Once Joanna has a design in mind, she plays with wax, clay, foil, sticks, stones, shells, paper – anything to mock up what she is dreaming of. She carves wax, casts organic materials and/or moulds precious metal clay to make the original. She uses the lost wax casting process to maintain the organic nature of her pieces (all casting is outsourced to her favourite local casting house). Once she has cast the original, she makes a mould of it and then repeats. All of this is done in her studio. She inspects and makes minor corrections to each piece. Some pieces are created by building a number of parts together. Joanna sets all her own stones, except for diamonds, which are set for her by a local diamond setter. All further finishing and order filling is done in her studio, with help from another local jeweller who helps her at peak times. A signature feature of Joanna’s pieces is that they have soft organic edges. This especially describes her rings, which are meticulously finished to achieve a soft comfortable fit. 

The metals she uses for her work are sterling silver, primarily re-refined pure silver with an anti-tarnish alloy, ancient bronze, and 14 gold. She likes to mix the metals and add semi-precious stones to her work. As described above, all the parts used for her jewelry, other than the chains, stones and some findings, are made in her Studio in the Vancouver area.