Places and Pieces online

Last time I posted about this project we were in the studio, now thanks to the brilliant curators at Craft Victoria Places and Pieces is about to become an exibition. You can see some of the works online here!

This show is opening on Saturday the 11th of December - but will be up in the Encounter Window at Craft Victoria a week before this. Included will be works by students from Bendigo Senior Secondary College, Castlemaine Secondary College and from Karen women who are now residents of Bendigo.

It is exciting to have worked through from talking about a concept, responding through making and now to soon see all the works shown together - can't wait!

Young Places & Pieces Artist's new Works!

Here is a proud little post of new art works by the young students I worked with at Bendigo Senior Secondary College whilst on residency there for a project called Places & Pieces.

This one is by Karly - it is called Felt Master Piece 2


A Piece of Lace by Akasha


This lovely ceramic braclet by Simone called Hope and Dreaming


Eve Lace and Night

A selection of my Places & Pieces Jewellery

I have been working on a fantastic project called Places and Pieces, which has seen me as an artist in residence at the Bendigo Senior Secondary College. Tomorrow is my last day - it has been a memoriable and life changing experience and I hope I have the opportunity to work in a high school setting again. The students were wonderful and very inspiring.

These images are of works that I made in response to the Places and Pieces Theme; jewellery and body adornment pieces that reflect their place in a geographic, cultural and personal sense.

I made them back in May - for some nervous reason it has taken me sometime to post them.

Observation of Design Elements

I have to admit making jewellery is a new adventure for me and Places and Pieces is just the push I needed to try out this addictive form of making.

This post is a tutorial about using observation of design in landscape to create a body of work. It is aimed at year 11 students and is to be delivered as a hand out to complement class discussion.

In future posts I will provide tutorials on making paper jewllery using two techniques!

Selecting line, colour, tone, texture, shape, sound and form to create new jewellery that reflects place in a geographic, cultural and personal sense.



This is a native ground cover I discovered one day on my regular walk. I have been walking along this industrial path next to a factory and train line for nearly a year and never spotted this brave hardy plant before. It was a joy to discover in an area so dominated by industrial activity.
I was taken by the sweet, round petite shape of the leaves, the bending, yet reaching form of the braches and the mono, flat and blending tones of the bush. Picking a stork I popped it in some water and took some sketches. My drawing is dominated by line and shape.



As I worked drawing I reflected upon another artist’s work that I recently viewed, by David Neale. As I drew I thought about ways I could replicate these elements in 3D



I thought about using:
- small stones
- clay
- paper
- fabric and leather


I thought about these materials because they are familiar to me and I have a great deal of confidence and pleasure in using them.


The resulting works from my drawing and playing I will post in the coming days.

Places and Pieces

Excitingly I have recently signed on a new commission initiated by Regional Arts Victoria in partnership with Craft Victoria called Places and Pieces.

Places and Pieces is a unique partnership between arts, education and emerging communities in Bendigo and Castlemaine. It aims to inspire artistic excellence in secondary school students through the making of jewellery and body adornment items using non-precious found materials.

For those of you who are curiously wondering how I got involved as I am not a jeweller - the brief also seeks new works to be created that that reflect their place in a geographic, cultural and personal sense. Which of course all my practice is about relationship to place.

My favourite bit is that new works are sought that are made from found materials, natural materials and reclaimed materials.

So to get myself into the mood for this project I have been doing a little bit of research, collecting images and links. Mostly thanks to the online commitment of Craft Victoria and the Melbourne based curator and writer Kevin Murray. Each of the artists I have drawn out elements that will start creating the scaffolding to build 5 weeks of workshops around for Year 11 students.

Taken directly from Kevin Murray's current curated show on in Perth Can jewellery function as an instrument of change? Includes the work of Melbourne jeweller Vicki Mason. This is her work depicted below:

"Her brooches are modelled on the wattle, rose and oregano plants, beautifully rendered in powder-coated silver and coiled ribbon. These plants are common features of suburban gardens in Australia, but Mason argues that they represent a common bounty, which she links to the elusive prospect of Australia becoming a republic".( Text taken from here by Kevin Murray)



Elements I will draw from her work include:

- form inspired by nature

- making contained within a structure - in this case a black edging

- texture

- bright colour use





Above is work by Julie Blyfield

"The natural materials chosen have the potential to be reduced to a jingoistic ‘green and gold’. However, in Blyfield’s hands, the subtle and limited colour palette of olive green, black, orange and blue/greys with occasional highlights of gold, reveals a much more sophisticated appreciation of our national flora." (text by Bin Dixon Ward)



Elements I will draw from her work include:

- form inspired by nature

- the monochromatic use of colour



From Little Fish Studios



Goodness I really like the combination of fabric, stitch (of course) and twigs/sticks - just lovely and very exciting



David Neale







I also like these words to describe his work: "Through the considered play of opposites such as flat vs deep, austere vs ostentatious, rough vs refined, previous vs poor, shiny vs sfumato, gravel vs gold and some vs none."



Thoughts from Kate Rhodes essay - Forest or the Bush What Jewellers tell us about Nature

Patricia Anderson Book Contemporary Jewellery: The Australian Experience 1977–1987 for its historical overview of jewellery and she writes:



Fifty thousand years ago hunting man wore the teeth and claws of animals to transfer their ferocity and strength to himself. By the time agricultural and urban communities were established throughout the Near East and around the Mediterranean, there was the belief that the … natural world could be controlled … by votive gifts of jewellery to the gods and the adornment of temple statues.1



Still looking at Anderson's historical text, in Australia during the 1970s and '80s saw jewellers who had predominately trained in art schools, rather than workshops, once again look at the natural world as a close source of inspiration. They produced specifically Australian works in an abstract mode. These designers used handmade paper, grass, bleached tree roots, feathers, stone and palm fronds, as well as gold and silver and other metals, to reproduce the Australian landscape, and often the Australian bush more specifically, in its textures, colours and forms.





And just for me here are some other late night thinking ideas



- collecting discarded metal (no plastic on the front) badges and drilling holes and then threading embroidery thread through/grasses etc - inspired by a logo for a really great cause I spotted on the front of my husbands soccer magazines that are taking over our home - never thought they would be any much use other than collecting dust!





- t-shirt inspired jewellery - bead making, foundation for sewing on beads etc

Links to tutorials here

t-shirt bangles

t-shirt necklace

recycled jewellery tutorial links