Echo Park-based jewelry designer Kristen Levy got her first taste of design while learning Native American beadwork at the age of 10. Exploring the jewelry boxes of her mother and grandmother, she would rework broken jewelry into pieces for herself. This passion carried through into adulthood where she began designing her unique jewelry out of found and forgotten materials and created her current collection, Kristen Elspeth in 2005. Drawing inspiration from indigenous reverie, and honoring the North American and African Porcupine, Kristen uses their quills to create some of her signature pieces. Porcupines shed their quills naturally, like hair, which are then carefully gathered and cleaned, leaving the animals completely unharmed. Porcupines and their quills represent trust, innocence, invincibility, intelligence, and are symbols of protection from dark spirits.