Milo and Awasin are characters from two of my favourite books ever: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and Lost in the Barrens by Farley Mowat. When I was choosing a name for my jewelry line, I came up with a couple I thought perfectly embodied the irreverent, quirky, slightly whimsical designs that fill my sketchbook, and was promptly dismayed to find that these names were already taken by an advertising/design firm and an etsy boutique. I went back to the drawing board and went a different direction. In the end, now that I'm writing this introduction, it's hit me that the name I ended up choosing is far more perfect than those clever and cool ones that were already taken. 

I like dinosaurs and forest animals and robots and bones. I like fungi and trees and puns and sea creatures (both real and imagined.) I love ancient civilizations and Southern Gothic and Haida art and practical jokes. Secret passages, made up languages, blanket forts, Halloween, flappers, kitsch, children's books from the 1950s and molecular structures.

Milo & Awasin's aesthetic is me. I make jewelry that I'd want to wear and buy (though sometimes I make earrings too.) Every Milo & Awasin piece is designed and fabricated by hand in my studio. Hand-fabricating means that even though there are a limited number of any one design, each individual piece is subtly unique. 

                                                 --Chloe Karr