Tell me about your jewelry collection that's on display now.
For this collection, I was interested in creating something cohesive; all of this jewelry is related and you could tell I'd done them.
How can you tell?
Scale -- a lot of my jewelry is large. The running joke is that whenever I make something small, people can't tell it's mine.
What do you focus on when making your jewelry?
Jewelry can be great, but if it hurts you, there's no point in it. All jewelry dances on the body, especially my jewelry. It's part of the way I build it. Even the sound that these bracelets make, the way these earrings move with the wind, the adjustable length of this necklace -- that's movement you can't see in a stagnant case. I knew right away that I was going to do some sort of fashion show with girls wearing my jewelry. I'm having it on May 9th and everyone's invited to come.
Is it to show your pieces to potential buyers?
It's not about buying the work, it's about seeing it. There are going to new pieces, so people who see my work in the Hop can come see more jewelry at the show. I'd love to see students here that I don't know.
Have you shown other collections before?
Yes. My last collection, "Two Tone," was the first attempt to make a body of work with materials that spoke to each other.
What's the history behind that collection?
My dad was a watch wholesaler so I've grown up with watches my entire life. I love a good watch. My father always used to say the best looking watches were two-toned and that stuck with me. I love the idea of uniting brass and silver.
So do you wear everything you make?
No, I've sold some. Students have asked to purchase some work.
How do you price it?
It's all according to what it is. Some pieces I sell upwards of $200, $300 but other pieces go for $25. I know what it's like to be a student so I feel bad charging students a lot. A lot of the work is in design, not making it. Some of my parents' friends have commissioned jewelry, and I'm working on commissions for some faculty members now. I've also given a lot of my jewelry away as presents.
You also created the confessional booth in the Hop, right?
That was called "Wrinkles of Indiscretion: A Confessional Booth." We had to get fire marshal permission for that. There were all those space and size issues, and all the dimensions had significance. It was seven feet tall. The boxes were built around seven inches.
I never used the word 'sin' when I asked about confessions, but people talked about sins. It's just kind of expressing yourself. I was very interested in the idea that maybe it was a sin and maybe it wasn't.
But you didn't tell anyone about the significance of seven.
No. It's not the artist's responsibility to tell the viewer everything because then you'd read it and take what I said as the end-all, be-all. That's not what art is. It's the experience you have with the piece. I tried to be very brief on the description of it.
What sort of reactions did you get about the booth?
I got lots of gawks from people looking at it and then lots of e-mails from people who were surprised that people actually wrote these things. I got a lot of 'I thought that too and never said it!'
How do you think your art has affected Dartmouth?
Everyone thinks 'no one understands,' but everyone else is just as shy as you are. People feel so worried that people will judge them. We all think these things. And then we all shared them. I love the idea that it brought people together.
Did you write in it yourself?
I did confess myself. And I said something it'd never said to anyone before. Then all of a sudden, lots and lots of people knew. Then I knew at the end that it was not just me.
Are you going to continue with art and jewelry in the future?
My long-term goal is to have my own line and my dream is to sell at Barney's. Not just jewelry but also clothing, maybe an urban sweatshirt line. I also want to open up an urban boutique in New York or Los Angeles once I'm situated and have a stronghold in jewelry.
