Ronna's Career in Jewelry Began when She was Four

Ronna was four years old, growing up in a Chicago suburb, when she announced that she was going to be an artist. She realized the direction her artistic career would take when she learned to create small-metal sculpture and jewelry at Evanston Township High School. As she says, "I was hooked."

Ronna graduated from the University of Wisconsin, earned a Master's Degree in Fine Arts from Temple University's Tyler School of Art, and immediately began her career designing and making jewelry. To earn money during those early years, she worked part-time restoring artifacts at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute Science Museum. That's where she met her husband Emile.

Moving to Maine

In 1982, Emile and Ronna were offered an opportunity to house-sit for the winter in South Bristol, a cove-side town on the Pemaquid Peninsula in Midcoast Maine. They both had an affinity for Maine, and thought that if they could survive one Maine winter, they could live there year-round. That spring, still loving Midcoast Maine, they bought a 1880s house in a country setting near Round Pond Village, another town on the Pemaquid Peninsula. They added a studio and gallery, where Ronna made and sold her designs until 2011 when she opened her Edgecomb location.