If you ever visit us at an artist market, you will see this picture of my Mother, Ethel, somewhere in the booth. We eventually called her “Eth” for short because she wasn’t a fan of her name. She was my driving force behind many of my creative endeavors. She always had kind words to say about anything I tried to make. She, herself was a very good at baking, knitting, painting, and sewing.
At the young age of 54, Eth was diagnosed with Alzheimers. It cut short her time here to share all her talents and time to be with her. She lived with the disease for about 20 years until she passed from it in 2011. So to honor Eth and my gratitude to everything she gave me, “The Purple Seed” was born. She not only instilled the gift of creativity but my spirituality as well. Never having my confidence in my creativity, I had as much as a mustard seed. And that is where “The Purple Seed” comes from. Purple is the color of Alzheimers and the seed is from the parable of the mustard seed.
Inspired by Love and Life…………
j
In 2009, I went with our oldest son on a field trip to Lake Superior. There we collected rocks and sea glass. Like many people who visit Lake Superior, we had buckets of these beautiful stones and no ideas with what to do with them. I searched the internet and found a class down in Mineral Point, WI at Shake Rag Alley where I learned to drill through the rocks and make jewelry. Thus, my love of making jewelry with found objects began. In years to come, the rocks manifested into other found objects…….innertube, old musical instruments, used legos……I became fascinated with making jewelry with no outlet other than to give as gifts. Vern asked when I was going to start selling my jewelry and my response was when he started making and selling the jewelry with me.
After our youngest son graduated high school, our adventure began. Vern has always been a woodworker and a welder by trade. He started making his jewelry and we sold at local artist markets.
Well, here we are many years and classes later still learning our craft of silversmithing. We have enjoyed growing together on this journey. We look forward to meeting new people each year who share our love of being perfectly imperfect.
