Sign and Signals Necklaces
When I was little my grandparents owned a store, Peoples Hardware. It was the first place where I first fell in love with metal as a material in the small unassuming shop in West Brunswick, Melbourne. I fondly remember the bright colours of the signs being screen printed by hand, the shimmer of the keys on the wall, and the glimmer metal filings in the machines catches. However it wouldn’t be until 20 years later that I would return to metal through jewellery making.
Through these pieces I play with the potential that jewellery has to enable wearers to express themselves. By using the old signs created by my grandfather as a raw material, I literally and figuratively play with signs and signals. Signs are used to delineate between private and public spaces. Utilising this concept I delineate between the private (wearer) and the public (viewer) and by obscuring the original messages on the signs, and by making each piece reversible, there is space for multiple readings and further investigation of each object.
Exhibited at Triple Parade HOW Museum, Shanghai 2018, White Christmas Bilk, Canberra, 2017, FIVE Gallery 88, Redcliffe Australia 2017
Nellie Peoples, 2017, Reclaimed steel sign ‘Danger", sterling silver, acrylic paint, steel cable. Images: Faun Photography
