Arts
Joan Brown, Shell Necklace Maker
It shimmered. I don’t remember anything else about the exhibition in Hobart, but I was struck by the beauty of the shell necklace and made a mental note of the maker – Joan Brown, Cape Barren Island. About a year later, I flew to the Bass Strait island to see her.
Joan grew up as a member of the Aboriginal community on Cape Barren and as a girl collected the tiny shells the women in her family needed to string into necklaces. She didn’t know then that she would become a key figure in keeping the Tasmanian Aboriginal tradition alive; not just keeping it alive, but breathing new life into it at a time when few women still had the knowledge and skills required.
When we met, her only adornment was a gold wedding band. She didn’t like jewellery, she told me, and never wore any of the exquisite necklaces she made. “I just call them shells,” she said matter-of-factly. “Other people call them necklaces.”