I live in the Daintree Rainforest in Far North Queensland Australia.
Originally from Sao Paulo Brazil, I emigrated to Australia with my
family when I was six years old. We lived in Melbourne (St Kilda) for a
time before hopping on board the Orianna and sailing up the east Coast
of Australia to eventually settle in Brisbane. That is where I went to school and
University and worked for a number years teaching life and vocational
skills to adults with an intellectual disability.
Then in 1993 I decided to move to the Daintree Rainforest permanently. I
had been visiting the Daintree regularly since 1984, the year of the
Bloomfield Blockade, and then in 1990 a friend and I bought a block of
land together and built our home. It is nestled in the heart of the
Daintree Rainforest in the foothills of Thornton Peak, a very special
and spiritual place, and, thankfully, now in a conservation zone.
There are many creative people living in this small, almost forgotten
community of Rainforest dwellers and it is little wonder that this area
boasts so many artists. Who could help but be inspired in this beautiful
place. It is a paradise that features not only the oldest Rainforest in
the world, the magnificent Great Barrier Reef is right at my door step
as well.
I made my first piece of jewellery when I about ten years old. The
family had been on holiday by the seaside at Noosa on the sunshine coast of Queensland and I collected some gorgeous
little cone shells that had been washed up at the high tide mark. I
meticulously cleaned them up and my dad helped me to drill them. I
made my mother a bracelet out of these shells threaded onto a piece of
fishing wire. I fashioned a clasp out of wire, again with my Dad's help,
and proudly gave the bracelet to my mum. Like the great mum that she
is, she wore the bracelet whenever she and I went anywhere, at least for
a while, until I made something else, much nicer than that first
bracelet. And you know what, she still has that bracelet in her
jewellery box. It is now 43 years later and I am still making jewellery.
It has evolved and continues to evolve.
I work with a number of mediums, utilising hand made lamp work beads,
semi precious gemstone beads, faceted gemstones, seeds and, yes, I still
use shells on occasion. I love working in Sterling Silver and my
influences at the moment are from Jewellery Artists, like Alexander Calder, who cold connect,
that is, they do not fuse or solder, their work.
I do not cast my silver,
not yet anyway, but I will. There are some ideas floating around in my
mind and I know I will need to utilize a variety of techniques to
achieve the result I want. I am looking forward to that process.
