Louanna Williams

Louanna Williams comes from Santa Teresa Community which is approximately 1 hour from Alice Springs in Central Australia. Louanna crafts jewellery using Ininti Seeds and Gumnuts found throughout the desert in Central Australia.

Jewellery making can be a painstaking activity that requires immense patience and time. Louanna collects all the seeds by hand and this can take hours to collect hundreds of seeds and nuts. Her final products are crafted using traditional jewellery making practices. First of all once she can collected the seeds, she will dry them out and then heat a piece of wire to pierce the centre of the seed in order to thread string or wool through. She also uses hot wire to create markings on the larger Gumnuts using traditional iconography such as Emu tracks. Louanna will also paint some of her seeds.

Traditionally both men and women would wear necklaces and other jewellery during ceremonies which relate to sexuality and fecundity.