About the Artist
Growing up on Long Island, New York, provided Dianna with the unique experience to be inspired by both the bounties of nature, and, the bounties of the City. Beachcombing and making talismans are some of her earliest memories, as are thrill-seeking adventures to the innumerable experiences of New York City.
Somewhere in there, between eating steamers at the beach, and taking the train in to NYC theaters or museums, she took a jewelry class in high school and wielded a torch for the first time and knew it was love. She has continued to live in, and be inspired by, various people and places around the world including: two years living in India, 10 years living in breathtaking North Lake Tahoe, and 10 years in Sonoma County, California’s famous wine country. Here is her family’s wine: www.ElevatetheGrape.com.
For the last 10 years, Dianna has been working and volunteering with Her Future Coalition, an international NGO working to improve the lives of human trafficking survivors, and at-risk women and children, by providing shelter, education and vocational training as a path to empowerment, economic independence and leadership. With HFC, she opened a jewelry studio in a shelter home in Kolkata, India, and started a jewelry training program employing 20 young women. When skills were well developed, it evolved into a jewelry production studio employing some of the first female metalsmiths in India. Four more studios opened in India, and one in Thailand, replicating and scaling the original program. Working together we are providing jewelry making as a therapeutic art, in addition to love and emotional stability, and keeping over 40 women gainfully employed and facilitating their further professional and personal development.
Dianna earned a B.A. in Political Science from University at Albany, New York, where she feels grateful for the opportunity to have studied and lived in the Netherlands and traveled Europe for a semester. She studied the classical techniques of metalsmithing and waxworking at Jewelry Arts Institute in New York City and continued a comprehensive metalsmithing education at Revere Academy of the Jewelry Arts in San Francisco, completing the Jewelry Technician Program. Dianna is a member of the Metal Arts Guild and Women’s Jewelry Association in San Francisco, as well as, serving on Sonoma County’s Human Trafficking Task Force. Current status: “living the dream” in beautiful Northern California, goldsmithing and making wine with her family while trying to make a positive, global impact on the world her daughter will grow up in.
