When the creative couple featured in today’s story first met they were studying ceramics & sculpture at university in Bendigo. They fell in love and decided to set up a ceramics workshop together. As CHANCE would have it, they bought a timber rack for the workshop at an auction and “stuck on the rack was a roll of rusty wire”, which they twisted into a curly bird cage and sent to The Convent Gallery Daylesford, who loved it! It was then that Shades of Gray was born & so-named because the art they create together is neither just Peter’s work nor just Chelly’s; Shades of Gray is very much the result of shades of their shared talents, energy, VISION & passion.
Just 4 years later, and the Guggenheim Museum had put in an order for 66 pieces! Voila! Shades of Gray was up and away! Fast-forward sixteen years and the talented husband + wife duo are renowned wire-artists!
Chelly + Peter source recycled metal & wire bits ‘n’ pieces for their art including fencing wire, pressed tin panels, fly-wire screens and corrugated iron. Among the finished pieces they create are candelabras, mirrors, wall features, chandeliers, bird houses, bouquets, baskets, bird nests, garden & house signs, metal arbours, outdoor sculptures, tables and chairs as well as consignment pieces. Peter + Chelly also have an AMAZING wirework collection – many pieces are functional as well as decorative – that they source from all around the world and across the decades and use as inspiration.
Perhaps most amazing of all is the setting the couple have created (from scratch!) to display their iron art work & collection: a MAGICAL garden and adorable cottages nestled on a hillside overlooking the township of Castlemaine, including two galleries and a studio the couple built from scratch with recycled materials and in keeping with an 1860s miner’s cottage they restored as their private home.
Being self-sufficient, being able to make the wire-art pieces they feel inspired to make and being able to sell them from their home-based studio-galleries at Shades of Gray is exactly where Peter + Chelly planned to be when they started out two decades ago – and anyone who’s self-employed and/or an artist will appreciate the drive, passion, self-belief, vision and sacrifices such a journey takes; perhaps most challenging of all is having the courage and belief to hold true to creativity before commercialism & quality before quantity.
In their own words, Peter + Chelly can be found most days “hard at work in their gallery, amongst the tin snips, wire cutters, pliers and welders, or the garden with their gorgeous Great Dane, Coco.” Enjoy! x
Peter + Chelly Gray
Shades of Gray
Cnr Farnsworth & Brown Streets
Castlemaine, Victoria
t: 0409 189 964
ach!!!! gdyby te ważki mogły przelecieć przez Atlantyk:)))
Love everything :) especially the photo with the wall with all the wire objects
Oh, thank you The Joy Of Colour! Peter + Chelly are truly amazingly talented folks. x Danielle
OMG….you’re pieces are absolutely stunning!! I just happened to cross a posting on Pinterest of your huge wire collection (which I’ve had fantasies of learning the age old craft!!) and once I got to your site, my jaw dropped!! I LOVE “Shades Of Gray’s” story, of its creation, collaboration & dedication over the years. It’s so inspiring to hear of people following their passions and using their creativity for such beautiful pieces of art. And now how I wish I could have one of your huge flowering bouquets in MY yard! Someday…..
I like your work and the looks of your studio!