When I think about the origins of my desire to be creative, I think of my mother. She planted and cultivated all of the seeds of everything beautiful in my life. She had a love of the process of creating something from nothing and drew me into every endeavor. There wasn’t much she wouldn’t try. She made candles and quilted. She painted ceramics. She knitted, crocheted, sewed and even made soap (Lye soap, not the lovely scented soaps that are stirred together on your kitchen stove.)

My mother made jewelry. That’s where I was introduced to the idea that a person could “make” jewelry. Of course jewelry making was a lot different in the 70's when she did it. There were very few craft stores, and they did not have the abundance of materials available that are offered today. There was no internet. She had catalogs. She would order findings and settings, glass and plastic components, and jewelry glue. Then she would wait for weeks on end for her supplies to come in the mail. The jewelry making was rudimentary by today’s standards. Choose a setting and glue beads into it. But it was fascinating to me. She even had a “jewelry business”, which at that time meant selling an item or two to friends from church.

I developed my jewelry skills and created my business during the later years of my mother’s life, and I don’t think she was able to fathom the extent to which the seeds she had planted had grown. I often longed to be able to take my mother with me to Gem shows so she could see all of the wonderful things there were that could become jewelry. As she faded into her 90's, I felt sad that she was unable to experience the pure joy that I felt from the seeds of her dream.

Now that she is gone, I have her in my mind and heart as I have those joyful moments of creativity and it brings me comfort. Now she can see, now she can feel, now she can fathom the depths to which I owe her for every beautiful thing in my life.