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About

I began Blood Milk in the warmer months of 2008, in the wake of two separate but equally transformative events in my life; the first being the one year anniversary of completing my MFA in writing with no writing jobs in sight (the dreaded economic crisis killed many a dream that year) and perhaps, even more devastating, the sudden death of my estranged father. I began to be wholly consumed with questions about the afterlife; my upbringing offered me vacant answers on this account, despite a four year tenure in a Christian boarding school.

It was from this obsession, from this liminal place of grief, that I began to make objects for myself, my own kind mourning jewelry, to serve as 'psychic armor.' Despite my limited knowledge of jewel making, I taught myself some things, and learned others more formally, and thus, the results of my intense grappling with grief became physical manifestations.

Due to my academic background in literature and writing, I like to imbue my jewels with personal tales, historical contexts such as the Victorian Spiritualist movement and mythological references, mostly all of which surround the dark romanticism that the question of death often carries with it. 

I have battled a melancholy demeanor and sensitive tendencies for most of my life and find that one of my main "cures" is to find truthful beauty everyday, to behold it and appreciate it before it slips away into the ether. I believe jewelry can serve as soothing objects, can become physical reminders of love, of self-reliance, of mourning, of beauty. I work hard to have my jewels serves as these reminders.


“Consider
 a girl who keeps slipping off,

arms limp as old carrots,

into the hypnotist's trance,

into a spirit world

speaking with the gift of tongues.”

-Anne Sexton

“...throw roses into the abyss and say: 'here is my thanks to the monster who didn't succeed in swallowing me alive.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche