Navone's my middle name. 
I grew up off-grid, two miles up a dirt road near the tiny town of Oakland, Or. I had a bountiful childhood of innovation and creativity; I was independent and inquisitive, getting lost in books, my imagination and the forest alike. My sister and I imagined entire queendoms in the forest, exploring them in our moss and twig crowns; during chore time we sang songs only we knew the words to as we helped in our mother's garden.

It came as little surprise that I pursued my love of art after high school and even less surprising when upon finishing a Fine Arts Degree from the University of Oregon I left on a three month backpacking trip through SE Asia and failed to make it home for three years. The forest I'd grown up in had grown to be an entire world that I yearned to know.

My dad, Tony, died suddenly in the spring of 2010, leaving my family in unchartered waters without its captain. My hands and soul needed something to tether to, and making jewelry became my anchor. I would sit for days, letting the grief pour forth and have a beautiful shiny thing to hold when it was through and passed. I kept going. I had the support of an incredible array of women, friends, coworkers and restaurant patrons, who urged me to keep going. Thanks Goddess for them all.

Bend, Oregon is now home, from where I've been creating and adventuring since that fateful crash in 2010.

Navone is the manifestation of memories born from sleeping in a tent down the Eastern Coast of Africa, getting hopelessly and joyously lost in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, nearly kidnapped by a wonderful family in India, my DIY school bus conversion here in the mountains of Oregon, and just about a billion other things. But most of all, it's how I keep that blackberry stained little girl inside of me dreaming and remembering.

I hope you love these little bits of metal and life as much as I have.

  

 

                                                                              

 

 

 

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