There reaches a point where the spring season begins to disappoint me, and I can't wait for the weather to get juuust a little warmer. These past few years, though, it seems the weather is more abrupt: we go from 60 degrees to near 80 before we get a good stretch of what I think of as Spring. I live on the side of a ridge, and it's very wet, so even though it may be good for planting in the rest of the area, I'm still in "mud season" up here. So my itch to go outside and play needs to wait.

I've plenty to do. It's not as if I'm bored - I'm never really bored. At least not for long. Especially this time of year: I feel like, as the world awakens in Spring, and the trees are in bud, tiny flowers are bursting from the ground, and the local fauna are beginning to raise the next generation, my creative juices start to stir. I make things all year, but this time is special. I'm affected by the fresh color of new grass, trees in blossom... it's exhilarating.

Nature is one of my strongest influencers. I grew up spending my summers in the mountains of New York. I owe my appreciation of the outdoors to the Catskills, and my grandparents who gave me the opportunity to virtually live outside, coming home to their little bungalow long enough to eat and sleep.

This beautiful season, Spring, has influenced my jewelry work this year, and I found myself waiting for warmth by creating some necklaces and earrings to celebrate. My styles vary on my mood. I think you can tell where my thoughts are going:

When I was a kid in those mountains, my cousins and I spent a lot of time in fields filled with flowers. Daisies for playing "Loves me - Loves me not," buttercups for sticking under each other's chins to see "if we liked butter." We all did! Red clover, Black-eyed Susans... And acres of blueberries.

Often, we made chains of daisies and Susans, to wear on our heads or around necks. These are my influences.

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