The bench my grandfather built.

My grandfather built the workbench still standing in my shop. The walls are adobe, the floor is old pine. Most mornings, I'm there before the sun does.

I started shaping copper 40 years ago. Not because I had a plan, but because the metal was in the desert, and my hands needed something honest to do. I'd hammer out a cuff for a friend's wrist, then another, then the word got around.

I never raised prices for marketing. A cuff that takes me an hour is priced for the hour. A necklace that takes three is priced for three. Women who wore the early ones still send me photographs of them on their granddaughters — and that is the whole business model.

What I believe

Copper has been pressed against human skin for thousands of years — by Egyptian queens, by Roman soldiers, by every generation of women who came before us.

What started as a small collection became, I can only describe as a calling. Every detail matters — the weight, the finish, the purity. There are only so many we can make — and once they're gone, they're gone.

I am Della. I sit at the bench most days. If you write to me, I write back.

— Della