Colette

Before beginning my exploration of metalsmithing, I travelled in Asia for six years, doing everything from immersing myself in the jungles of Thailand and living in a Buddhist monastery to sailing across several seas and an ocean; from teaching English in Tokyo to working on a prawn trawler off the coast of Australia. Literature, art, myths and legends have all informed me. In all of my experiences I sought to explore beyond the traditional. As such, I try to do the same with each piece of jewelry I create. Never settling for the ordinary, I create unique alloys with gold, varying purity and color, milling my own sheet and drawing my own wire. In doing so I use traditional metalsmithing methods to create non-traditional pieces. Additionally, stones are, to me, as maleable as the metals I work with. I constantly search for unique stones and I frequently use lapidary to modify the stones in ways suitable for each individual piece. I'm always aware of their spiritual properties and seek to honor that in my pieces. I love to let the materials tell me how to utilize them and seldom begin with renderings. Outside the studio, I balance the very isolated nature of my craft by introducing groups of all ages to the temples and alleyways of Chinatown. "The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive and more constructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person." - Dr. Frank Barron

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