About Me


My name is Jennifer Pride.  (Only recently has it been Pride.  I got married in January, wearing pink no less!)  I am North Carolina born and bred.  Been here my whole life.


I love working with my hands and am quite creative ( that's the southpaw in me).  I have no real formal artistic background.  I mean, I took art classes up until the 7th grade, but after that, my attention turned from the visual arts to the performing arts.  I played cello in my schools' orchestras, but stopped after high school.  At that time, my attention turned toward college and really being away from home for the first time. Ten years and three changes of major later, I had myself a B.S. in Geology from NCSU.


"So how come you're making jewelry and not working in your field?" you ask.  The easiest answer is I don't know.  The real answer is that I was comfortable in my position in restaurant management, and didn't want to leave that comfort zone.


Suddenly, back in July of last year, I found myself unemployed. In between looking for jobs, I tried all kinds of things to keep myself busy. I taught myself how to sew, kind of. I mean I can make a cute little purse or a really awesome tote bag, but that's about as far as my patience has allowed me to go down that road.


Finally I came back to an old hobby... an old love you could say. Making jewelry. I love doing it. I love working with my hands, combining this color with that or that material with this, and watching the results appear right before my eyes.


I make jewelry for women; necklaces, bracelets, earrings, that sort of thing.  My work is unique, I think, because as a whole, my collection has no cohesive style.  My inspiration come from my imagination.  That or impulse.    What I mean by impulse is I'll be strolling along in the bead shop, having already picked out what I came for, and I'll see something that I have to have because I immediately see it for what it can become.  My Peruvian Pink Opal earrings are a prime example.  I saw them at the last minute, but what I saw was not a bowl of pink beads.  I saw a beautiful pair of earrings with that soft pink paired with pale blue-green.


You see, I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 30. So,  my brain can easily and effortlessly make that leap from beads in a bowl to a finished product.  All so fast that you don't realize it happened until you're taking those beads home with you.


As for my blog,   I try to keep it to jewelry and the like, but sometimes, other things slip through the cracks.  I'm also on Facebook , Twitter , and Flickr .  I love feedback, positive or negative (although I prefer positive of course).  So please, feel free to leave me some comments, suggestions, questions, or critiques.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i love your work and your mind! HC.