Cinnamon Lee, 2025 MAKE Award winner

Host Lisa Cahill meets with the winner of the 2025 MAKE Award, metalsmith and jeweller Cinnamon Lee. Cinnamon tells us about her hybrid practice combining jewellery and lighting, the intricate process of making her winning work Noctua, and the hidden meanings embedded throughout the piece.

You'll hear from judges Brian Parkes and Simone LeAmon on what made Cinnamon's work a prize-winning piece.

Sydney-based artist Cinnamon Lee is trained as a gold and silversmith, creating wearable objects in the form of jewellery and non-wearable objects in the form of lighting. Her practice is characterised by meticulous hand-crafted detail, hidden elements, and a fascination with creating "more than meets the eye." Lee has been a practising artist for 30 years, having studied and taught at the Canberra School of Art's Gold and Silversmithing workshop.

Guests

• Cinnamon Lee, metalsmith and jeweller
• Brian Parkes, CEO at JamFactory, Adelaide, South Australia
• Simone LeAmon, inaugural curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture at the National Gallery of Victoria

Show highlights and takeaways

[00:03] Secrets and hidden beauty

"Everybody likes a secret."

Cinnamon Lee introduces her philosophy on jewellery and the personal relationship between object and wearer. She discusses her practice of hiding gemstones – sometimes partially, sometimes completely – inside rings and other pieces.

[02:54] A young metalworker

Cinnamon describes how she discovered metalworking at age 17 through Enmore Design Centre, where her mother was teaching.

"Once I was in that workshop it was like I'd found my calling, which I feel really fortunate about because it happened quite quickly."

She spent the next decade studying and eventually teaching at the Canberra School of Art's Gold and Silversmithing workshop with Johannes Kuhnan and Ragnar Hansen.

"It completely changed my life, that workshop."

[04:47] Cinnamon's practice

Cinnamon explains that she creates both wearable objects (jewellery) and non-wearable objects (lighting), often using very precious materials.

[00:05:12] Winning the 2025 MAKE Award

Lisa congratulates Cinnamon on winning the MAKE Award, biennial prize for innovation in Australian craft and design.

"It feels especially meaningful given that I am now marking the 30th year of being a practising artist. So to have this recognition by the craft and design community is very special."

Cinnamon reflects on her long relationship with the Australian Design Centre, dating back to her first exhibition as a student in 1995 at the Crafts Council of New South Wales Space in the Rocks, Sydney.

[06:44] Noctua: the winning work

Lisa asks about the meaning of Noctua, and Cinnamon explains it's the genus name for a cutworm, a type of nocturnal moth, with the Latin translation meaning Little Owl.

The object is a hybrid creation – a slender standing lamp made of stainless steel, just over one and a half metres tall, with a cylindrical head containing the light source.

But it holds secrets:

"As well as being a lamp, it also contains a wearable brooch. So the wearable...