Phew, it’s been a week y’all. See earlier posts for just a few of the local shenanigans… Anyway, full details below.

I didn’t make it to the soiree yesterday (MJAC) but I will be gallery sitting next Wednesday with the very fist contemporary jeweller I ever met (while she taught me in high school, no less!) Sarah Elson, and Robin Wells, the current Secretary of the JMGA and the engine behind the exhibition (and who I have known since I organised my first group show in Perth in 2010, Return). When I say the experience and expertise on show is DEEP, you know what I mean.

The Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of Australia (WA) is holding an inaugral Contemporary Jewellery Showcase pop up event at The Shopfront Gallery, Perth.

This one-week event will feature a curated selection of contemporary jewellery and small object work by Western Australian makers. Bringing together both established and emerging artists, the showcase highlights the breadth and vitality of contemporary jewellery practice across the state.

‍The exhibition offers visitors an opportunity to experience a diverse range of approaches to material, technique, and concept – from finely crafted wearable pieces to experimental object-based works. Together, the selected works reflect the creativity, innovation, and evolving perspectives that define Western Australia’s contemporary jewellery community.

‍Artists include: Christel van der Laan, Sarah Elson, Claire Townsend, Dorothy Erickson AM, Melissa Cameron, Michelle Gauntlett, Susannah Kings-Lynne, Barbara Cotter, Devan Job, Robin Wells.

Opening times:

Thursday 19th March 11am-4pm
Friday 20th March 11am-4pm
Saturday 21st March 11am-3pm
Sunday Closed
Monday 23rd March 11am-4pm
Tuesday 24th March 11am-4pm
Wednesday 25th March 11am-4pm
Thursday 26th March 11am-4pm

Thursday 19th – Thursday 26th March 2026

The Shopfront Gallery
147-149 Beaufort St, Perth WA 6000

Image: Works by Melissa Cameron in Shopfront Gallery, 2026.

Photo: Susannah Kings-Lynne

Over two days learn specific tools and techniques to turn scrap copper and plastics into unique wearable jewels.

In the first session you will learn to strip copper electrical wire from its plastic sheath and then recycle it to make your own jewellery. You will learn cold forming techniques and how to combine the copper wire with recycled and found materials to make a beautiful pendant and chain.

In the second session, you will cover plastic recycling numbers; which ones can be heat manipulated and how to do it safely. This will be followed by basic cutting and finishing techniques with plastic, and tips on combining the two materials for jewellery.

Sat 21 & Sun 22 Mar 2026 | 11am – 3pm | Suitable for 16yrs+

$165 | $148.50 MAC Inc. Members

Materials:

Materials provided. Optional: Participants encouraged to bring in plastic bottle tops / small containers with a recycle symbol 2 or 5 for melting / reuse. Students also welcome to bring (optional) small found metal or plastic objects, sketchbook and pencil/eraser.

Artist Bio:

Melissa Cameron is a Perth-based jeweller and public artist. She has lived in Naarm/Melbourne and on Duwamish lands in Seattle, USA. She holds a BA in Interior Architecture and a Postgrad Diploma in Jewellery Production from Curtin University, and an MFA in Jewellery and Metalsmithing from Monash University.

For those who can’t make it there is, as always for the Sick AF series, an online live-stream to see and support the show. And as our curator Amanda reminded us artists this week, if you can’t attend live, you can come back and watch later. After the opening she will publish images on the Sick AF site and as ever you can see the progress of the exhibition as it journeys with the AOTM team on their website.

Phew!

Yesterday morning, as part of the promotions for the opening, talk and workshop I’m leading on Sat the 15th of March (also FREE!) I did a short interview with Goldfields/Esperance ABC radio. For the impatient among us, jump to approx 38m:40sec and you can hear my not-so-dulcet tones talking with Chris Edmondson about the theme of the show, my work in it, and the idea that art making really is for everyone. I don’t have to tell you, choristers, that working with your mind and hands in concert is a therapy that enriches all types of bodies.

Looking forward to being on the move with Art on the Move next month, and I hope I’ll see you there!

Alta Forma is part of FUTUREOBJEKT at Melbourne Art Fair!

Alta Forma is thrilled to present Roseanne Bartley, Sam Blomley and Gilda Jones, Melissa Cameron, Katie Collins, Debris Facility Pty Ltd, Eli Giannini, Peta Kruger, Mascha Moje, Yongping Ren, Audrey Tan, Anna Varendorff, Raewyn Walsh, Benjamin Woods, Danni Schwaag, Rosy Shanks, Elisa Zorraquin.

19-22 February 2026
Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Booth E15

I can’t make it but the wonderful Meredith Turnbull is out there on her feet telling stories and making us all look good! And Anna V has some new amazing large-scale sculptures in place; worth checking out on their own!

Photo above – Ross Coulter

I have Adam Savage first, with a bunch of jeweller-related material in his 2025 end-of-year roundup. Starting at 11m40sec but especially at the end of this vid (23m42s) he was talking in praise of what he calls a piercing (but we all know as a jewellers’) saw. He goes into the importance of blades also, and yes, reader, I name check my faves in several places on this here blog (Vallorbe, always). A hearty agree on his summation too – I have a band saw and a jigsaw (the latter inherited from Bruce’s dad) – and as we all know, after much investigation of nibblers and other cutters, I chose to cut the hundreds of meters of Juukan Tears by hand. Sometimes putting your shoulder to the metal is just faster.

He also talked about his (really expensive) micro motor, before launching into his new toy, essentially a powered scalpel blade, which also sounds fun. (I made one or two architectural models last year and I gotta say it mighta come in handy.) I’m not a micro motor owner – still a flex-shaft/pendant drill user – but I’ve tried one or two really good ones but cannot work up the use-case to shell out for one. That said, I went to a Peter Keep stone setting demo a couple weeks back, and the prof of setting endorses the Saeshin Strong 207. Price-wise, from a quick search, that actually seems quite reasonable.

Part two – this guy Alec Steele (strong start), a blacksmith from the UK (of course), and has been getting some play on my devices of late. His day-in-the-life of a mechanical pencil maker in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham was a fun jaunt; interesting and almost informative enough…. I’m now desperate to know the content of a solder that you can melt at such a seemingly low temp, but I’m thinking it’s not widely shared.

I’ve since seem some of his steel vids (because, you know, steel) but since I own many a mechanical and clutch pencil, including an antique from my great-uncle that must have been corporate merch as it says “Shell Spirit” in enamel on its finial (checks out – I believe the owner was a mechanic and/or driving instructor) I’m sharing this one.

I don’t know about your pencil collection, but none of mine are much more fancy than the Shell merch (I got it working today – the lead must be well past 50 years old!) or the Staedtler Mars Technico I got for drafting in first year IA, that one containing barely six inches of led. So I’d not heard of Yard-O-Led and I didn’t even dream there was a whole company devoted to making solid silver pencils, but in several ways I’m delighted they exist. The living history of the process and machinery are incredible (and somewhat terrifying!), and the fact that you can order meters and meters of silver tube in the UK is also eye-opening. We’re all aware of the silver price right now, so I’m not going to be a collector any time soon, but in times of diminishing silversmith skills, I’m happy that this company is still alive.

I’ll let you know the next time my internet serves up more related and relatable tips and tricks from allied makers.

I am still moving through recovery and logging of the ’25 year – I am coincidentally writing a grant acquittal – and in doing so am examining parts of the warp and weft of the year. A lot went down, y’all.

For me, the longest thread was weekly site meetings at the then-being-built house/studio, and the work associated with those – designing, sourcing materials, equipment and installers, worrying about timelines and the quality of outcomes. It’s been strange to encounter the first few Tuesdays without those site meetings. I was still feeling like I was on the precipice of one last night!

On the flip side, it’s been a supreme luxury to holiday at home the last couple of weeks. A luxury deepened when the blinds in our bedroom were installed on Christmas Eve, an unexpected miracle (apologies to those who feel such magic might be considered wasted on my sleep patterns…) that made my Christmas. Yes, me and Bruce went full Oprah on our presents to one another this year: “You get a house, and you get a house!” so functioning blinds really were the icing!

And while my last days of 2025 resonated with relief and exhaustion, I am obliged to recall (see that acquittal note above) that moving house and studio was so very far from all I achieved in 2025. There was a LOT of travel. It began in Feb when I was east-side for a Sydney gallery-crawl weekender, chased by an almost 3-week European jaunt for openings, talks and to see what’s up. We took in Zurich, Munich, Swansea, Birmingham and London in March, followed by a short Melbourne – Rye stay for an exhibition opening in June. Then the long-planned (and recently acquitted) South Korean adventure for the Cheongju Biennale, and a second longer Sydney trip for Craft Week and associated events. Suffice to say, it all feels on the whirlwind side of gainfully occupied.

Looking back, it’s amazing that anything else got done! I did remount my solo show Banner and Badge at Rockingham Arts Centre in May with thanks to curator team Jude van der Merwe and Claire Stroud, and in the stude I did some fun experiments with rust and tea / wine tannins to make ink. I made a bunch of new works including the rings and prints that debuted at Alta Forma for the aforementioned Melbourne show, and 5 crowns for the ADC MAKE Award – which is now on at the Jam Factory in Adelaide (these crowns have friends – hopefully debuting this year) alongside the works were made and appeared immediately in shows like BK’s Remade/Reloved and for Curtin’s 30×30 Fundraiser.

In other studio haps, for the EU trip I put together a show-in-a-box (from my Marfa, TX series) that got some play in Birmingham when I spoke at the School of Jewellery for Bridie Lander. And more recently, I was shortlisted in another public art bid just before Christmas. All I can say is that I spent the last part of the year focused on my perennial favourite, stainless steel, and working in AutoCad.

Scattered in were plotting and making one or two private commissions, plus remakeries and making days, both in the wild and not. In the community jewellery skills were shared with Curtin Heritage, Shine, and with paying attendees at Rockingham and Midland Junction Art Centres’. Thanks to other travelling exhibits and enthusiasm at MJAC there will be more classes upcoming, look to late Q1:2026 for those.

And why download all of this to you now? Well, I’ve missed being here and chatting; the last year or so the blog has felt more transactional than playful. That’s not how I like to write, or to feel, about these missives. I’m starting a new year with a new leaf, and checking in with the backlog as a way of balancing the scales so as to move into ’26 feeling realigned. I’m ready (and will hopefully have time) for a little more story to slide between the didactics and promo. Because, you know, I love to spin a yarn, in all aspects of my work.

That thing Socrates mentioned about the unexamined life, yeah? After 16 years, I guess this is the place where that *might* be happening.

We’d love you to join us!

Saturday the 20th of December, 11am – 5pm.

Email me – blog @ melissacameron . net or DM me via Insta for the address.

Below – house images and some very new works (the final output of my more southern North Perth studio.)

images above © Duncan Wright

At the annual studio sale you will find these new little pieces from the ever-expanding Street Sweeper series, made from found mild steel with stainless steel chain, ear posts and nickel-silver pins. And of course some classic and other new works, like the pixel series, that are only found direct from me in my studio, or online at my website.

Can’t wait to toast the closing of the massive year with y’all!

To fit in, we are de-accessioning a bunch of choice pieces. Some from Naarm. Actually, most from Melbourne, and a few from Seattle and here in Boorloo/Perth. Please, if you are in need, come take it off our hands. A lot of it is free to a good home, and while there are prices on others; make us an offer! Images in this link to good old Gumtree.

The Eames table, a trio of crimson Walter Knoll 369 chairs and a mid-century knock-off couch are the picks of the bunch, but there’s a lovely old filing cabinet and a very handy aubergine-coloured pull-out bed also in the listings.

And stay tuned for the new studio reveal – put a big red note on the 20th of December in your phone’s calendar for my annual studio sale!

images by Bruce. Because he’s an effective and efficient nerd 😉

If you want the chance to meet the team – get on the ground floor, as they say – please join us next Tuesday for the Craft Co-Lab:

The IOTA Craft Co-Lab brings together curators from across the Indian Ocean region to share ideas through a day of conversations with makers, cultural leaders and thinkers.

The symposium will explore how craft connects ancestry, technology, identity, and community and is an opportunity to hear directly from the IOTA27 Curatorium as they introduce the theme/s that will guide the next Triennial.

As an IOTA alumni (class of ’21, y’all!) and member of the current IOTA Management Committee, I’ll be there to see what shakes down. AND I’ll be chatting it up on the day with a quick presentation (alongside other thinker/makers) leading to a panel discussion.

Yes please? Well, you gotta book – it’s Next Tuesday, Curtin city building (St George’s Tce) 8:30am – 3pm.

Head over to Insta to see the full promo vid of what we’re getting up to.

Are you the magpie always collecting shiny things on the street? Do you have a collection of beautiful finds in your house that you love but don’t know what to do with? Are you ready to make your masterpiece? Bring out your rusty and recycled and learn the skills to turn these into wearables and ornaments with jewellery artist Melissa Cameron.

Sundays 19 Oct, 2 and 9 Nov 2025 | 11:30am – 2:30pm | Suitable for 16 yrs+

$160 | $145.50 MAC Inc. Members | Midland Junction Arts Centre

more info and to book

Thus you can find me Friday night and for the artist talks on Saturday haunting the ADC space for the prestigious MAKE Award, as well as Remade/Reloved 2025, once again orchestrated by my pal Bridget Kennedy. Suffice to say, between the two, a LOT of jewellers will be Sydney-side, and I’m taking the opportunity to catch up with them all and to congratulate the award recipient as-it-happens!

I can’t share my work in that as yet, so above is my piece in Remade/Reloved, made from recycled jewellery sent to me by the wonderful BK. Yes, it was formerly plated steel chain, that I have sandblasted and to which I’ve added the usual binary message. rapidlyclosingwindow… #9, the same message I exhibited through a different piece at R/R in 2023, and that I have been making and exhibiting around the world all this year.

I will be trotting along to as many of the Sydney Craft Week events that I can – Kirsten Junor at Reverse Garbage be warned, I’m headed your way seeking buttons – so I’m down for a coffee and a chat should you see me.

Quick story: Last September IOTA: 24 co-curator and World Craft Council Australia President, Jude van der Merwe, convinced the Artistic Director Jaeyoung Kang and Chief Curator Gayoung Oh of the Cheongju Craft Biennale into a whistle-stop tour of Perth during the IOTA conference, direct from a visit to Venice (Perth being a renowned transfer hub in the Asia Pacific region…) In a famously slow week the pair landed at the IOTA Conference after a bunch of local artists had just finished their Pecha Kucha talks. Knowing her colleagues would have appreciated seeing these, Jude pulled the speakers aside and asked them to present an encore. Thus we promptly found our presentations on our own laptops and ipads or quickly sent them to the one available, and re-presented our 6 minute talks in the large common space outside the lecture spaces where other presentations were still being made.

In town to deliver a presentation at the conference that week (and, incidentally, staying with me) was Dr Marian Hosking, the famed Australian jeweller, silversmith and lecturer (and ADC Living Treasure), who oversaw my MFA studies at Monash University. Marian was herself exhibited in the Invitational Exhibition as part of The Breath of Nature: Cheongju Craft Biennale 2001. She also had a solo exhibition at Gana Art Centre in Insa-dong, Seoul in 2006. She encouraged me (and everyone in the jewellery studio at Monash) to enter the Cheongju Craft Competition, which I did in 2009, and again in 2011. That year to the shock and delight of both of us, I won a gold prize, one of four handed out that year. Knowing how highly Marian spoke of her trips, I booked to go to Cheongju to witness the Biennale opening first-hand. Suffice to say, time has made the whole Biennale and opening a lot slicker, though the Opening Ceremony is just as grand in scope and run-time. But back to IOTA:24…

Jude made a call after Marian and I had exited the Curtin campus that afternoon, (I was in my studio to prepare for the workshop I was leading at the conference the following day) asking if I would be able to open my studio to the Cheongju team in the following days. I only had one full day to go before I was jetting to Thailand for another IOTA opening, so the following evening they came through and saw my studio and works, including rapidlyclosingwindow…#1 that was newly finished but still hanging on a support on my wall (one of the two works that are now on show in the Cheongju Craft Biennale Main Exhibition). In a full-circle moment, Marian was on hand to meet Jaeyoung and Gayoung as they toured my studio, after which we all went to dinner along with Jude and fellow IOTA committee member Heli Donaldson. (It was this evening that Heli also committed to ‘carrying my bags’ in Cheongju this year. She was indeed there, giving me someone to eat and hang out with over the course of the week.)

While the emails with paperwork took a little while to come through, it was that night I knew my works would be heading to South Korea once again, this time to be in the main exhibition. (Though in South Korean tradition, I was also reminded that night that I had not yet won the grand prize at the competition, implying that I should keep striving. Dutifully, I entered the competition again this year, and was not selected. C’est la vie! It was gratifying that excellent German jewellery artist, Julia Obermaier, took out the gold!) The knowledge that I would be an even bigger part of what I had witnessed in 2011 buoyed me hugely in the coming weeks, through an intensely packed (yet hugely heart-filling and rewarding) schedule of IOTA and JMGA-WA Conference events.

While once again the program in Cheongju was stacked high, this time I got to relax and witness everything with less naive incredulity and a little more understanding. The shows are veritable extravaganzas, and the opening ceremony still an over 90 minute bonanza of dance, speeches, prize-giving, more speeches, symbolism and ceremony. That has not changed (the prize-giving ceremony is out in the open during a 200-odd person standing dinner, and the main ceremony lacked the previous video message from the president and fly-over from the military!!) though the understanding of South Korea in the word surely has, and this awareness has echoed back. We heard many mentions of K-Pop, and how analogous world take-overs of K-Culture and K-Craft are similarly on the horizon. Time will tell.

What I can say is an echo Kevin Murray’s observation made to me during our week in South Korea. To paraphrase, he keeps going back to Cheongju because the show is just so incredible. And for an exhibition that started in an old tobacco factory (now fully renovated with exhibition spaces, restaurants, coffee shops, clothing, gift and souvenir stores and on the higher floors artist studios and offices,) to be consistently showcasing the best the craft world has to offer, over more than 25 years with rarely a curator repeated, that is a superlative feat.

Suffice to say, after only my second visit, I can’t wait to go back either.

Melissa (and Jacky Cheng and Susie Vickery) attended the Cheongju Craft Biennale with the assistance of the State Government of Western Australia.

Just a quickie – I’m back and full of stories from my South Korean Cheongju Craft Biennale adventure – keep an eye here and on socials for a bountiful week in review all this week…

AND 

I’m leading a short class on reclaiming electrical copper wire to make jewellery this Thursday at MJAC. Please come along and we’ll make while we catch up!

Please feel free to share the details below 😉

RECYCLED JEWELLERY | MELISSA CAMERON — Midland Junction Arts Centre

In this class you will investigate scrap metals, diagnose their suitability for jewellery and learn basic clean-up techniques. Using the provided recycled materials, you will strip copper wire from its plastic sheath, then design, cut and manipulate this wire combined with recycled and found materials to make jewellery and other objects.

Melissa will supply pre-made stainless steel earring hooks as well as silk and waxed linen cord to hang pendants.

Thu 11 Sep 2025 | 10am – 1pm | Suitable for 16yrs+

$55 | $49.50 MAC Inc. Members | Midland Junction Arts Centre

MATERIALS

Materials provided. Students are welcome to bring (optional) small found metal or plastic objects, sketchbook and pencil/eraser.

ARTIST BIO

Melissa Cameron is a Perth-based jeweller and public artist. She has lived in Naarm/Melbourne and on Duwamish lands in Seattle, USA. She holds a BA in Interior Architecture and a Postgrad Diploma in Jewellery Production from Curtin University, and an MFA in Jewellery and Metalsmithing from Monash University.

SICK AF is touring with ART ON THE MOVE 2025-2027

On show at the Rose de Freycinet Gallery
July 25 — Aug 31 2025
Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery & Visitor Centre
Malgana, Nanda and Yinggarda Country

SICK AF delves into the personal narratives of artists who have navigated life altering illnesses or injuries, using art as a medium for expression and healing. Featuring work from 21 local, national and international artists, the exhibition shares unique insight into the artists’ journeys, offering both intimate and universal reflections on resilience, healing, and creativity.

Amanda Alderson – SICK AF curator

Touring with WA’s premier arts outreach organisation Art on the Move, Sick AF has made land in its first port-of-call, Shark Bay.

There’s a couple weeks left before it exits, but I’ve been told by reliable sources that it is an impressive show, with lots to interest the jewellery/jeweller curious. (You might remember that in a very uncharacteristic move I’m exhibiting a dress. You’ve got to check it out to understand – and if you’re not near WA, there’s always the amazing and exhausting website.)

I’ll keep you updated with its next travels, but for now, if you’re on holiday escaping the cold, now is the time to see it in the north!

An IOTA delegation, if you will, is heading over to Re_Crafting Tomorrow, the Cheongju Craft Biennale, starting on the 3rd of September at the exhibiting artists opening. Our team includes Indian Ocean Craft Triennal alum Susie Vickery, Jacky Cheng and myself as exhibitors and speakers (they’re speaking at the Pecha Kucha) at this year’s opening events. Our collective champion, Jude van der Merwe, co-lead IOTA curator, will deliver the first keynote address at Friday’s Colloquium: Vision and Future of Craft Museums, part of the 2025 Cheongju Craft Biennale International Craft Forum.

The public opening is Thursday the 4th of September, and the Main Exhibition runs until the 2nd of November. It runs alongside the Cheongju Craft Competition Exhibition, also at the Culture Factory (formerly a tobacco factory where I received a gold prize, back in 2011) alongside an exhibition of Thai artists/artisans in the Invited Country exhibition, and a special exhibition presented by Hyundai and the usual fair and festivals. It’s an exhaustive program and I look forward to seeing the full scale of it all, as well as enjoying the Colloquium in Seoul and a few other museums and art fairs happening concurrently in the city.

If you’re heading over we’d love to catch you! We will also be taking in the World Jewellery Museum, KIAF and Frieze Seoul, so we’re going to be getting about the place, filling up on local and international arts and culture. I’m proud to be heading back as an invited exhibiting artist, and so excited to see everything – the competition, the fair, the special exhibitions, the country. It’s going to be amazing!

It’s been a beautiful collaboration thus far. Behind the scenes this past week I’ve been working closely with lead curator Gayoung Oh and her installation team on getting everything just so. There have been photos and CAD drawings crisscrossing between us, to make sure everything looks the best it can. I’m really grateful that they have been so collaborative, the works I’m presenting represent care, and they have received it in ample amounts.

And, for the acknowledgement – this trip has been funded by the State Government of Western Australia. We thank them, and through them the people of WA, for their commitment to the arts. Culture needs culture.

BOOK TICKETS HERE

Coming up next Alta Forma is delighted to present ‘The Ring Project’ – over 30 artists, over 100 rings and select artworks celebrating this iconic jewellery archetype. Across cameo, class, cocktail, eternity, guard, key, mood, promise, signet and many more. With floral/sculptural arrangement by Molly Cook.

Exhibition dates: 3-19 July.

Featured artists:

Talloulah Angel – Ella Badu – Roseanne Bartley – Renee Becker – Susan Buchanan – Melissa Cameron – Juliette Claire – Ko Jou Chen – Katie Collins – Molly Cook – Hedwig Crombie – Laura Deakin – Helen Dilkes – Celia Dottore – Debris Facility – Eli Giannini – Holly Gregory – Mary Hackett – Kirsten Haydon – Teegan Horat – Po Li – Vicki Mason – Emily McCulloch Childs – Bhanu Mistry – Mascha Moje – Belinda Newick – Emily O’Brien – Dee Robinson – Rosy Shank – Rachel Simoons – Audrey Tan – Meredith Turnbull – Roma Turnbull-Coulter – Manon van Kouswijk – Anna Varendorff – Elisa Zorraquin

The opening celebration for ‘The Ring Project’ is a free, ticketed event for gallery supporters and participating artists. The exhibition will be open to the public usual hours from 11am Thursday 3 July, 2025. Exhibition dates: 3-19 July.

The two days open to the public are:

Wednesday the 11th of June, 10:00am – 12:pm, Makerspace @ Curtin Heritage

Monday the 16th of June, 10:00am – 11:30pm, Marine Views Lobby @ Curtin Heritage

If you want to get involved, the first session is open for bookings here!

Circularity Collaboration – making art using post-consumer waste with Melissa Cameron, metalsmith and jewellery artist

Collaborate to create a large-scale artwork from bottle-top waste, encoding a binary message about the urgent need for a sustainable future.

Working with the artist to carefully prepare collected plastic bottle tops, you will be guided on simple jewellery techniques including wire stripping, drilling, and wire twisting. Work with Melissa and your friends to fabricate a colourful and meaningful jewel-like hanging – the more hands the merrier!

A Curtin Heritage Living collaboration – using our waste to create art.

This time around I will need someone on the drill, so if you’re handy with a tool it would be great to for you to let me know. We are working with locally collected bottle tops that are smaller than my usual fare, so instead of cutting out the centres we will drill them out (and maybe punch a few too). The grouping will be a little tighter, and assembly a little easier, so I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Thanks to the encoding we’re following, it’s almost a form of very low-fi algorithmic making, without the cad/cam manufacturing. That the pattern is set but the system doing the work is not a computer but a group of human hands. The decisions those hands make will be interesting to see…

Poetics of Place ll by Australian Artists, Curated by Melinda Young

May 15, 2025 – July 13, 2025

The Poetics of Place brings together the work of 16 makers across contemporary craft, object-based and textile practices whose work explores, expands and troubles the concept of ‘place’ in post-colonial Australia and Aotearoa. The work engages with literal and (sub)liminal geographies via the intimate relationality of the body. The artists have nuanced, poetic making practices, taking the body as a compass to navigate autobiographical and community narratives, interrogate materiality and technique, and examine the broader considerations of cultural, environmental and historical tensions experienced by settler makers on un-ceded lands.

Participating Artists

Roseanne Bartley, Zoe Brand, Sue Buchanan, Anna Davern, Melissa Cameron, Cara Johnson, Claire McArdle, Kelly McDonald, Lindy McSwan, Nellie Peoples, Lauren Simeoni, Gabbee Stolp, Bic Tieu, Zoë Veness, Sera Waters & Melinda Young.  

Heat to Atta Gallery online for the price list and Exhibition View – they fully document the works in situ for their shows – which is a wonderful thing for those who can’t make it. It’s also a handy reminder for those people like me have a a strong spatially oriented memory. I can sometimes recall where an object is in space faster than I can recall the object. (A natural trait honed through design education and the need for accurate recall across mutliple interior architecture jobs) It helps me to recall the pieces I love when I see everything laid out in the order I first encountered it. Atta Gallery documents their shows so well, it’s an intricate and caring service they provide to their artists and clients alike, and I thank them for it!

Information (and actual) architecture aside, it’s wonderful to be in the second iteration of this exhibition. I was living in Seattle so wasn’t involved the first time around but remember being very envious of the wonderful artists included and the amazing show produced. The second time around has met all expectations from the first, and then bettered them. From the images I’ve seen it’s an immaculate showing of a really special group of works.

Thus, this time around I have FOMO about the artists who did get to go to Thailand to install and open the show, with the Australian Ambassador in attendance! I had a great trip to Thailand last year so know about some of what is going on (though the fabric and ribbon shopping that this year’s crew has been able to indulge in… Next time!) but to feel similarly jealous and overwhelmed I suggest you head over to our fearless leaders Mel Young’s and director of Atta Gallery, Atty Tantivit’s as well as the Atta Gallery’s Instagram images and see what we’re all missing out on!

This class will involve diagnosing scrap metals to find their suitability for jewellery versus wall art, and basic forming and clean-up techniques.

I’ll provide meters and meters of pre-used electrical cable, and together we’ll strip the shielded copper wire from its plastic. Then you can go to town designing, cutting and manipulating this wire to make jewellery and other objects, along with other recycled materials.

To help realise the full potential of our foundlings, I’ll bring some pre-made stainless steel earring hooks and brooch backings, as well as silk and waxed linen cord to hang pendants.

• Date: Saturday 17 May 2025 
• Time: 10am – 12.30pm
• Location: Rockingham Arts Centre, 11 Kent Street, Rockingham
• Cost: $20 per person

Please contact the Rockingham Arts Centre on 9527 0734 between 8am-4pm, Wednesday to Friday to register.

Full payment is required at the time of booking. Any cancellations received prior to the workshop registration closing date are eligible for a full refund.

Look forward to seeing you there!

From Julia’s statement:

Unity against threats from the extreme right is timelessly relevant, internationally. Current developments in the world make clear: the normalization of rightwing ideology demands daily resistance and a counter-mobilization to make antifascism the norm.

For the extreme right, antifascism, antiracism, feminism, environmental activism, the LGBTQIA+ movement, campaigns for social justice and climate justice, pacifism, all belong together, labeled as „unnatural egalitarianism”. Therefore the various movements have one opponent in common: the extreme right. We must stand together to support and strengthen a democratic civil society.
For this specific happening, over 80 local and international makers, established artists and designers as well as non-professionals and students gathered their strength, because each and every one of us can ensure that we are one more. All participants followed an Open Call, there was no pre-selection of the work, everyone with the urge to participate was welcome to do so.

You can expect a fantastic range of politically outspoken PINS & POSTERS in this show. 

Our main goal is to spread the message. During this exhibition, PINS & POSTERS are offered based on a donation, with a minimum to cover the production costs of the individual participant.

The gallery:

Derde Kostverlorenkade 35 

1054 TS Amsterdam

THE NETHERLANDS

It’s an impressive international line-up:

In line with the theme – in which the artists were asked to produce pieces to get the message out there with minimum fuss and cost – my works are reworking badges I made for a previous event.

The ‘Vote For Pedro’ badge comes from the film Napoleon Dynamite, a hit to Gen X’ers like myself 😉 . I had a play with some versions I made a while back (to wear to a party o’course), to include some text that is important to me, specific to the two countries I have called home.

I was thinking ‘what would I wear’, and ‘what’s a fun way to present it’, so they’re a little tongue-in-cheek and impermanent, but they invite more playful exchange, which is something we’re in need of right now. Alongside treaty, diversity, equity and inclusion, obviously.