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I grew up on a farm in North Georgia.  My sister and I spent most of our spare time with our horses or "creating" things. I made my first piece of jewelry when I was eight.  It was some ceramic thing that I made in an art class and my mother would wear it all the time.  After seeing her wear it a time or two, I can remember thinking "I can not believe that she is wearing that ugly thing," ... she wore it way beyond the "clearly my child made this and I'm making her feel good" amount of time.  To this day she will pull that piece out and wear it, and to this day I still don't get it.  I prefer to see her in my newer work.

In college, I was an art major until Europe started calling.  I lived there for two years and returned with a degree in French and a fascination with European style - the effortless beauty of the French, the classic (equestrian) style of the English and the "finished" quality of the Italians.  After college I continued studying figure drawing and printmaking until I was introduced to sculpting wax.  I began making things that I wanted to see in silver and gold.  Each piece I made inspired me to make something else.  I found that I could very easily translate into jewelry everything that I loved about the other mediums that I had worked with, style from the places I had lived and elements of things that I enjoyed.  Soon, my sweet friends wanted to buy pieces and then strangers were interested.

                                                                                                                                                                       

Today, I work with my sister, Louisa Hurst, who is far more organized and responsible than I will ever be.  Without her help I would be completely lost.  We still try to sneak off to the barn.