Metal & Memory jewelry exhibit to open Nov. 1 at Rehoboth museum

The Rehoboth Beach Museum announced Metal & Memory: An Artistic Dialogue with History, a new exhibition featuring the work of jewelry artist Heidi Lowe, will open Saturday, Nov. 1, at 511 Rehoboth Ave., Rehoboth Beach.

The exhibit showcases Lowe's distinctive approach to preserving community memory through wearable art, transforming historical artifacts from the museum's collection into contemporary jewelry that honors the past while speaking to the present.

Lowe, who grew up in Rehoboth Beach and now owns and operates Heidi Lowe Gallery in Lewes, brings both personal connection and professional expertise to this project. With degrees in metals and jewelry from Maine College of Art and the State University of New York, New Paltz, she has spent her career exploring how jewelry can tell stories and preserve memory, with work reflecting the landscape and people of the Cape Region.

Lowe's work creates a conversation between history and craft, responding to objects ranging from a Nanticoke eel basket and colonial-era buttons to a CAMP Rehoboth groundbreaking shovel and a Funland game pin. Each piece of jewelry serves as both adornment and commemoration, translating cultural memory into wrought metal.

"This exhibition shows our approach to making history relevant and engaging. When visitors see Heidi Lowe's artistic response alongside the original artifact, they're invited into a conversation between past and present. That dialogue helps us think differently about both the historical object and its contemporary interpretation — and ultimately, about how we preserve and honor the stories that matter to our community," said Heidi Nasstrom Evans, museum executive director.

The exhibition explores Rehoboth Beach's layered history, from the Native American people who lived here for thousands of years, through the town's 1873 founding as a Methodist retreat, to its evolution as the Nation's Summer Capital and a welcoming LGBTQ+ destination. Lowe's work bridges these narratives, honoring the community's diversity while acknowledging the complex histories that shaped it.

Lowe’s “Historic Charm” bracelet celebrates Rehoboth's LGBTQ+ heritage with charms representing CAMP Rehoboth, Poodle Beach, the Blue Moon, Baltimore Avenue and the Pink Pony.

“Eels of Abundance,” a sterling silver necklace, was inspired by a Nanticoke eel basket, emphasizing the connection between water and land that sustained the "tidewater people" for millennia.

“Choked” is a powerful response to copper buttons discovered at Avery's Rest, a colonial farm site where recent DNA analysis revealed burials of enslaved Africans. Lowe’s deliberately heavy choker confronts the weight of this history.

“Grid Over Time” is a layered necklace using brass, copper and sterling silver to represent different eras of Rehoboth Beach, from Indigenous presence through the 1873 founding of the Methodist Camp Meeting Ground to today.

For “Round and Round,” Lowe created spinning rondels featuring carnival imagery from Funland, the beloved boardwalk amusement park that has occupied the corner of Delaware Avenue and the Boardwalk since 1939.

“Historic Charm” will be available for purchase through Lowe's Jewelry for a Cause line, with proceeds benefiting both CAMP Rehoboth and the Rehoboth Beach Historical Society.

The museum will offer a metalsmithing workshop with Lowe in the spring.