Confessions of Someone Who Can't Leave Well Enough Alone

Ollie supervising me, on an earlier site version.

I am, by my own admission, a workaholic. But in my case, and in the case of most artists (though I can't speak for everyone), working isn't the whole problem. The real problem is that I work and rework things until they are so thoroughly overworked it should be embarrassing. Thirty years in, and I have finally gotten better at knowing when to stop with my jewelry. I've learned to recognize the moment when I've pushed a piece as far as it can go, when adding anything else would tip it from intentional to fussy. I joke about having a fairy god-Tim-Gunn on my shoulder at all times (those of you who watched Project Runway know exactly what I'm referencing). It took a long time to develop that instinct.

My website, though? Apparently, I’m starting from scratch on that lesson.

If you're one of my regulars, you may have noticed that things shift around here with some frequency. A word changes. A photo gets swapped. A navigation label gets reconsidered for the fourth time. It's a little like picking at a scab, and I fully acknowledge that. But here's what I've come to understand about it: the impulse isn't really that different from what happens in the studio. It comes from the same place, a low-grade dissatisfaction that says not quite yet, even when a reasonable person would maybe call it done.

With the website in particular, I think the obsessive tweaking stems from a need to control the uncontrollable. When the world shut down for Covid and I realized all my eggs were in the basket of art shows, it created some serious anxiety. And a reckoning. I post regularly on social media, but those feeds, while mine in content, are not owned by me. I know people who have had their accounts vanish for no apparent reason, with no recourse. So, the website became a necessary evil I had to tackle.

I came to the idea of writing a blog (which you are currently reading) kicking and screaming. I’m not a writer, and what would I even write about? Where would I find the time for one more task on a mile long to do list? But somewhere along the way I discovered that I actually enjoy writing, and I've come to think of it as a kind of studio journal. There's something almost self-indulgent about sitting down to write this stuff, and I mean that in the best possible way.

But back to picking at my website. What drives it, underneath all the compulsive tweaking, is a genuine goal: I want the website to accurately communicate who I am and what I do, and to replicate, as closely as possible, the experience of walking into my booth at a show. I’m also working so hard to make sure my website is an authentic representation of me, not of a team of AI bots. I’ve learned over the years that what differentiates my work from aaaallllllll the other jewelry out there is me. I feel strongly that my website also needs to reflect that. That's a high bar, and it’s something that I feel is a top priority.

Which is interestingly the same reason I chose a process so completely handmade (any new readers can read about my process in a previous blog HERE) and I can't just dash off a blog post and call it done. Maybe the art school rebel in me never grew up, but I feel like the more AI infiltrates our society, the more I need to pivot hard in the opposite direction. I never want anything I put out to feel like canned content, the kind of thing that exists just to fill a feed or check a box. If I'm going to write about my work and my process and the strange little business of being an artist, I want it to actually mean something, and give you a glimpse into who I am, my actual personality, and my unique sense of humor (and yes, I do think of myself as funny). I care too much— and want it to be obvious that everything comes from me, an actual person.

So yes, I'll keep picking at my website, moving things around, changing this and that, adding in elements of my own handwriting, and rewriting sentences until they sound like the most authentic written version of me. Some habits, in my opinion, are worth keeping.