What you’ll learn in this episode: How dyscalculia changed Michele’s path in jewelry for the better Why Michele lets her hands guide her artistic process, and how she embraced her style of working Why jewelry artists don’t need to make their work smaller or more palatable to find a customer base How the Little Rock, Arkansas art scene compares to the rest of the country How Michele uses her jewelry to connect with patients About Michele Cottler-Fox Michele Cottler-Fox is a physician jeweler, with a studio practice focusing on translating fiber techniques to metal, primarily crochet, knitting, and twining, and often incorporating found objects to tell a story. She was one of four metal artists chosen for the Heavy Metal exhibit by the Arkansas committee for the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Additional Resources: Instagram Photos available on TheJeweleryJourney.com Transcript: Physician-jeweler Michele Cottler-Fox struggled with dyscalculia—a math learning disability—as a child. When she began to study jewelry, she found math-heavy jewelry fabrication methods and measurements nearly impossible to understand. But instead of stopping her jewelry career in its tracks, this disadvantage pushed Michele to make her freeform crocheted metal designs. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how she embraced her creative process; where her career as a physician and her career as a jewelry artist intersect; and why she loves crocheted designs.   Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. If you haven’t heard part one, please head to TheJewelryJourney.com. I am pleased to welcome Michele Fox to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. In addition to making a very unusual kind of jewelry, Michele is a physician who now works part time at the University of Arkansas Medical Center. Welcome back.    I have to say I was very impressed with how creative Little Rock was. I never thought I’d ever be in Little Rock, but it was a very creative town.   Michele: It has a strong art community. It was surprising to me how strong it is considering how small Little Rock is compared to Baltimore and Washington, but maybe I wasn’t as hooked into the communities in the city as I am here.   Sharon: Was it a big change to go from Baltimore or Washington to Little Rock?   Michele: It was a huge change. I came in 2000. When we got to Little Rock, there was no bakery making anything I recognized as bread. I thought, “How am I going to live here?” There was one butcher. There was almost no cheese that I recognized from Europe. But about a month after we got here, a couple who had lived and worked in San Francisco at very good food places came home, and they opened what they called Boulevard Bread, which is now Boulevard Bistro. Everything I had been missing was suddenly present.   Sharon: Did your profession influence the jewelry you were making? Did it matter at all?   Michele: It hasn’t influenced me very much. There’s a lot of plastic tubing in the machines I work with. At one point, I took the tubing home, filled it with stones and made a few necklaces, but it wasn’t satisfying somehow, not enough for my hands to do. So, I went back to the crochet hook.   Sharon: Do your patients comment on the things you’re wearing? Maybe you’re just wearing a lab coat. I don’t know.   Michele: I don’t wear a white coat at all because it makes people freeze. I want them to see me as a person, not a thing, so I always wear one of my brooches. It’s very often that the brooch breaks the ice in our conversation when I first meet a new patient. Some of them are so unlike anything people have seen before that before they even think about it, their mouth says, “What are you wearing? That’s so interesting.” I take it off. I let them hold it. We talk about it, and suddenly I’m a person, not a doctor. It’s a much better relationship that way, I think.   Sharon: It sounds like it’s surprising. They must be