Hey, I’m Alena. Glad you found your way here.

I grew up off-grid on 50 acres in southwest Wisconsin, in a house my family built by hand from logs we helped harvest and prepare. Solar electricity, an artesian spring for water, an outhouse. My parents are artists. My dad started making willow furniture from an article in Mother Earth News. Art and craft and working with your hands were just... life.

I have a botany degree. I’ve worked as a wildland firefighter, a tree trimmer, a massage therapist. I earned a master’s degree in public health from the American University of Beirut. Life has been wide and wild.

When my second child was about two, I felt like I was losing myself. I rented a cabin for four days just to disappear. On a whim, I brought a bag of beads I’d had since I was a teenager. I made 60 pairs of earrings. That was the beginning.

Now I work in sterling silver out of a studio in Sheridan, Wyoming, making jewelry rooted in the botanical world I’ve loved my whole life. My botany degree isn’t a marketing angle. It shows up in every leaf, every seed, every spiral I make.

I want you to pick up a piece and feel something. A maple samara that takes you back to spinning in the grass as a kid. A dragonfly that makes you think of someone you love. A stone that looks like a high mountain lake.

That’s what I’m making. Come find yours.