I was thrilled this year to receive an invite to exhibit at the Interpretations IIII exhibition at Object Gallery.

The exhibition is curated by Andrew Simpson of Vert Design, every two years a group of Sydney based designers are asked to create work with a selected material or manufacturing process, past exhibitions have included glass, sheet metal and sand casting, this year's theme is stone.

For my contribution I've been exploring the way we value gemstones in jewellery making. Underground, all stone is of equal value, but above ground we invent imaginary check-boxes such as rarity, clarity, and level of perfection which we use to determine value. Why are some stones drastically more expensive than others? Because we say they are.

The question is, can we then increase the price of cheaper materials by inventing a higher perceived value? To explore this an entirely new material was created 'Spice Stone', fabricated from compressed pepper, paprika, turmeric and cinnamon.

Spice is one of the worlds oldest commodities and was once more valuable than diamonds, and like diamonds in jewellery spice in cuisine represented ultimate luxury. Today however it's yet another cheap supermarket commodity. In this collection the pieces attempt to momentarily reinstate the value of spice, simply by calling it a precious stone.

Silver settings fabricated by:

Marina Antoniou (settings for fragmented ring an pendant)

Roni Judge (settings for gemstone rings)

Both of which are amazing local jewellery makers who I find incredibly inspiring. This being my first jewellery adventure there were lots of questions to ask, so thanks to you both. I couldn't have done it without you!