My Story

The Story Behind the Jewelry

I started making jewelry in my early twenties, when I had little money but loved the delicate handmade jewelry I found in galleries—especially earrings with beautiful, high-quality gemstones. So I learned how to make them for myself. Before long, friends and family were asking me to make jewelry for them, too. I often made gifts for the women in my life, and I loved hearing that they appreciated the lightweight designs, quality materials, and ease of wearing them every day.

Living in Colorado has changed the way I design. The Rocky Mountains, trees, lakes, rivers, and flowers are always around me, and I find myself noticing their shapes and colors more and more.

I grew up in Hawaii, where the air carries the scent of pikake before you ever see the flower. Small, white, and impossibly delicate, pikake blossoms open in the evening and can fade by morning — which is exactly why they're treated so carefully, strung into lei reserved for weddings and the moments that matter most. It was Hawaiian royalty who first fell for this flower and gave it its name; peacock, for the way its pattern caught the eye. I understood that instinct before I could explain it. Some flowers you just notice.

Years later, I settled into Colorado — a place about as far from a warm island lei as you can get. And it was here that I noticed a flower doing the same thing pikake had always done for me: standing out. The columbine grows wild across Colorado's high country, its odd, spurred shape unlike anything else on the mountainside. It's so distinct that a century ago, Colorado's own schoolchildren voted to make it the state flower — chosen not because it was ordinary, but because it wasn't.

Pikake and columbine could not be more different. One is lowland and tropical, blooming for a single fragile night. The other is alpine and hardy, built to survive thin air and rocky ground most of the summer. But they've played the same role for me, twice, in two very different lives: a flower that felt like home, in a place I chose to call home. Bloom carries the softness and fragrance of Hawaii forward, while Ridgeline, Canopy, and Flow are shaped by the mountains and water I live alongside now.

Making jewelry is quiet time for me. I put on music, spread stones across my workspace, and see what catches my eye. I love stones with unusual shapes, color variations, and natural inclusions. No two are exactly alike.

Sometimes I don't know what a design will become until I put the stones in front of me. I wrap them, combine them, and let the materials guide me.

I hope the woman wearing my jewelry feels that same pull toward something thoughtfully made—something beautiful, well made, and carrying a little story of its own.

xo,
D.