A Lifetime of Making

It All Started With My Dad

It all starts with my dad—a Renaissance man from Alabama.

He came from humble beginnings and taught himself how to do an extraordinary range of things. But one of the things he truly loved was making jewelry: handmade, African-inspired pieces created using simple, traditional techniques.

His tools weren’t always the specialized tools you’d expect to find at a jeweler’s bench. Sometimes they came from the local hardware store, and if the tool he needed didn’t exist, he would modify something until it did.

And he was darn good at what he did.

Over the years, his work found its way far beyond our home. He designed jewelry for Smithsonian museum gift shops, taught his craft at Howard University and the University of Maryland, and spent summers teaching underprivileged children in Washington, D.C.—for free.

He was also a prolific creator and entrepreneur. He operated small shops, carts, and booths in malls throughout the Maryland area and supplied handmade jewelry wholesale to African bookstores, gift shops, and other businesses throughout Washington, D.C. and Maryland.

Everything was made by hand. Everything was made with love.

That was the environment I grew up in.

My love of art and my love of the craft didn’t begin in a classroom or at a jeweler’s bench. They began at home—often while my brothers and I were outside playing or helping my mother in her garden.

My father had a simple phrase when he wanted to teach us something:

“Let me show you something.”

Those words could interrupt almost anything.

We would stop what we were doing, gather around, and watch. Maybe he was showing us how a tool worked. Maybe how a piece of metal behaved. Maybe how to make something with our hands. Sometimes the lesson seemed small.

Years later, I realized those moments weren’t small at all.

They were my first lessons in craftsmanship.

My father taught me that you don’t need the perfect tool to create something beautiful. You need curiosity, patience, ingenuity, and a willingness to learn. He taught me that working with your hands and working with your mind were never two separate things.

Most importantly, he taught me that knowledge was something to be shared.

Decades later, after building my own life in jewelry and developing my own approach to design and craftsmanship, I can still trace the beginning back to those moments.

Back to the yard.

Back to my father’s hands.

Back to four simple words:

“Let me show you something.”

And in many ways, everything I create—and everything I now have the privilege of teaching others—is simply my opportunity to continue what he started.

So, let me show you something.