Phill Mason: studio jeweller | Artist

Phill Mason: studio jeweller

Phone: +61 3 6223 3412

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24.01.2022 John’s Fortieth BirthDay Brooch: a loyal client, John, had his 40th last SaturDay, and had previously brought in a magnificent gemmy solid opal to make something with, to commemorate the event. There’s a poignant tale about the opal to narrate: John’s grandfather emigrated from Greece, and another man from the same Greek village also came to Australia; John’s grandfather went to Sydney, but his friend went to Coober Pedy to become an opal miner. Eventually the grandfather go...t some opals from him, and gave them to his wife, John’s grandmother, but they were never set. They were handed down through the family, to John’s mother, and finally to John himself. Finally, turning forty years old, John brought the biggest one in to me to make something with... After consulting together, he decided I should make a brooch, it weighing 18.5 carats, and too big for a ring. That pleased me greatly, because I admire a brooch on a man’s lapel. Now, there was a quandary for me - the shape. Opal cut by miners in the fields is cut to maximise weight, to lose as little as possible, because it is sold by weight from the mines.This results in baroque free-forms, rather than regular geometry. My signature style is with classical geometry, so I was tempted to recut the stone to an oval, and had John’s permission to do so; I would have done justice to the cutting, having won half a dozen awards for designing and working with opals, in the International Opal Jewellery Design Awards, over the past twenty years. But I decided to honour the shape that the family had been familiar with over the generations, even though it would be harder to work with. I chose to mount the stone on a plinth-frame, placing it on a pedestal, so not competing with it, but framing it, which is all that opal frequently needs. I hollow-fabricated the frame as a square, four-sided for John’s forty years, and encircling a wire bearer, thus ‘squaring the circle’. Onto that circular wire I gold-soldered the 22k bezel for the opal, which meant that the opal’s underneath could be viewed as well; an opal’s back should not be hidden. The opal ultimately appeared to float within the frame somewhat. As a further allusion to the squaring of the circle, I captured a rose gold ring in the frame, seen at the bottom, which can rotate: it’s one of my little goldsmith’s affectations, demanding to do, which causes wonder as to how it was done; both the tubular square frame, and the circular gold ring, are completely closed, and capture one another. Isn’t that life... [there’s another view, oblique, in the Comments] See more

21.01.2022 A reminiscence of the now past experience of travel: exactly a year ago I was in Brussels, fortuitously in time for the re-opening of the Wolfers Freres jewellery shop as part of the permanent exhibition of the Hall of Art Nouveau and Art Deco in the Belgian Museum of Fine Art. Philippe Wolfers was an important jeweller and sculptor in Brussels, who commissioned the internationally famous local architect, Victor Horta, to design their building and store: the building is now a... bank, but the store interior, seen in these few pics with Jane, my wife, looking on and behind the counter, is now preserved in the museum, and is the last of Horta's remaining original shop interiors extant, and is installed in approximately the same size hall as the original Wolfers' shop, yielding an authentic feel to the exhibit, but if you look at the historical photo in the Comments below, you'll see that the store was so well-stocked with treasures that it would have been an overwhelming experience, more like a museum than the museum... Travel. Stimulation... Will it be another year before we travel again? Two years...?? Three...?? See more

21.01.2022 Lightning Bolts... Cut-away Orbs... This pair of earrings was brought in by a woman who bought them from an exhibition I had with paintings by the late Greg Hind, over thirty years ago in Burnie. The owner lovingly unwrapped them from separated packets to show me, and have them seen to. Three and four decades ago I was constantly experimenting and developing fun techniques, such as lining the hollow interiors of these with gold-leaf, applied in my version of the traditional s...ign-writer's manner; I was also experimenting with unusual metal-smithing, like inlaying these gold discs into bronze, and hollow-fabricating these lightning motifs from sterling tube, to keep them light... The abstracted geometry of space is a theme I've continuously explored, along with others which seize my imagination concurrently... [Would the lady who owns these please message me... I've found out something more... Ta... ] See more

21.01.2022 'Equinox Sunset': I shot this setting sun glowing gold on the Royal Hobart Hospital, from Salamanca Place, across the wharves, outside my street-front studio/store, on the eve of Equinox. The second photo is of me, aged 15, posing with a gold nugget at Hill End, NSW, in 1965. Back then, gold was $35 an ounce: now it's hovering around $2,000 an ounce, and has risen about 40% since the beginning of COVID in March; ultimately it just keeps rising, so those clients who purchased during Masons' Sale recently did very well indeed...!! Fortunately, Hobart's new hospital has not been greatly called upon during the pandemic. All things being equal, a great public health system is truly gold...

21.01.2022 West Coast Jade Disc: whilst I often make very intricate pieces, sometimes I just let the sublime stone speak for itself, and frame it minimally; this Jade, on the left, I cut very finely and lightly, being only 3.5mm thin, and set it in a very restrained manner, with only a 22k bezel rudely gold-soldered onto a 9k wire, and I've given it a very slightly rustic finish so as not to overwork it; similarly, I finished the Jade to a matte shine, not wanting a glassy look to it. Slightly in contrast, the Lapis Lazuli disc, on the right, which I made a couple of years ago, I finished the setting in a somewhat more refined manner; but in both cases the stone is not competing with decoration. The Tasmanian Jade Disc is new and in stock; the Lapis found a home a long time ago...

19.01.2022 My Wedding Anniversary: what can a jeweller give his beloved wife on their wedding anniversary...?? Something exotic and expensive, rare and racy, might almost be too easy; unsurprising, predictable perhaps, and too readily achievable, given the situation... I know that my wife, artist Jane Giblin, prefers something imbued with meaning, with sentiment and sentience, so to speak, so I gave her two of my single ear studs which I made for myself decades ago, and used to wear wh...en I was a younger man, but haven’t worn for a couple of decades now; I only wear brooches and rings these days. The red one is an uncut Spinel crystal from Burma, which I bezel-set to reveal the lower square pyramid of the crystal, peeping out underneath; I’ve long enjoyed setting shapes by girdling them thus. Such Spinel crystals were scarce to source, I must admit, and their saturated redness rivals Rubies... The blue stud is a small, hand-cut bead of Lapis Lazuli, which I’ve painstakingly riveted with a tiny 22k gold rivet: such a handsome effect, which I used to do a lot, loving the Ancient Egyptian allusion... So: old studs from an old stud...?? Haha, love is love, at any age, and whatever is chosen to to be given is cherished, is charged with childlike gratitude, ever beyond childhood... In the Comments is my snap selfie of Jane and me, comfy in our company, at the Astor Grill last night; perhaps you see the studs she’s wearing...?? See more

19.01.2022 One Pearl: 104 Facets; 28 Pieces of Gold. Like a dark berry under a buttressed cupola of rose, white, and yellow golds, this black drupe looks almost organic and edible in its lusciousness; this intensive concentration of the jeweller's arts is what does it for me, all the way from the integrated designing of the piece; through to the rarely-practiced art of pearl-faceting to accommodate the design; to the minutiae of gold-soldering 1mm granule finials onto the larger body of the work... It's available until some aficionado snaffles it...!!

18.01.2022 In conjunction with my earlier Post this morning, this comparison of Cairngorm from Scotland, and from Tasmania: ours is every bit as good; the pic on the left is from a book I purchased when I visited the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland, and the pic on the right is me holding a chunk from Mount Cameron, Tasmania...!!

18.01.2022 These pearl clasps, which I replace commercial fittings with, might be thought of as Pearl Extenders, as opposed to the Pearl Enhancers which I'm getting a following for: these two are Tasmanian 'Blackjack' Spinel, which I've faceted as checkerboards for a client's strings; good enough to be worn decollete, rather than hidden at the nape, and adding a contrasting note. Of course, they can still be worn with the catch behind the neck, too, presenting an unadorned string at the front...

16.01.2022 A travel memory from two years ago: a poignant tale of loss and largesse, salvage and savagery; ‘The Doves of Pliny’ is the only mosaic whose maker’s name, Sosus of Pergamon, has come down to us from literature; the mosaic survives in the Capitoline Museum, Rome, where I’ve viewed it, but when discovered in Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli, in the C18th, it had a wonderful mosaic border, fragments of which are seen behind glass in the photos I took in the V&A, London; the little sto...ry caption, in photo #2, is worth reading. Another known work by Sosus, also in the Capitoline, is surreally sensational: ‘Unswept House’, simply shows a floor littered with detritus from a feast - bones and discarded filth - depicted lovingly, with shadows, in the tesserae of the mosaic. Sosus was also unusual for using only natural coloured marble, and not coloured glass tesserae also; a purist. I’ll attach a pic of it, and ‘The Doves of Pliny’ (so-called because Pliny described it as the greatest illusionist art extant) in the Comments below... See more

15.01.2022 AS THE SUN SETS EQUAL ON CLOCKS... I once debated flocks of flightless Equinox: we argued, ad hocs, were they shod in sox... or socks... As we flummoxed in phlox and countenanced with clox, responded one, an Equinock: "Is the singular of phlox a phlock?" "I suppose," said I, "taking stox, that the moral of this paradock: Those who love their rox, rock... See more

15.01.2022 The first day of Spring: 'Wattle Day' in Australia, has passed; and this pair of Wattle Drop Earrings has scattered on the wind, gone to festoon a client... Over the years I've made many wattle motif pieces, and have included a couple of past rings in the Comments below; I always design to abstract the motif, rather than try to depict it realistically... A couple of my Wattle pieces have been acquired by the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, which is fitting, given the number of Blackwoods (Acacia Melanoxylon) and related blooms that we have...

11.01.2022 'Galactic Gorget': archival photo from my solo exhibition at Beaver Galleries, Canberra, a quarter century ago; very spacey, with gems set into titanium as comets, saturn, stars, moon and sun; citrine, moonstone, pearl, star diopside, collet-set into pierced, differentially flame-patinated titanium; one of a galaxy of pieces of me out there somewhere in the collectors' cosmos... [I'll post a pic of the full necklet in the Comments below...]

10.01.2022 Cairngorm...!! Both the stone, and the place... Here's another pendant which Tyrus made with a Tasmanian Cairngorm from Mount Cameron, which I faceted; long gone into a loving home now, I'm afraid... And there's my beloved wife, Jane (sporting a Tassie beanie and one of her Hasselblads: photography's one of the arts she practices) when we visited the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland a few years ago, emerging from warmth into frozen conditions - check out the giant thermometer registering exactly zero degrees... The pendant which I posted yesterday went the same day, but I'm busy cutting more of our underrated Tasmanian Cairngorms, as good as any in Scotland...!!

10.01.2022 Cerulean Chalcedony: only one of these remains, the very left-hand drop with the intricate 'circle in squares' signature bail in three coloured golds, so I'm remaindering it at half-price today and tomorrow (Monday and Tuesday); It also has a bespoke catch, which picks up the motif, on the snake chain; a definitive Mason piece. I've photographed it in the Comments below, to show the catch and the original price... Moving on to the next development of this style... Good luck being the one.

10.01.2022 Mount Cameron Cairngorm: another Special on Sale; usually I see more of this rich Tasmanian quartz being bought by Scots visitors than by locals, because their own supplies are exhausted, and they treasure the sultry smokiness of their traditional gemstone, but there are no Scottish tourists currently, so I'm remaindering this big 20+ carat gem which I cut, and which Tyrus set in 18k rose gold in Mason signature geometric annulus style; it was over 2K, but I'm now offering it under a thousand - $990...!! Snaffle it today or tomorrow only at this price...

08.01.2022 Tasmanian Sapphire Pendant: a married couple, John and Sue, came into the studio-store a month ago with a handsome Tasmanian Sapphire pebble, wanting to commission me to cut it, and then goldsmith a pendant for the resultant faceted gem. They were commemorating a wedding anniversary last weekend, and wanted a jewel to mark the significance. The Sapphire rough was a magnificent alluvial water-worn slab of what must have been a large crystal, and showed the typical cross-sectio...n colour-zoning, but with an unusual colour combination of a pink triform in steely blue, in a midnight cobalt border. Despite the apparent 12 x 13mm dimension of the pebble, it was only 5mm deep, limiting the size of any traditional gemstone which could be cut from it. And besides, to cut a traditional sparkler from it would have lost the defining colour zones. I decided that the best recovery from the stone would be served by one of my ‘Quilt Cuts’, with a checkerboard on the crown and the pavilion; this cut would also preserve the unique colour-zoning, not swamping it in scintillation, or losing it in sparkle. The resulting gem weighed almost 5 carats, and served the colouring ideally. The gem only needed framing in a setting, not competing with, and I oriented the shape obliquely, both because it better showed the pink heart of the stone, but also because the diamond shape is more flattering than square-on. I chose to set it in 18k rose gold, in deference to the pink, with white gold highlights, particularly in the shot-balls which separated the gallery under the stone. I’m pleased with the final result: a strong, handsome statement based on the inherent geometry presented by the original rough pebble, cut and set to reveal the subtle beauty within it. And that’s how simply a piece is commissioned and made; some parameters are set by the clients, and then the studio-jeweller is best left to interpret in their signature style. Happy Anniversary, Sue and John...!! See more

05.01.2022 The Renowned MASONS EQUINOX SALE: 25% OFF Fri 18th & Sat 19th; in appreciation for our loyal local clientele, who have carried us through Lockdown, Iso, Closed Borders, and Distancing... We didn't hold one in Spring last year, as I was away in Germany, but no-one's traveling this year, so, all things being equal, access the savings, Friends & Followers, and treat yourself...!! [pictured, my recent Faceted Pearls: big white enhancer, and black pendant; Black & White during equal Day & Night... ]

04.01.2022 Fathers' Day, 2020: I've worked alongside this young man for over a quarter century now: he'll always be a 'young man' to me, but he's a damn fine goldsmith - a master - who I'm very proud of...!!

04.01.2022 A memory shared from five years ago, when I returned to the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, where I had studied the Medici collection of Objets d’Art under an Australia Council grant back in, let me see, 1994; I had spent quite some time there, also at the workshops of the Oppificio Pietra Dura, the museum of hardstones and stone intarsia... I have wonderful catalogues amongst my library, somewhere... This time, Jane, my artist wife, was there to accompany me, and share the splend...ours. A sneaked iPhone glimpse of the awesome Lapis Lazuli exhibition: these figures carved and fabricated from Jaspers and precious hardstones: LAPISLAZZULI - MAGIC BLUE Florence, Palazzo Pitti Silver Museum - From June 9 to October 11, 2015 An exhibit dedicated to this fascinating blue stone that, since Renaissance, has been evoking highly meaningful symbols. The lapis lazuli - that comes from the far East - has been always considered one of the most precious stones in the world, like gold and silver, and has always represented in the collective imagination the deep blue sea or the blue starlit sky. This extraordinary vase collection, expression of the Florentine Mannerism, is focused on both the artistic and the mineralogical side of these wonderful artifacts, that first Cosimo I dè Medici began to collect, later followed by his successors. See more

02.01.2022 Okay, a year ago exactly, I was in heaven: we (my artist wife Jane Giblin and I) were in Germany specifically to join in the celebration for the Centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus, in 1919; there were a number of important exhibitions in Berlin, Leipzig, Weimar, and Dessau, with new museums opening that September. ‘Original Bauhaus’, in the Berlinische Galerie, was the first of these we visited, and was full of original objects, work exercises, and records: and these el...ectric kettles are part of the innovative history of the Bauhaus design influence, and particularly resonate with me because, in another life, dear Friends and Followers, I had a restaurant/tea rooms for six years, from 1977 to 1983, called ‘The Electric Jug’, in Burnie, before I became a studio-jeweller; the electric jug was an Australian invention, and only licensed in a very few countries because if you put your finger in the water whilst it was on, you’d electrocute yourself, which is why they were designed to only accept the plug when the lid was closed...!! I had a magnificent collection of those 1930’s Art Deco pottery electric jugs, with their dapple-splash glazes on show back then, but they went with the business when I sold it. I had studied the Bauhaus in Fine Arts at Sydney Uni prior to all that, and it has informed my designing over the decades as a jeweller and metalsmith ever since. So, I was thrilled to see these Bauhaus handmade electric kettles from the early days in the history of electrical appliances, combining two aspects in my career history... See more