Think about Grandmothers. Or Great Aunts. Or the older lady down the street who filled in for the usual babysitter. Think about the ways they did things. How they used their hands. How everything - from the snack they fed you to sweater they bundled you up in to the mittens they knit you every time you grew or lost a pair - was hand made and precious. Precious objects that have become precious memories. The time they put into all of these everyday things made them more than just stuff, they were your prized belongings.

(My Grandmother)

I grew up with these women - Gram and her homemade everything, Ms. Simmons down the street who bought me new crayons every winter, Mrs. Richards, my fist babysitter and all of her crafts. They remain my biggest influence. Not only did I cling to my Gram's clothing style and insistence on doing everything from scratch (also known as the hard way), I'm finding overtime that all the other women in my life have influenced me just as heavily. Even the traces of women past whom I'll never get the chance to meet - like my Grandmother-in-law - continue to manage to influence me from afar - even if it is mainly through the comparisons regularly given by my partner, M.

(My Grandmother-In-Law)

These are the strongest influences in all the art and objects that I make. And that IS what this blog is to really be about: my art, my process, and my first grand attempt at getting my work out there -making (and selling) the functional, precious objects we all need in our day-to-day lives.

There's a hint of mod, a slurring of retro, and a whole lotta up-cycled, un-wasted and handmade. It'll never be quite what grandma made, but it just might fill that retro fix you've been craving...