Designing Moms: Meet Maya

Maya's work was first introduced to me by Designing Mom April. I literally could not take my eyes off of her jewelry. Everyone at the studio is mad in love with her custom rings made with burnished metals that seem to carry a deep, inner glow. Please help me welcome our newest Designing Mom Maya!


Name: Maya

About: Lives in Sacramento with husband, Shamus and daughter, Delilah June almost 8 months old...



What I do: I am a jewelry designer and maker although sometimes I change scales.



What inspires me: Cities and the way people design out of necessity in them. Inelegant solutions that turn out to be the most beautiful. Layers of paint, the color gold, rusted metal, stains, black birds flying through gray skies, the way my daughter looks at something she has not yet experienced, the small triumph of a seed that becomes a sprout, people who work with people, Borges, Neruda y Paz, getting out of this country, coming back to this country.


Day-in-the-life: Wake early and try and sneak in breakfast before the little one is up, coffee, computer, breakfast for her. Then we rotate between playing on the floor, reading books, our garden where she loves to play while I dig in the dirt, and long walks down the tree-lined streets of Sacramento (because doing errands with a stroller is so much easier than with a car). Delilah naps and I put the monitor on and sneak out to the studio for a couple of hours in the early afternoon and then I get back out there around 4-4:30 when my husband comes home.