Jean is an artist and metalsmith whose work has included copper in vitreous enamels, printed tin in mixed media constructions, and found steel in rust dyed textiles.  Whether using copper, tin, or steel, the ideas she investigates have consistently focused on chance and our shifting understanding of time.

Familiar portable objects like money or dice are altered to refocus our use of small, common materials to make big, consequential decisions.  Buy that house — flip a coin. Marry that person — throw the dice.  Jean often incorporates amulets and gestures that evoke our never-ending hope for good fortune, even while we are all cheating or bluffing.

The theme that presents itself most persistently is time, and rust most clearly holds the passage of time through the echoes of its decaying patterns. Grids reference calendars, and numbers reference counting that is a way of keeping track of time and a form of magical thinking.