heritage, because lemons belong in everything, everywhere - citrus trees were always a part of the french landscape in the summer time, and i always cook with lemons, always. Those are just a few examples!

What does “becoming” look like to you right now?

Becoming right now is tender - it looks like allowing hopes and dreams to dissolve into the background, and allowing reality to take center stage. I am at a point in my life where I am facing a lot of difficult truths, aging as a woman in today's world is just bizarre at best. I have desires to build a family, have more children, own a home, etc that have always driven me into a point of despair and confusion - holding onto things that hurt me, or no longer serve me. Trying to force, control, or adjust myself to fit someone else’s narrative - hoping that will be enough. Becoming right now means risking losing all of that, in order to be honest with myself about what is more important - doing the thing, or doing the thing right with the right person , and in a way that does not hurt me at a soul level. Crumbling with those personal narratives has come with a deconstructing of a lot of other aspects i see in the world, learning how to exist in that without completely losing myself, and hopefully, ultimately being a source of inspiration and hope to other women and girls today and in the future - that would be my absolute hope and dream for who i am “becoming”. 

Has motherhood shifted the way you think about legacy or heirlooms?

Absolutely. It did before I even had conceived him. But I remember the night I conceived him and the very next day I felt my view of myself and the world completely change. It’s been a long process of learning to be kinder to myself. I always saw the world clearly - perhaps too clearly, I feel the darkness and the foolishness of the world. I have always felt a strong desire to build a legacy, one that helps people heal themselves, or at least health within themselves. That has only been amplified with motherhood. A lot of that process has and still looks like my own healing and survival, but I feel strongly this year that will shift to impacting others in their own journey. 

My son is the purest form of love I have ever witnessed. I take great pride in raising a boy who will one day be a man - it is a daunting task, a privilege, because I feel a responsibility in shifting a narrative in what it means to raise a man. He teaches me that he naturally embodies so much of what this world needs and most of my job comes down to teaching him accountability and discretion. Raising a boy as a single mom is another kind of experience, I don’t have any brothers so every stage of this has been completely new to me (he is 7!). He watches me provide for a home, create and maintain a home, run a small business, make art, maintain friendships and relationships and all the things entailed in raising a little boy. He often sits in the studio with me and makes his own designs, some of which have become real pieces of jewelry! I often think about how that is all legacy in and of itself. I hope he grows up respecting and honoring that a woman brought him into this world - as woman have brought all of us into this world. Why that is so easy for some people to ignore is beyond me, but I hope I raise a man who really gets that. It’s a non - negotiable to me. 

This all relates to heirlooms in an exquisite way, because we dont just pass on to our children physical objects, we pass onto them who we are. We determine how much they are armored for the world and how much they have to “unlearn”. When we pass on an heirloom piece of jewelry, that sentimental value is always increased with how much the inheritor felt connected to the person passing it on. People always show me their heirloom pieces, and the people who are the most lit up and excited to show are the ones who had very close and special relationships with the person it came from . It feels obvious to point that out, but that is very important when you think about it. We assign so much meaning in emotional ways to sentimental objects like heirloom jewerly- so how we behave, who we are, what we stand for - that is all a part of the legacy, that transfers on in the ring that you wear from your great-grandmother. You don’t just remember that she existed - you remember who she was. 

I want to add that our primary focus on heirloom custom jewelry is in solid gold, white gold and platinum and mostly honors special occasions like engagements, anniversaries, and heirloom redesigns recycling client’s existing stones and metals!