They have belts of
shellwork slung across their shoulders, and are armed with bows and arrows, and flint-headed spears.
Several "waganga," recognizable by their badges of conical
shellwork, came boldly forward.
Shellwork grottoes, produced from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries in several countries, including England, featured patterns composed by careful selection and arrangement of shells, coral, rocks, and fossils.
In contrast to the multicoloured naturalistic plant motifs, the silver conch-shells or rocailles (the scalloped
shellwork or rockwork that gave the rococo style its name) emphasize the plant motifs' plasticity and painterly effect.
In this article, the example of
shellwork (sometimes also referred to as shell-art) is used as a case study to explore some of the ways in which making decorative objects could contribute to the economic livelihood of Aboriginal women living on small reserve settlements in New South Wales.
Mary Delany (also known as Mary Granville and Mary Pendarves--she was twice widowed) left "a formidable body of work in the media of oil painting, drawing, plasterwork,
shellwork, featherwork, japanning, needlework, paper-cuts, and paper collages" depicting flowers in precise scientific detail, in addition to her voluminous correspondence and an unpublished novella (1).
It is decorated with dense
shellwork patterns, featuring local shells, that cover the entire area of walls and ceiling."
From picassiete (break up old china and create motifs to add beauty to tables, walls, kitchen counters and more) to shard art (a free-form style that can incorporate almost anything into images) to
shellwork (a distinct skill that can add splendor to box lids, picture frames and more), Beyond The Basics Mosaics describes techniques with explicit instructions, full-color photographs, tips on coloration, design and array, and much more.
This ritual function and meaning of light, bright, and white material culture,
shellwork in particular, may with confidence be projected far back into prehistory, as can the contrastive-complementary functions and meanings of black and red material culture.