I created this one-of-a-kind handmade brooch called The Weight of a Feather as part of my 19th Century Nails series. I found all the bits and bobs needed to make it on the streets during my daily walks, except for the 19th-century nail. A friend gave this to me when she was replacing the roof from her home in North Melbourne, built in the 1870s.
Normally I create wall sculptures and 3D sculptures from the wood, metal and tiles I find on the streets of Melbourne. However, through Instagram I met handmade jewellery designer Lynn Powers from New Orleans. She encouraged me to try making jewellery from the objects I found on the street, but I never had.
How I became a brooch designer
Then in 2019, I saw that the Contemporary Art Society of Victoria was holding its Australian National Brooch Show. I displayed five of my brooches–and found that making them is great fun. In 2020, my brooches were in Wearable Art at The Old Auction House in Kyneton and online in Survival Kit at the University of Melbourne George Paton Gallery.
In 2021, as part of Geelong and Melbourne Design Weeks, my brooches were featured in exhibitions at The Reimaginarium in Geelong and again at The Old Auction House in Kyneton. This brooch is part of a special series using handmade 19th-Century nails that I created for the 2021 Australian National Brooch show.
A wide range of my brooches was at CoLab Arts in the Park in The Pavilion at Fitzroy Gardens from July to December 2021. In 2022, they were featured in the exhibition Gold Rush at The Old Auction House, and are again in the Australian National Brooch Show – from April to August 2022 at the Fitzroy and Eltham Public Libraries.
You can find my brooches at Incube8rGallery
And, of course, my brooches are always available through Incube8r Gallery, in the Fitzroy shop, as well as online.
