WHY BIRCH BARK?

I grew up in New England with a birch tree outside my bedroom window.  We played outdoors and I was always creating homes in tree roots, using acorn caps, twigs and grass to create nests for my imaginary friends.  The joy I found there has reemerged.  Walks in Vermont yielded a trove of birch bark that sat, waiting for me to find its purpose.   The material is both pliable and strong, beautiful and scarred, unique and ubiquitous - mostly it is just beautiful to me.  No matter the state, freshly dropped from a living birch or disintegrating on the forest floor, I am drawn to the story the bark tells, of birth, growth, death and the passage of time.  

​

My education – both formal and lived – has included an English degree, a certificate of mastery from a jewelry school in Florence and a ton of hard knocks. I am grateful to all the teachers who generously shared their skills, vision and passion.  Grateful too to my loving family who support my wanderings.