5 Invisible Skills Behind Every Handcrafted Piece
People usually ask about my tools and techniques, But, the skills I lean on most have little to do with hammers or torches. They are simple yet essential things that happen way before I even step into the studio.
1. Starting the Day with Intention
I begin the day with quiet, jotting down thoughts on morning pages, a few minutes of meditation, just sitting with my coffee and letting my mind settle—they're actually the foundation of everything I make. It took me years to realize how much these simple rituals shape my entire creative process.
When I create this little buffer zone for myself, something shifts. Focus arrives more naturally. Ideas start connecting in ways that surprise me. My hands feel steadier when I pick up tools later. There's this ripple effect that carries through the whole day.
Everything is a practice and a long game for me, and these quiet morning moments are where the real work begins..
2. My Body Does the Heavy Lifting
Twenty-five years doing yoga, swimming regularly—people assume it's just about staying healthy. My body is what makes everything work. Hunching over tiny details for hours will wreck your back if you're not building strength. Your hands seize up when your shoulders get tight.
Julia Frodahl and Julianna Takacs, as well as Kula Yoga probably don't realize how much they've shaped my jewelry practice. Jason Crandell's online sessions have helped me keep my practice while traveling all over the world.
I work through design problems when I'm moving around. Swimming laps, walking my dog Liz, even just stretching, the movement you see in my pieces comes from this constant motion in my body throughout my daily life. Answers come through the body.
I’ve learned to cap studio time around six or seven hours. Push past that, and quality takes a nosedive. Getting older means being smarter—dust mask, gloves, decent lighting. My mind continues to want those twelve-hour marathon days. My body communicates my intelligent edge.
3. Seeing Stuff That Isn't There Yet
My mind is eternally active and processing visual inputs that sometimes reflect in three-dimensional objects. At all times I am weighing whether something can exist as a piece of wearable art.
It goes beyond just picturing things. I have awareness around how materials behave, , where the weak spots might be, how something moves when someone's wearing it. Every single piece becomes an engineering puzzle.
4. The Messy Truth About Creative Flow
Creative flow isn't an uninterrupted state for me—it's more like learning to dance with distractions. I listen to podcasts while I work, jot down notes, and move between different stations. What looks like chaos actually feeds my process in unexpected ways.
Those scattered thoughts and random notes? They weave together beautifully when I'm not forcing it. Walking Liz around the neighborhood, standing under hot shower water—that's when everything I've been absorbing suddenly clicks into place. My brain needs both the gathering phase and the connecting phase.
When I'm developing something completely new, I get to create the perfect conditions. Classical music turned low for intricate detail work. Something with energy when I need to coax metal into the shapes dancing in my head. There's this sweet spot where music, movement, and making all sync up.
Nothing is random. I spend time upfront getting clear on my concept internally. Right now I'm developing a talisman idea for an upcoming show, letting it build naturally as I notice details in the world around me, collecting data and trying it on mentally until I take it to metal.
Knowing when something is complete is an intuitive thing. There is a moment when I feel the piece has reached its essential self—where adding anything else would dilute its clarity. The work tells me when it's ready.
5. Everything Bleeds Into Everything Else
The stamina, focus, thinking spatially—none of it stays separate from the rest of my life. It IS my life. How I pay attention during morning meditation shows up throughout my day. Body awareness from years of yoga changes how I grip my tools. Learning when to stop fiddling with a piece means there is no over-explaining.
Real craft doesn't stay in neat boxes. You can't be all over the place in regular life and then expect laser focus at your workbench.You cannot ignore your body and have it suddenly cooperate when you need steady hands. It all flows together.
Someone picks up one of my pieces and sees finished jewelry. I see thousands of tiny choices, years of practice that extend beyond metalworking, all this invisible foundation work that lets the visible stuff happen.
Maybe that's what craft actually is: synergy between the made object and the person that transforms through that same process.