Chasing A Rainbow

I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland in a household where creativity was encouraged. My father was German-Irish and my mother is Puerto Rican. Our home was filled with Puerto Rican artwork and I grew up associating Puerto Rico with art.

Originally I set out to become a ballet dancer and this took me on an adventure that has shaped and informed just about everything I do. I attended high school at the Baltimore School For The Arts where I majored in ballet. During my youth I spent summers studying either at the North Carolina School Of The Arts or in New York City with Melissa Hayden, who was one of the worlds greatest ballerinas. On any given morning the roster at the barre at Melissa's was made up of the who's who of the ballet world. Being in the company of such fame and legend allowed me to witness the power of process and discipline. Some of my favorite memories of that era are of Allegra Kent, a legendary Balanchine ballerina. She attended classes at Melissa Hayden's daily and would listen attentively as exercises where demonstrated and then once the music started she would proceed to do her own thing. In Allegra I saw a disciplined free spirit who was devoted to her work and this had and still has a tremendous impact on me. Immediately after graduating from high school I moved to Manhattan to pursue my dreams. In addition to ballet I also studied acting with Herbert Berghof. New York City was a wonderland for me where I took in as much as I could. I knew it was preparing me for something - I just didn't know what.

In 1987 my Puerto Rican grandmother sent me on a two week trip to visit my family in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. From Mayaguez I took a side trip to Rincon at night during what was either a full or nearly full moon. At that time the road into Rincon snaked through a jungle. This scene was enchanting. The jungle setting was brightly illuminated by moonlight and seemed otherworldly. Shortly after passing through the town I drove past what I would later learn was the surf break Tres Palmas. The moonlight was so bright that Desecheo, an offshore island, was visible. A soft nocturnal rainbow arched across the sea. The possibility of seeing a rainbow at night was something I never would have imagined.

The next day I returned to Rincon and secured room and board. The surf left piles of seashells and sea glass on the beach. To me it was if my ancestors were reaching through the waves and handing me vitreous bits of Puerto Rico's legacy. My return ticket expired a year later in a drawer at my aunt's house in Mayaguez. Rincon, Puerto Rico was the only place I had been to where I didn't long for the ballet or Manhattan. At that time Rincon was a poor mans paradise and a true backwater. I fell under the ether of the tropics and easily surrendered to the idea of living in the Caribbean and beachcombing for a living.

I don't remember the first piece of sea glass jewelry I made or the exact moment when I first started making sea glass jewelry but it was sometime during that first year. At that time there were already a few other artisans in Rincon that had been making sea glass jewelry on a limited basis since the 1960's. Their sea glass jewelry was made with bell caps or was wire wrapped. I chose to drill sea glass out of deference to them as I wanted to make sure that I did not make jewelry that was similar to theirs. I sold my jewelry from a table on the beach or by way of the coconut telegraph to the few tourists that came through. I was eventually offered a gallery space at The Lazy Parrot Inn in Rincon. The Lazy Parrot became home to Out Of The Blue Seaglass Jewelry for many years. Out Of The Blue Seaglass Jewlery is the oldest full time, large scale sea glass jewelry business that I know of.

I met my husband Ronnie, a Florida native, in Puerto Rico. We moved stateside in 2002 and live between the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the gulf coast of Florida. Ronnie is a surfer and our travels take us to remote surf spots where we beach comb between swells. Ronnie has a better eye for sea glass than I do and usually finds the first piece.

Up until moving to the states I was self taught in jewelry making. Since moving stateside I have been studying wire working, cold joining and torch work with Connie Fox, a renowned jewelry artist and teacher, in San Diego on an ongoing basis. Connie nurtures both the artistry and skills of her students and it is her that I credit for my latest direction.

The late 1980's in Rincon,Puerto Rico

"Comparing rather than loving is incredibly harmful. Find it in your heart to acknowledge what is beautiful and valuable in yourself and in people around you. In the "reality" of the company or school situation, your peers are both colleagues and competitors. As a survival tactic, you can adopt another view. Rather than see dance as competition, you have the option to look at people around you and appreciate the gifts they have--embrace everybody's beauty and look at your own particular glass as half full rather than half empty. Simply stated, you need to live in the moment." Stephanie Saland - Principal Dancer New York City Ballet

 In Vieques, Puerto Rico and Barcelona, Spain

In Florida

 The image above is of a Victorian era birthday party in Vieques  ( one of the Spanish Virgin Islands and part of Puerto Rico) with my grandmother in attendance. My grandmother grew up in Vieques were she spent her childhood as an unsupervised free spirit and spent much of the day swimming in the ocean. She built a cottage in the Outer Banks during the 1970's. I have memories of her swimming very far out and doing long laps up and down the beach off of the Outer Banks, people on the beach would try to wave her in but she was in her bliss. We spent a winter season living in Vieques and I often wonder if any of the sea glass, marbles or porcelain doll parts we have collected there came from a whole item that was once held in her hand. My Puertorican roots extend to Lares, San Juan and Vieques. Lares was the scene of the Grito De Lares in which some my ancestors participated. The Grito De Lares ( The Cry Of Lares ) was an uprising against Spanish rule during the 1860's and was a pivotal event in the history of the island.

Vieques, Puerto Rico

Australia

I am just as much of a sea glass collector as I am a sea glass jewelry artist perhaps even more so. In addition to those of Puerto Rico I have wandered the beaches of the Eastern Caribbean, Costa Rica, the South Pacific, Bali, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Canada and the USA in search of sea glass and other beach found treasures. The image above was taken while traveling in Australia when I was in my twenties.