Silver darkens where skin touches it most. A worn ring is a kind of autobiography — every grey shadow a record of where your hands have been.

Most of what I make begins in a box under the bench. Old keys. Buttons that outlasted their coats. A drawer pull from a demolished house on Elm Street.

The woman who bought the bone clasp told me it reminded her of something her grandmother wore. I didn't ask what. Some connections are better left nameless.

People hesitate when they hear it. Then they hold the piece and something shifts. Bone is warm in a way metal never quite manages to be.

I started it in autumn. Set it down when the design felt wrong. Picked it up again when I understood why. Some things need to wait until you're ready to finish them.

To make one thing, carefully, by hand, in a world engineered for instant abundance — this is its own kind of argument. I'm not sure I could articulate it any other way.

A burnisher worn smooth by thirty years of use. A flex shaft with a wobble I've learned to work around. The dents in the bench that map every piece I've ever made.