Monthly Design Challenge

When I was in Melbourne I was lucky enough to meet the lovely Jay from Finki. She is just as gorgeous in real life as she is online and I was so happy to get the opportunity to catch up with her. Every month Jay  hosts a design challenge. Last months theme was Indigenous Australia. I found it pretty tricky because I wanted to be careful not to appropriate images and styles of Indigenous art. This is what I came up with ...

It consists of a hammered and heavily patinaed copper shape onto which I have riveted a crockery shard (I shaped it), a coconut wood disc and an orange bead. I attached it to a  wire bound twig and hung the whole lot from a necklace made of ininti seed beads, with some ceramic and fishbone beads thrown in.

Ininti seeds come from Northern Australia and are traditionally made into beads by Indigenous Australians. The holes are burnt rather than driled which gives them a beautiful dark colour around the edge of the hole. You can learn more about them here. I was trying to evoke all those Outback colours and hoped by keeping with organic or naturalistic components that I would impart a sense of earthiness that I associate with Aboriginal people - that tie with the Land that has been the backbone of their culture for a zillion years.
To see how others interpreted the brief or to join in, head on over to Jay's blog here.