I have never been an artist, although I have always wanted to be one. I felt that people were born with an innate ability to draw. When I was a child, I spent all my money at school book fairs on books to learn how to draw. It never once occurred to me that drawing, like most endeavors is a practice, not a perfect. Nevertheless, I did practice for several years. I enjoyed losing myself in pen and paper.

As I grew older, I moved on to more academic pursuits, because academics were easy to me, and therefore I felt it was my duty to pursue my innate abilities. It was not easy to be fearless as an insecure teenager. Fast forward to my senior year of high school, when I had a space to fill in my class schedule and decided to give art one last plunge. This is where I met the world's most bitter art teacher. She seemed to make it her life's work to discourage any of us from becoming artists, and instead of nurturing what little talent I might have liked to improve upon, she confirmed to me what I had always felt -- I would never be an artist. After all, this real artist thought my work was shit. I was clearly a poseur.

Eventually after graduation and pursuing a career in academics, I decided to move in to metals and jewelry. Unlike most jewelers, I do not sketch out my designs. I just know what they will look like in my head and go from there. I have always been obsessed with any kind of jewelry I could get my hands on since I was a small girl. We have old Super 8 home movies of me squealing in sheer delight, because I received plastic costume jewelry for my birthday. Even though I have practiced my art in a different medium for many years now and successfully avoided the dreaded sketchbook, I still sometimes feel like that insecure teenager who wonders if she is a poseur. This year, I applied and was accepted in to a mastermind group of metalsmiths and jewelers. It was such an honor to be accepted, yet I still had this feeling that I would finally be exposed as the utter failure and poseur that I sometimes feel like I am. Every two weeks, we are presented with a challenge. We submit our challenge and everyone in the group provides critiques and feedback on your work. You can probably see where this is going. Of course there is a sketching challenge. Yikes.

We were presented with a scenario where we were challenged to repurpose old jewelry in to something new. As I do not like to waste my time on imaginary scenarios, I decided to use a design challenge I have put off for nine months and make it work in the imaginary scenario.

Last year for 13th wedding anniversary, my husband and I went to the beach for a week. We have always gone to the beach on dates ever since we started dating. The beach is a big part of our story together. He always hunts for interesting objects when we are there, because he can not sit still. Last year he found this beautiful black beach stone that was almost naturally a perfect cabochon. When I saw it, I immediately knew I would be making it in to a piece of jewelry. Every month or so, I would get it out and try to design it. Every time I would start to put the design together I could just tell it wasn't going to work. I have cut out so many bezels and components and nothing quite works right. This special stone has languished on my jewelry bench for nine months. So, today I sat down and started sketching. Within hours this project that has tormented me all this time started coming together. While, I know I won't be winning any awards for my sketches, I am quite happy that I finally sat down and embraced the practice of drawing.

Love and wishes,

Kim