November 10, 2006 -
It all began as a joke. It's almost always a joke with my friend Jason. You see, exactly eleven months ago to this day I had accused him of making a mistake in a number of e-mails he had sent me; and if there is one thing that Jason prides himself on, it is accuracy. You can imagine how maddening this was to him, like a piece of spinach dangling from ones tooth, or better yet, that lone sock threatening to spill out from the hamper (or maybe these just irk me. If this is the case, please fill in this space with an image of something seemingly trivial that makes you cringe and will not depart from the back of your mind until you immediately remedy it). And so presumably after combing through his sent e-mails in a very meticulous manner and still failing to find his mistake (oh yes, he really did get something wrong!), he wrote me a rather silly e-mail with possible alternatives; one of which reads as follows: "It's also possible that my form of address is wrong, which is why I will begin to address you as Kim, Princess of Beringia and the Deity from Whence Snow and Blizzards Doth Come."

I think...quite honestly, my first reaction was, Where in the hell is Beringia? So I did the predictable thing. I googled it. And the whole time my stuffed mammoth, Oli Colosso, was bouncing up and down and shaking his tusks at me excitedly. I think...I should have paid closer attention when Oli told me all of those stories of his distant relatives and their adventures living in Beringia, or perhaps better known as the Bering Land Bridge.

I think the fact that this area has been labeled a "bridge" is somewhat of a misnomer since it was around 1,000 miles wide; and yet it did serve in function as a bridge, allowing both humans and animals to migrate across from Asia to America around 12,000 years ago. Interestingly, because of its location Beringia was not glaciated and therefore was able to sustain a variety of life. The more I read about this area, so full of history, mystery, life and diversity, the more I came to love it. Though today Beringia remains submerged under water, studies of the area around it continues to bring together people whose lands it once connected (as well as the international community). It continues to offer insight into the fields of anthropology, history, geology, geography, and biology, among others.

I chose to call my jewelry endeavor Beringia because of the history of this area as well as my history with this name. For me it represents a sense of exploration of the unknown and of the past, a willingness to connect to nature and to one another. As someone who identifies herself as both Asian and American, it is hopefully a way to bridge these two design aesthetics into one. Furthermore, it is my hope to go beyond this and to bridge elements of the ethnic and traditional from a variety of cultures to those of today's modern sensibilities. With enough practice and research, I expect to attain this goal.

Stay tuned for BeringiaJewelry.com
Until then, hop over to the Doodles & Design section to view some of the jewelry.