THE TRAINING

As a metalsmith, jeweller, lapidary, and stone facetor, Phill is self-taught. Of course, there were many helpful people and books along the way; but as a jeweller, he has had no formal training.

Phill did not become a jeweller until the age of thrity three, after having been a teacher, and a restauranteur. His childhood love of rocks, and his high school enjoyment of metalwork, were both repressed by Ambition. But they ripened darkly and eventually flowered in mature adulthood, leaving Phill, by then with adult obligations, with no choice but to undertake daily exercises in silver soldering and fabrication, if he was to become a jeweller.

Using Australiana gumleaf as a design vehicle, Phill drove his skills to the point where they could be relied upon, and in 1985 re-hung his shingle, in Salamanca Place, Hobart, as a studio jeweller...

The beauty of being self-taught  was that Phill was not taught "what can't be done";  and learning a little later than training is usually undertaken, meant that by then he brought some small richness of experience to bear. In other words, he found he had something to say, and was able to develop his own way of saying it.

WORKSHOPPING THE WAY

Along the way, Phill has been fortunate to take part in a number of workshops, given by notable jewellers, mainly under the auspices of the Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of Australia.

These workshops have included 'Low-Tech techniques' at SH800 Workshop, Java; 'Exploration of Form and Metal Patination', with Michael Rowe; 'Fold-Forming' techniques, with Charles Lewton-Brain; 'Japanese Metalworking' techniques, with Hiroko and Gene Pijanowski; Enamelling, with Jamie Bennet; 'Gold Leafing and Cold-Joining ' techniques, with Bruce Metcalf; and Case-Making, with Penny Carey-Wells.

Phill's four exercises in the exploration of form and patination, a result of the Workshop under Mchael Rowe, covered in Craft Tasmania magazine 1986. "When does an arrangement of elements become a container? The patination is contained in the abstracted base of a 'can'..."

Phill was also fortunate enough to be able to occupy a studio-residency at Lakeside, Michigan, together with Carlier Makigawa, in 1992. This experience enabled him to play with scale, and fabricate pieces of two metres length.

GIVING BACK

It is important to give back to the society that nurtures you.

Phill has made himself available  to serve a number of organisations, which were important to his craft, in an honorary capacity (ie without pay or gain).

These have included ten years on the Board of the Salamanca Arts Centre (1986-96), with the last four of those serving as President, and representative on the State Government Oversighting Committee; President of the Crafts Council of Tasmania, and vice-President of the Crafts Council of Australia; National Chair of the Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of Australia, and Convenor of the International Conference of the JMGA in Hobart, 1997

Phill has also taught Jewellery Fabrication in the Hobart TAFE for a half-decade in the late 'eighties, and continues to teach Gemmology in the Hobart Gemmological Association of Australia.

In 1989-90 Phill was also responsible for a Trainee (Ms Jan Barker); and from 1995 Phill undertook the responsibilities of apprenticing his son, Tyrus.

At the Bench

Because Phill and Ty work before the public, they must restrict their use of machinery, and largely confine their efforts to working by hand at the bench. Fortunately, this suits their interest, which is hand-fabrication, rather than mass production; so, very little use of machinery is called for, anyway.

Phill fabricating at the bench, 1994, before apprenticing son, Tyrus.

The workshop is small and tightly organised, like a refined kitchen, with the wet area, the dust-extracted polisher, and the acid bath all within easy reach, and set before the shop window which separates the workshop from the public. This layout allows viewers to easily follow each stage of the making of a piece, without being able to interrupt the process.

Phill and Ty have a policy of not interacting with the spectators, who are standing facing them, only a meter or two away on the other side of the glass. Rather, they concentrate on the job at hand, absorbed in the process. Once someone has entered the display area, then they are able to engage with them from the side of the workshop.

Apart from the sounds of filing or sawing, or the quiet hiss of the oxy-propane torch during gold soldering, the background is radio music from ABC's Classic FM.

Frequently, however, the peace is broken by laughter and banter between Phill and Ty, as they exercise their keen appreciation of the absurd...

Away from the Bench

Heavier, hotter, or dirtier work than is advisable to perform before the public, is undertaken at workshops away from the studio. This will include tasks as varied as pouring ingots from crucibles, through to swaging or raising hollow-ware, to lapidary processes.

Teaching sometimes takes both Phill and Ty to other benches. Because Phill is a qualified gemmologist, being a Fellow of the Gemmological Association of Australia, he teaches gemmology under the auspices of the Association on occasion. He also taught jewellery design and fabrication in the Hobart College of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) for five years in the late 'eighties.

Tyrus taught silversmithing for a similar period at the Hobart Lapidary Association.

Benchmarks...

A sometimes overlooked reason to be away from the bench is the need to refresh the soul. Often this takes the form of fossicking in the bush and digging agates or the rare petrified manfern of Tasmania. In the summer it is a ritual to seive for sapphires in the abandoned tin mining areas of the North East.

This January (2006, Southern Hemisphere Summer) Tyrus found a sapphire of over 6 carats worth cutting; his biggest yet. [Phill faceted the best sapphire that he has found so far, and Ty set it in a ring he made, for a jointly-given birthday present to daughter/sister Bronte.]

The need to get away and 'wash the eyes' sometimes requires an even bigger break. At such times may be needed a visit to Antarctica; or to seek out an active volcano in Java; or simply to go SCUBA diving in the Great Barrier Reef...

Phill passes an enourmous caverned iceberg on the way to Antarctica aboard the 'Icebird', 1993