An Artisan's Journey
Ronnie grew up in an architecturally unique home, made entirely of cypress wood and designed by a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright to resemble a yacht with built-in furniture. Not only was Ronnie inspired by the unusual design of her home, on display around her were powerful avant garde graphics from her father’s collection and elegant wheel-thrown ceramics by her artist mother.
As a child, Ronnie built tiny furniture and accessories for her colonial style dollhouse. Taking no interest in actual dolls, she was obsessed with creating the scaled down environment within the house. Ronnie worked with her hands to embroider pillows, make baked goods from clay, paint little canvases, and wallpaper each miniature room. This was the beginning of Ronnie's fascination with details and fine craftsmanship.
After completing her B.A. in Psychology and Art History at Wesleyan University, and 14 months abroad in Tel Aviv, Ronnie studied Interior Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design. She then moved to the Jewelry + Metals Department, where she continued her passion for creating small handmade objects like spoons, vessels and jewelry. She enjoyed learning time-honored techniques including forging, raising and fabrication with metals such as bronze, copper, brass and silver, and further honed her skills making silver flutes.
Later, Ronnie worked in Providence, Rhode Island and New York City as a designer of costume jewelry–made from non-precious metals such as brass, copper and pewter–where she was introduced to casting, plating, rubber molding, photo-etching and other industrial mass-production techniques. Being pushed by the fast paced world of fashion helped her generate and implement ideas quickly and become more fluid in her design process.
Today, Ronnie loves experimenting with new techniques and collaborating, both with other artists and directly with her customers. Her design inspirations come from the natural and created world she finds through her travels, and treasures she comes across in her daily life. As a jewelry designer, Ronnie uses her professional experience and creative vision to make wearable art for women of all ages who see jewelry as a form of self expression that highlights their signature style.
