Kristen Berge could tell you that she’s an office administrator who daydreams about pairing moonstone with garnet; she could tell you that she’s a self-taught jewelry designer whose tactile tendencies lead her away from digital photography and into jewelry design; that she has often found herself pondering the finer differences between toggle and lobster clasps; or that her husband doesn’t only make a mean pasta primavera but a magnificent business partner. But why go to all the trouble when she can best sum herself up with two words: Bead. Addict.

The colors. The textures. The shapes. Berge has yet to meet a bead she couldn’t love. From perusing the local shops to browsing the conventions and shows, Berge’s design process is as much about the compulsion, er. . .experience of selecting her beads as it is about crafting them.

With her “where the mood (and beads) take me” approach, Berge’s designs run the gamut from the sedate and earth-toned to the effervescent and bright-colored. The unifying element? The spiritedness with which they were created and the ability each piece has to speak directly, and intimately, to the woman with whom they belong.

On a Sunday afternoon in a windowless basement, a woman who was once a little frog, coquito, and her mother beaded their way closer to one another. Uninspired by jewelry they spotted at the local shows, the two artists had vowed to do what no one else could—create jewelry that they’d love to wear.

They swapped stories as they passed back and forth cinnabar, Balinese beads and hand-blown furnace glass. And when they had exhausted their conversation and creativity for one day, they marveled at each other’s creations and emerged from that basement to find the evening setting in. One Sunday afternoon turned into another, and before Kristen Berge and Rosemarie knew it, their bonding sessions had blossomed into a business.

The pair enjoyed success with home parties and eventually began selling to local boutiques and galleries. As news of their creations spread, mother and daughter reveled in the success of their collaboration and redoubled their commitment to creating one-of-a-kind pieces—bead-by-bead, finding-by-finding. Then, in 2003, something very sudden and very awful happened—Rosemarie suffered a fatal stroke. In one fell swoop, Kristen lost her mother, her best friend and her business partner.

For a while, everything reminded Kristen of her mother. There were the pliers she had last used. The piece she was working on, casually laid across the table waiting for her return. For a while, the thought of creating jewelry filled Kristen with an incredible sadness, so tied together were her relationship with her mother and her relationship with her art. Then, one Sunday afternoon, Kristen sat down at her worktable and began stranding together a necklace. And as one Sunday afternoon turned into another, Kristen found the heaviness lifting. One day she didn’t feel the heaviness at all, but rather the familiar bliss of creation.

Now, every piece that Kristen makes is a gift to her mother, a piece of herself that she is sharing with her. . .and with her customers....although they don't know it.