This sterling silver brooch studded with seven diamonds is a distillation of sunshine sparkling off smoky quartz crystals scattered across a claypan. A feature of the rangelands in western NSW, claypans are small patches of bare, flat ground typically covered in stones.
Artist Kate Gardiner has created this blackened, lightly textured brooch as a love token to her favourite pastime of looking for crystals that can be found among the stones across claypans, and the reverse side of the brooch is engraved with the geohash (r4rsvu8k61tkc) for Cobar where Kate spent her formative years. When pinned near the heard of the wearer, this brooch becomes a sparkling representation of Kate’s love for the people practicing Regenerative
Agriculture, such as holistic land management, towards repairing biodiversity in the
rangelands both in Australia and around the world.
Materials: Sterling silver, diamond
Dimensions: 31mm x 22mm
Kate Gardiner’s 'Rangelands Revealed' project combines the artist’s contemporary jewellery practice, knowledge of Australia’s rangelands and respect for the people who live there, as well as her creative writing.
The rangelands land type include savannas, woodlands, shrublands, grasslands and wetlands. Across these regions people are working to repair the environment through consultation with First Nations People, and innovative, critically informed practices.
Kate’s range of sterling silver, silk and gold jewellery draws upon the formative aesthetic influence this environment had on her during time spent in western NSW. Every piece is infused with elements unique to the rangelands, from curved sandstone ridges to the bark of the ngarrkaray (Pilaarrkiyalu language)/Leopardwood tree, to the bright spots of gold in the wide starry sky. The coloured silk borders suggest the red soil, the vast blue skies, the pink feathers of galahs, or the golden tan of the stockworkers’ kelpie collaborators.
Kate is an Australian maker based on Ngunnawal country, Canberra.
