When I was quite little I loved to look up into the sky and see whirly gigs, berries, and leaves dancing a quiet rhythm down to our earth. I felt as if they were sailing down just to greet me. So I put them in my mouth and cracked them with my teeth and performed "special surgery" with petals, budding twigs, and quarry stones. I hoped to come up with a more interesting pattern. I did not—at least not then. But what I started to think about was the implicit order of things. In other words, ART.

Many pivotal moments have happened along the way, aside from my formal art training. One of the most interesting and paradoxical facts about me is that I cannot draw. But I absolutely have a total passion to reconfigure and regroup elements until they find their right of repose. And when this happens, I am at rest with the world.

Let me first tell you a little about my grandfather, for it was he who was my greatest influence.

He wove the most beautiful carpets: teal, cayenne, and cornflower blue. Peony pink, straw, and amber. Black, white, and celadon. Remnants from a defunct dress factory. Diamonds from coal, rubies from rust.

He did it because he loved it. He did it just because he said he could. I learned a lot about desire and passion from him.

He drove a fruit and vegetable truck, the fecund cornucopia, the sweetest magic of this earth. I see it now as I saw it then—the relationships between choke cherries and hen eggs, baby plums and Swiss chard, crab apples and red leaf. Poetry. Bliss. Sustenance. He knew. And this was the art of his life.

Jewelry is the same for me. I must do it. When my grandfather heard the words "Nice, real nice" he would just smile a secret smile. And now I smile the same smile when you adorn yourself with my jewelry.

Thank you.

Deb Brilla
Founder, 1989