THOUGHTS | on wanting more

My career in jewelry didn't start because I wanted to make jewelry. It started because of my dad.

He owned a jewelry supply store in Atlanta. We sold tools, equipment, and materials to jewelers, but the real work was helping people—giving them the knowledge they needed to use those tools, create the piece, build the business.

Working alongside him, I found myself missing the creative part of my life. Every day, I watched people walk through our doors making beautiful things, and I wanted to be part of that. I also realized pretty quickly that if I was going to sell the tools, I needed to know how to use them.

What began as a way to make a living became a thirst for knowledge. That curiosity eventually grew into a business of my own.

I've spent nearly twenty years immersed in this industry. When I started, Instagram didn't exist. I didn't have two children. My dad still had his store. Metal prices rose and fell, but they were mostly predictable. Then came 2020. IYKYK

Since then, it feels like the ground has kept shifting. I've worked hard to adapt to every change, but adaptation has its limits. In January, the metals market made a move that forced me to ask some honest questions about sustainability. Silver has tripled in a year. Gold has nearly doubled. And I'm in a different place in my life now, too—one where I need more flexibility in the day-to-day of production.

The question I kept coming back to was this:

How do I keep making meaningful work
while also running a viable business?

I sat with that question for a long time.

And the answer kept leading me back to the same feeling I had in my dad's store.
Go back to the beginning.
Share what you know.
Be part of a creative community.

His store has closed now, but I have the opportunity to teach at local jewelry schools. It started with one-day workshops. What I didn't expect was what teaching would give back to me: a room full of people at the very beginning of something. Rediscovering techniques I hadn't touched in years. Remembering how exciting it feels when everything is still vast and possible.

I will start teaching weekly classes in August.

I'm not stepping away from making jewelry.
I'm stepping back into another part of why I fell in love with it in the first place.

learn more

When one teaches, two learn.
robert heinlein

If someone asked me to describe myself five years ago, I know exactly what I would have said. Wife. Mom. Jeweler. Small business owner.

Today, all of that is still true.

But somewhere over the past few months, I realized those roles no longer tell the whole story. At nearly 45, I'm finding myself wanting more. Not more things. Not a bigger business.
More of myself in the equation.

Teaching is part of that. Writing is part of that. Creating space for conversations like this is part of that.

I'm not becoming someone new. I'm giving myself permission to be someone more than the labels I've been carrying.

Do your roles shift as the years go by?
Where do you find yourself today?