There are certain causes that touch us all.
I was recently asked to design a piece for the American Cancer Society’s Tickled Pink fundraising event in Houston. The request was simple: something spectacular, something pink.
Simple requests can sometimes be the most difficult. My husband calls them “blue sky” requests — beautiful in theory, terrifying in practice, because there is nowhere to hide.
And this particular request carried real weight.
This wasn’t just a piece of jewelry. It was a piece created in support of life-saving research, advocacy, care, and hope. In support of the people fighting, the people surviving, the people loving someone through it, and the people we have lost.
Essentially, it was a piece created in honor of life.
That is as compelling as it gets.
So the design had to be more than beautiful. It had to be meaningful. Significant. Worthy of the cause. It had to honor the journey and the battle, but also the strength, resilience, and astonishing beauty that can emerge from both.
For a while, I was completely stuck.
Then, a few weeks later, while I was driving, the entire design suddenly appeared in my mind.
Phoenixes.
Rising from the ashes. Born from fire. Symbols of endurance, transformation, and rebirth into a new vision. At the center: a pink kunzite, itself born of the earth’s heat and pressure, cut as a sugarloaf so it would feel soft, luminous, and powerful. On either side, two phoenixes with wings raised — protective, triumphant, alive.
Phoenix Rising.
I sketched a rough design, gathered wing references, and talked it through with Ian. From there, the piece began to take shape: one-of-a-kind, sculptural, symbolic, and intentionally unlike anything else.
Because that was the point.
For Tickled Pink, I didn’t want to create something merely beautiful. I wanted to create something with presence. A ring that felt like a talisman. A ring that carried the message of rising — not untouched, not unchanged, but transformed.
There is something profoundly moving about the phoenix as an image for breast cancer awareness. It does not suggest that the journey is easy, tidy, or sentimental. Fire is fire. Loss is loss. Fear is fear. But the phoenix also insists that devastation is not the end of the story.
There can be rising.
There can be strength.
There can be beauty on the other side.
To be able to contribute even a small piece to an event doing such meaningful work was a true honor. I am deeply grateful to the American Cancer Society and the Tickled Pink committee for inviting me to be part of such a powerful afternoon, and to everyone who came together in support of this cause.
Phoenix Rising was created for that spirit.
For the fighters. For the survivors. For the families. For the friends. For the women we love. For the lives still being saved.
And, above all, for hope — fierce, beautiful, and rising.