About the Artist

Barbara Kruger, Ph.D., Audiologist, is the core of BKF Designs.

Dr. Kruger’s second career evolved from the application of skills from her first career in Audiology and her family’s myriad of interests in art, music, dance, and design. As a young adult, Barbara watched her parents doing silversmithing and lapidary as hobbies in their retirement and enjoyed sharing design ideas with them. She views the creating of jewelry a transfer skill from Audiology. “In audiology, one needs to know how to draw, make impressions of small circuitous curved ears and make or reshape the hearing aids or ear mold to fit comfortable in those curved ears. It’s was just a small leap for me to start designing and making jewelry.”

Pursuing her creativity is not new to Dr. Kruger; having grown up with parents who encouraged both her creative and scientific sides. What is new is the amount of time she now has to pursue her creative BKF Designs side. Barbara’s ability to focus on jewelry design results from cutting back on her prestigious scientific career as an Audiologist. Dr. Kruger continues to practice audiology on a smaller scale; also doing some consulting and lecturing in audiology. Mostly now, she is happy to devote herself to the enjoyment she gets from creating wearable jewelry art.

Barbara’s interest in jewelry design and her jewelry career began in 1996, with the sudden death of her mother. She studied with Felicia Liban, Sandra Kravitz, and Kathleen DiResta. She has taken workshops with Steve Artz, John Cogswell, Amy Roper Lyons, Dennis Nahbetian, Linda Kindler Priest, Kathryn Osgood, Barbara Siedenath, Marcus Synnot, Anne Havel, Robert Dancik and Linda Darty. She continues to perfect existing design approaches and to explore new ways to solve design problems while creating exciting new pieces of art.