WHEN Peter and Chelly Gray met as young ceramics students in 1991, they were determined to make a living as full-time artists.
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But they never thought the material that would bring them success would be rusty wire.
“We found some wire and made a birdcage, and somebody saw it and said ‘wow you should take that to a gallery’.
“We did, and it just went from there."
Peter and Chelly make art from recycled metals: birds nests, candelabras, wall features, chandeliers, and bird cages, amongst others.
Their work has been celebrated in galleries at home and abroad - in 1998, they had 60 pieces exhibited at New York’s Guggenheim Museum.
Not long after the Guggenheim success, Peter fell ill and suffered seizures for two years.
“Life changed,” Peter says.
“We weren’t sure straight away but then when I got better we decided what we want is to have our own gallery and have our own exhibitions and build it up for ourselves.
“And it was a good thing, because I wouldn’t want to drop dead at 60.
“Now we enjoy the contact we have with people coming through, and the enjoyment they get from our place."
Peter says visitors often remark on the tranquillity of the Castlemaine garden and studio where they have lived, worked and exhibited since 2003.
Their new exhibition Vegie Patch is a part-playful, part-practical display of garden-themed objets d’art.
But their biggest art piece, Peter says, is the place itself, transformed from a treeless paddock.
It embodies their way of living: art as a continuum of life.
“Our work is our life - we don’t have a break between life and art," he says.
Vegie Patch opens today at the Shades of Gray gallery, corner Farnsworth and Brown Streets, Castlemaine. The exhibition runs from November 2 to 10, 10am – 5pm (closed Wednesday November 6).