I began creating and selling jewelry back in 2002 while I was living in Northern Brazil. It was a pretty special time. I was selling one of a kind pieces on the sand dunes at a night market in Jericoacoara. A lot of my inspiration still comes from this period in my life. My career officially launched and was incorporated in 2007 after I began selling to stores in nyc.

 When I first came to New York I stayed in Manhattan with a friend that I made in Mexico a year and a half before. I brought with me a hand full of the pieces I had made in Brazil; I would constantly get requests from people to make something for them whenever I wore a piece out in public, and so I did. A year or so later I invested $600 (that was supposed to be my rent money) into a small collection of 18kt gold pieces. Gold was so much more affordable only 12 years ago, and that was how my first line of jewelry was born. It first launched on consignment In a friends store in TriBeCa and a few months later I picked up my first wholesale client Ron Herman. My first check was close to $20,000! I invested the profit into a factory floor space in Williamsburg, when you could afford to do that and my husband built multiple artist studios for us to work in and others to lease out. I continued on my jewelry journey and he went on to launch private studio spaces for small businesses. Both of our careers grew simultaneously and here we are!

 

 Although it’s been a painful and very challenging journey it’s 100% self-financed, and still growing 12 years later.

Living and dying! I’m inspired by pretty much everything around me, let’s start with people’s brains, animals' brains! Terrifying stories and love stories, kindness, pain, organization, garbage! Kids, they especially blow me away. Nature is always a good source of inspiration:  plants, animals, colors, textures, the sun, the moon, beautiful places, ugly places, etc. I wish I could say it’s something specific like the “ocean” but it’s not.