We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Juliet Ames a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Juliet , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I have always been a quiet rule follower, so when I took the leap into making street art in Baltimore, no one was more surprised than me.
I have been charmed by the bright yellow wooden boxes scattered around Baltimore in the winter since I was a child. They exist so that residents can sprinkle salt on the sidewalks when it gets icy outside. I remember getting excited for snow days when I saw the first box of the fall arrive on my street with the letters “SALT BOX” stenciled on the front. I’d daydream about the hot chocolate and snowmen to come. Although they are safety yellow, most people barely notice them. They are just quiet supporting characters in city life.
In my daily art practice, I work with recycled china. I had a short obsession with cutting letters out of china to frame. Customers would order their last name or sometimes a naughty word written in what looked to be a grandmother’s china. That’s when the idea of cutting the letters SALT BOX out of recycled china came to me! The issue was that I was afraid I would get in trouble for damaging city property. So I settled on just mounting the letters onto a bright yellow piece of plywood. Spring was coming, and the boxes would soon be picked up for storage, so I hung the panel in my studio for a year.
Fast forward to the pandemic. 2020 was an extremely difficult year. The salt boxes were looking a little sad, as the Baltimore Department of Transportation was hit hard with COVID-19 and was very understaffed. I worried that this would be the end of my beloved salt boxes. Then one morning on the way to my studio, I saw a sad little box on the corner, in front of temporarily closed restaurants, without her letters! In that moment, I knew what to do. I had to hang the panel and hopefully bring a little joy to the neighborhood.
The next morning, armed with four screws and a drill, I hung the panel, took a photo, and rushed off to work, praying I wouldn’t get in trouble. I posted the photo on Twitter, saying, “Someone must have defaced the salt box!” Just a few hours later, it got the Department of Transportation’s attention. They replied that they loved it and challenged artists to decorate more! What followed was an art movement that involved over 200 artists, along with local and national news coverage, including Good Morning America and The New Yorker. New salt box art is still popping up six years later!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have been breaking plates to make jewelry and art for 20 years. It all started when I was fresh out of college and looking for a project to do. I decided I would mosaic my mailbox with a few plates that I collected from the thrift store. After that project was finished, I still had a ton of shards leftover so I soldered my favorite into a necklace and wore it to work at a local arts non-profit the next day. I instantly got orders and the director suggested I add them to the gift shop! I collected and broke more and more plates until it became my full time job. Now, the greatest part of my job is working on custom orders with my customers sentimental plates. People send me accidentally broken family treasures so I can make the whole family something with the shards. I also make custom wedding jewelry with my customer’s wedding china! I feel wholesale to shops across the country including some museum shops.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My focus is mostly making art out of things that were once discarded. Making art out of damaged or unloved donated items. My work is both an act of preservation and of transformation: honoring the past while creating something new and wearable.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I get so much joy out of helping my customers feel better about their clumsiness. A lot of people find me because they feel awful about accidentally breaking a dish that they have shared many memorable meals on. Instead of just throwing it away, they can get something wearable to remember the memories forever.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ibreakplates.com
• Instagram: thebrokenplate_jules
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheBrokenPlateCo
• Twitter: theBrokenplate

Image Credits

Portrait photo: Christopher Myers
Everything else: Juliet Ames