“I love to travel as often as I can, but I must say California is really my favorite place,” Jivita Harris-Casey tells us. She was born in Dordrecht, Holland, but now lives on the west coast with her family. ”The sea air and water really have a hold on me!” Jivita’s home studio opens onto a garden filled with native plants, her cat, a desert tortoise, and a ton of hummingbirds. She likes to work surrounded by her music (which ranges from all kinds of rock to jazz, world music, and electronic dance music), her favorite books, trinkets collected during her travels, and “of course plenty of tools.”

When Jivita is not designing and creating jewelry, the loves to camp with her husband and two boys, take long walks and long swims, practice yoga, and enjoy a glass of wine with friends. “And of course I like to dance, we try to do that as much as possible!” She loves the seasonal food in California, from summer’s country cheese and ripe off the vine tomatoes, to fall’s apple pie and fresh fish year round. Black licorice is one of Jivita’s sweetest indulgences. (“Don’t ask, just a weird addiction.”) She is passionate about living life to its fullest, and sharing her sense of wonder for the natural world with her kids.