When I was a young teenager I once visited a small, seldom-visited museum at the top of a mountain. In an ill-kept nook behind the gift shop and below the lodge selling overpriced burgers and oversized cups of Coca Cola, was a small collection of delicate alpine plant specimens, preserved in plastic, organized by their corresponding micro-biota of the mountain, and accompanied by their Linnean names.

I recall being so enchanted by this small herbarium collection - that these rare plants, remarkably delicate and small - could be so preserved as to reveal their every anatomical detail, from their sprawling, delicate roots, to their translucent leaves, the veins vividly visible in the backlight of the display, was an awe-inspiring thing to me.

Several years later, I discovered resin. My obsession with dissecting, memorizing, drawing, and preserving plants already firmly a part of my life, the first time I saw a picture of a garden-variety daisy cultivar preserved in resin, it was like an epiphany with the force of a tidal wave. My thoughts went instantly back to that beloved alpine herbarium. I couldn't have driven to the craft store any faster.

I vehemently love what I do. Though my entry into resin was rough at first, I acclimated, and over time, learned to work with the nuances of the material. I began making my own, custom sized molds, learned to better preserve the specimens and better prepare them for casting, and learned to improve the over-all quality of the cast with higher quality resin and meticulous preparation.

I never seem to run out of passion. I've picked more moss fronds than I can count, yet still I could get lost for hours in a single leaflet, and the green light filtering through it. Every specimen in my jewelry is picked by hand, by me, from the forests I so love. I can tell you the story of every single leaf and nut; I can prattle off the details of every species as though we were in a college lecture. In my shop, if there is one thing I can promise you, it is that every single piece is one of a kind, and every single one was crafted with as much love and passion as I can conjure.

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Every specimen and object used in my jewelry has been harvested in a sustainable manner. All plant specimens collected by myself are done so within a strict code of ethics, based on the practices outlined by several schools of ecological science in herbarium assemblage. All insects and animal parts are the products of natural death, either scavenged from the woods, or salvaged from roadkill by several taxidermist acquaintances and friends of mine. I also make sure to eliminate invasive species and clean up trash from whatever woods I harvest from, to further lessen my impact.