Where the Line Comes From

I was a child who noticed things most people walk past. Fallen leaves, tree bark, mountains, shells. Shapes and lines I couldn't explain, only look at and know they mattered. The world around me was rich with material, and wherever I went I found something to work with.

Years later, after the most basic course in jewelry making, I moved on pure want. I didn't have much knowledge yet, I built it as I went. That path took me to India, and further east, and there the natural material I found in front of me was coconut.

I want to say something here that stayed with me. The world has always paid more for what is scarce, gemstones included, sorted into families and priced by rarity. Whatever exists in abundance gets treated as worth less. I never agreed with that. So I sanded, sawed, and polished whatever I found lying around, without aiming at any particular use. Function came second. I was making shapes and forms out of any material that would take the attention with love, and suddenly everything started to mean something. Lines I had drawn earlier, before I understood what they were for, found their way into the material. Feeling and thought, carried into something you could hold. One thread ran through all of it: nature.

A small coconut I found in Goa became a box, carved with the few basic tools I'd brought with me on the trip. It still moves me today. Not because it's refined. Because it's the moment I understood that the material tells you what it wants to become, if you're willing to listen before you decide.

That's the same listening I still do today, just with gold instead of coconut, and pearls instead of shells.