Hello World, It's me, Johna.

Hello World!

Hello world.

It’s me! I don’t do a lot of posts about myself but think it is meaningful from time to time to do a little hello, show my face to you all and to give a bit of backstory into how I came to be where I am + making my creations.

I have always been an artist, an avid sea glass collector + a bit of a rockhound. I grew up with 2 artist grandmothers and a mom with a wonderful appreciation of art, nature and fabulous taste + design sense.

I loved elementary school and was a very good little student, however, after 6th grade, I kind of lost interest in traditional education. I made it through high school but had little interest in pursuing the traditional path of college and a career. I was more interested in mountain biking + music. I worked as a street musician, a taxi driver, a bike messenger, a bike shop employee and then eventually, at around age 25, I taught myself web design right when the internet was being born. There was no school for web design at the time so it was a good match for my favorite way to learn: Self Teaching. There was no social media, no distraction of smartphones, no YouTube and no Google. I learned from typography books, html coding references and from the wicked smart and generous Boston area creatives I was lucky to be surrounded and mentored by.

Flash forward a decade to age 35 when I learned how to surf and fell devastatingly in love with the sport. This quickly took my life in a different direction. I spent the first 5 years of my surf life, regularly getting up at 4am to drive up to two hours to surf for a couple hours in the dead of winter (in New England!) making it back to my desk job by 10am at the latest. Side note: I always worked for really rad companies that allowed flexible hours which I took full advantage of!

Eventually my passion for surfing took over and I knew I needed a more balanced life where surfing was more accessible. I had always been a bit scared to leave the 9 to 5 lifestyle but eventually I started freelancing and as the world became a friendlier place to work remotely, I found I could travel more, surf more and still support myself if I worked hard at it.

So... After 15 years working in digital design and doing different forms of art in my free time, I finally fulfilled a lifelong dream of putting fire to metal to create wearable art. Of course I was stoked to turn my seaglass collection into jewelry and it remains one of my favorite materials to work with. I am a believer that it is never too late to learn a new skill and to design a life that brings ultimate pleasure. My life is far from perfect but I am pretty content for the most part.

This photo was taken by my mom a few weeks ago on the cape and this rock was perfect for a spontaneous, seaside mulasana. Thank-you all for being here and if you got this far, thanks for reading all of this! 

XoXo ~ j

Hello World! Photo taken by my mom when we were on the Cape. This beach boulder was the perfect spot to bust out a spontaneous mulasana.

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