Jewellery stories
Roseanne Bartley ✿ be in touch - Our August Laurel is awarded to artist-jeweller Roseanne Bartley for a process of making signal rings that embody common thoughts around our current condition.
Enkarewa: The Maasai gift of gifts - Denis Odinga Okiya and John Kamanga share their knowledge of the magnificent Maasai beaded necklace.
How dolphins guided me to rescue a suicidal girl… - Maddalena Bearzi shares a remarkable story of a circle of dolphins who led her to rescue a drowning girl, which she commemorates now as jewellery.
New Zulu beads to be worn with pride - Mbuso Zondi's commitment to his Zulu culture is reflected in his project to create new beads that use more traditional materials that those imported in the past.
Mel Young ✿ Mapping the tideline - Mel Young uses jewellery as a way to attach herself to the coast during the lockdown.
Iziqhaza: Designs that open your ears - Hlengiwe Dube recounts the elaborate Zulu tradition of earplugs that inspired her baskets.
Urgent Adornment in South Africa - Beverley Price explains the creative principle of her expedited jewellery and how it is grounded in South African life.
Izandla Zethu: Fine jewellery with what’s at hand - Izandla Zethu involves gathering materials at hand in a South African township to craft jewellery that combines honesty and elegance.
I wear letters from the past - Lara Daryl Landsberg re-creates letters from her Oupa to create a jewellery series that reconnects with her childhood.
The Eastern Cape made visible through jewellery - Joani Groenewald reflects how her jewellery is drawn from the South African landscape in which she is embedded.
Isifociya: The revival of Zulu adornment that protects and beautifies - Khanya Mthethwa transforms the traditional Zulu girdle into a fashion item for proud South Africans
Hand Medal Project: Taking care of caregivers - Garland actively supports the Hand Medal Project, which bestows caregivers with handmade metal tokens of respect and gratitude.
David Bielander ✿ Poking fun in all seriousness - Eli Giannini finds parallels between jewellery and architecture in the poetry of David Bielander's very particular objects.
A kirpan for bride power - Eina Ahluwalia reflects on the impact of her Wedding Vows collection that presented a powerful response to violence against women.
Bridget Kennedy ✿ A fragile beauty between the ashes - Our February Laurel goes to Sydney jeweller Bridget Kennedy, for a ring that reflects the tragedy that engulfs Australia in 2019-2020. The ring evokes the geometrical beauty of the beehive, while acknowledging the devastation wrought on the climate by use of fossil fuels.
Alice Whish ✿ Works from the Understory - Helen Wyatt describes some of the learnings revealed in the stunning new jewellery series by Alice Whish whose work was inspired by her Bundanon residency.
Tania Larsson ✿ Hide uncovers the hidden - matt lambert interviews a Canadian jewellery artist about the process of making hide in Gwich’in culture
Visiting Tomaquag: The feel of wampum between your fingers - Lela Kulkarni learns how to make a wampum shine at the Tomaquag Museum.
Guildhouse, The Ghan and gumnut earrings - Lauren Simeoni gets her jewellery on track with a workshop that travels along the legendary Ghan railway.
Carlier Makigawa ✿ Delirious in Uzbekistan - The Melbourne jeweller Carlier Makigawa was inspired by the Islamic architecture of Uzbekistan and produced necklaces that relfect a geometric intricacy of colour and form. Helen Britton adds her analysis of the work.
Sheraz Faisal ✿ Art becomes jewellery in Lahore - Asad Hayee documents a project with Sheraz Faisal to create jewellery interpretations of artworks.
Zoë Veness ✿ Wayfaring - As our September Laurel, Zoë Veness applies the most delicate of muslin textile to hard metal and produces a texture of trails that weaves a landscape in brass. 
Melissa Cameron ✿ Jewellery at our feet - The use of found materials can focus our minds on the world at our feet. Melissa Cameron's new work, Marfa TX, turns this moment into singular jewellery.
Philip Noakes ✿ Silver from the West - The history of West Australian jewellery is well served by Dorothy Erickson, who has just published another substantial book on one of its leading exponents.
Are you hungry? Jewellery learnings from Shanghai - Vicki Mason reflects on the remarkable support during her time with SanW Gallery and Yiwei Foundation in humid Shanghai.
Interpreting China through an art jewellery practice - Gussie van der Merwe writes about foreign art jewellers like herself, Moniek Schrijer and Lavinia Rossetti are inspired by working in Shanghai.
Mehrnoosh Ganji ✿ Soul Star Pendant 📽️ - A film by Mark Newbound captures the quiet focus and skill involved in the jewellery craft of Mehrnoosh Ganji. Soul Star Pendant reflects the spiritual values underlying its production.
Emily Beckley ✿ A romantic side of the Torres Strait - The Garland journey has coincided with the evolution of the Indigenous Jewellery Project. Emily McCulloch Childs writes about the solo exhibition by Emily Beckley, demonstrating the potential of this important project.
Manami Aoki ✿ Kushi-ireru-ki (hair of wood) - Our laurel for March 2019 goes to emerging Tokyo jeweller Manami Aoki for her work "Hair of wood". 
21st century chinoiserie: A journey from Zibo to Sydney - Yixuan Geng traces a journey through jewellery that connects her Chinese heritage to creative life in Sydney. 
“Ea” the goddess of the goldsmiths (jewellers) in Mesopotamia - Iranian jewellers draw inspiration from the female goddess figures that constitute the complex palimpsest of Persian culture. Here Roohollah Shamsizadeh (Aria Gallery) writes about one goddess who has special relevance to jewellery.
Generational transfer ✿ Helen Aitken-Kuhnen and Mio Kuhnen - Nola Anderson writes about mother and daughter Helen Aitken-Kuhnen and Mio Kuhnen who share a deep knowledge of the language of materials to express the world around us. 
Liliana Ojeda ✿ November laurel - The November laurel goes to Chilean jewellery artist, Liliana Oleada. Her bold work uses her facility with materials to imagine internal forms within our body, making beauty from our hidden life forms. 
The tinsmith and I shared no language - Melbourne jeweller Claire McArdle ventures into the workshop of a tinsmith in Oaxaca. 
Oaxacan jewellery: The legacy of Monte Albán 🇲🇽 - Alberto Rojas Calvo recounts the unique qualities of Oaxacan jewellery
Bin Dixon Ward ✿ Adding digital to the jeweller’s bench - Melbourne jeweller Bin Dixon Ward is fascinated by the relationship between digital technology, jewellery and its maker. She discusses the development of 3D printed jewellery including her own work in this field.
Greybilly ✿ Opal for the anthropocene - While Australia has the world's richest opal deposits, its potential as an artistic medium has been relatively unexplored. An exhibition at Nishi Gallery curated by Yasmin Masri takes a sideways look at opal from a post-mining boom perspective. 
Drawing Out the Gold – A Crown of Alfalfa by Katheryn Leopoldseder - The Melbourne jeweller Katheryn Leopoldseder manages to make epic statements out of personal adornment. Here she pays homage to a Mexican scientist was able to develop alfalfa as a non-toxic form of gold-mining. 
Chiaroscuro at the bench: Watch Vicki Mason make a threaded brooch 📽️ - Mark Newbound visited the studio of Melbourne jeweller Vicki Mason. 
Niloufar Mirshahidi & Behnaz Barabarian: A delicate Persian love story to fit your finger - This jewellery artwork is inspired by “Zal & Roudabeh”, one of the most beautiful love stories of Shahnameh. 
New terrain in an old world - Zoë Veness writes about metal objects she made in homage to kunanyi / Mount Wellington
Lost histories: Inscription and Place - Peter Hughes writes about place and memory in the work of the CUSP jewellery collective
The story behind Wellington’s Handshake - Helen Wyatt explores the enduring and successful Handshake project by Peter Deckers
Persian Renaissance continues… - Global art jewellery is undergoing a Renaissance as non-Western artists are using this modern medium to renew past layers of their culture. Two Iranian artists are at the forefront of this. A recent exhibition of Ailin Abrisham and Baharak Omidfar give presence to the ancient goddess Anahita. 
Filming Mehrnoosh Ganji’s magnificent new work 📽️ - Mehrnoosh Ganji was our garlandee for the Persian Prospect issue. Here Mark Newbound records the artist her self as she delicately dis-assembles and re-assembles her new work, Golestan Palace. 
Mark Newbound: Filming craft alchemy 📽️ - Garland is proud to welcome on board our video producer, Mark Newbound. 
Behnaz Barabarian: Love in the Qajar period - The Qajar dynasty ruled Iran in the nineteenth century. Their Turkic culture created quite a distinctive style in decorative arts. It is one of the many periods that contemporary Iranian jewellers draw on today as part of their historical palette.
A silent conversation with Jimmy Poland - Helena Bogucki reflects on her collaboration with Jimmy Poland for "Pieces of Gutharraguda (Shark Bay)". 
Review of Use: Queensland contemporary jewellery, by Vivien Bedwell - Use addresses thematic connections jewellers have with their tools and the creations that follow through the extension of the body, further referencing the vital role fingers and hands play in each and every work in this exhibition.
Yuka Oyama: Helpers – Changing homes 🎞️ - Yuka Oyama is producing a series of work "Helpers – Changing homes" in Wellington as part of a residency at Whiti o Rehua School of Art.
Jess Dare’s eternal bloom: Sydney’s Martin Place memorial - The Adelaide jeweller Jess Dare has just completed a commission for Sydney's Martin Place. This memorial for victims of the Lindt Cafe siege contains 210 individual flowers set in glass cubes embedded in the pavement. This provides a permanent version of the sea of flowers that flooded the square in the wake of the tragedy.
How to Make a Necklace from a Chair – Sarah Read - One of New Zealand’s most interesting jewellers, Sarah Read has created a performance practice which explores the value of labour. In this project, she is stringing the polystyrene beads from a bean bag into an epic necklace form. It’s the kind of challenge you might imagine South Koreans like Yujin Eugénie Moon would appreciate. As automation removes our dependence on human labour, might we see its re-emergence in artistic forms like this? Source: The See Here
Quarterly essay: Embodied history 🎧 - In the process of reconstructing the traditional midi necklace, Lisa Hilli finds a deeper understanding of her Tolai culture.
Pearls for the people in Fiji - Neke Moa writes about the project of Marama Shellcraft to provide livelihood for the people of Ba, Fiji. 
And They Lived Happily Ever After: Object narratives from a land far away - Sahr Bashir reflects on the uncanny material adventures of Pakistani artists Masooma Syed and Affan Baghpati. 
The Handshake journey: I am the water and the water is me - Neke Moa writes about role that Handshake has played in her life as an activist Māori jeweller. Embodied history: Remaking and returning the midi to the Tolai 🎧 - In the process of reconstructing the traditional midi necklace, Lisa Hilli finds a deeper understanding of her Tolai culture.
I like reality. It doesn’t terrify me. - Being based in Aotearoa, NZ, I set out to explore the idea that there is something unidentifiable bubbling under the surface—something all at once mysterious and ugly and dark and beautiful. The idea was to tap into the current generation of Pacific-based makers, who are both following and updating the ground-breaking work of the bone, stone, shell jewellers. Someone once told me that Pacific themes and culture were impacting all forms of Pacific art, regardless of the cultural heritage of the maker. I wanted to see if this was true and if so how a series of disparate works would interact and speak to one another when brought together.
Taurangi - Keri-Mei Zagrobelna writes about Taurangi, her jewellery work that embodies Māori values of honour.
A Shanghai lei over: the plastic jewellery of Lauren Simeoni - Katharine Ahern follows the debut Lauren Simeoni's plastic leis into China.