Jewellery Designer
June 28, 2025
SONIA PALLETT’s jewellery is very special, not just because her pieces are wearable emblems of the stories of Country and its People.
It feels like a beautiful responsibility, evidence that what we wear represents not just who we are but what we are.
[Images shown are from TS Publisher’s personal collection. Photographed at Lightning Ridge]
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Pallett uses gentle metals and remnants of nature to express her artistry and connection to Country, currently opals are Pallet’s medium of choice.
TS: Is what you’re doing now what you have always wanted to be doing?
SP: I had always wanted to be in fashion and jewellery making from an early age. I was self taught Jewellery making and then went to Tafe to study to refine my skills.
“Sonia is a descendant of the Kooma Tribe located in the Cunnamulla area of Western Queensland, she grew up on Wiradjuri land in Dubbo, New South Wales.
As an Aboriginal woman she handcrafts jewellery that expresses Indigenous language, culture and stories.”
See more here [Facebook video].
TS: What urges you to create? Seeing the natural and metal OR seeing the vision?
SP: All things make me create, sometimes it’s a feeling. Like when I applied for a market one time, and they wanted to know my connections to different Countries. I ended up making pieces naming them “Connections” as part of my story telling. Other times it is nature and my surroundings.
SP: All things make me create, sometimes it’s a feeling. Like when I applied for a market one time, and they wanted to know my connections to different Countries. I ended up making pieces naming them “Connections” as part of my story telling. Other times it is nature and my surroundings.
Yuwaalaraay Country Lightning Ridge | Opal doublet with sterling silver. Handcrafted earrings representing “Connections”.
Image courtesy of Sonia Pallet.
TS: Why is jewellery special?
SP: It adds zing to everything you wear and what is better than wearable art? Pieces with meaning such as my jewellery are representing my Culture. With Jewellery some say it completes an outfit others say it, jewelry, is the outfit, either way wearing my pieces is definitely a conversation starter.
SONIA PALLETT showed her latest heartwork pieces at the NATIONAL INDIGENOUS ART FAIR in Sydney.
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