Bottle Star — Reclaimed Glass Jewellery

Originally developed in collaboration with Saje Natural Wellness
2025
Reclaimed glass, resin / wearable objects

Bottle Star began with a simple material question: what new value could be created from a familiar object at the end of its intended life?

The project originated through a collaboration with Saje Natural Wellness, using their distinctive brown glass product bottles as raw material. The bottles were cleaned, kiln-shocked and crushed into glass aggregate before being combined with resin and formed into earrings and necklaces.

As the process developed, I began expanding the material palette beyond Saje bottles, incorporating reclaimed liquor bottles and discarded picture-frame glass. Different sources introduced their own colours, textures and characteristics, turning an initial collaboration into a broader investigation of glass as a reclaimed artistic material.

The crushed glass remains clearly visible within each finished piece. Rather than disguising its origins, the process allows fragments of the previous object to become part of the new object's visual language.

While the finished pieces sit within the tradition of fine craft and wearable art, Bottle Star reflects a broader thread within my practice: using material experimentation to reconsider the perceived value of discarded materials.

The project became an early exploration of an approach I continue to carry into larger artworks and installations: beginning with an existing material stream, understanding its physical properties and limitations, and allowing experimentation to reveal what else that material might become.