By Jonty Ralphsmith
Garfield silversmith John White loves a challenge.
He appreciates the methodical process behind his craft and has the patience and resourcefulness to create items tailored to customer demand using his grounding in art to inform his work.
So when a potential customer with arthritis visited a few years ago, unhappy with a wooden splint implanted in her finger to reposition it, he jumped at the opportunity to hand-make a design that would be more visually appealing.
“The customer had seen a picture of a thing in America: a ring that fitted around her finger to pull it back and I had to design it to wrap around and pull her finger back,“ Mr White recalled.
He had to fit it and resize it and edit it to perfect the product: “it’s the sort of job you love,” he said.
Mr White has enjoyed a distinguished career as a teacher, principal and council worker but has always reserved some time to his craft.
Now retired, he recalls his days as an art aficionado at Box Hill Secondary College as being the catalyst for a lifelong hobby.
“I loved art – I could show you my report book which probably shows I didn’t love much else!
“We had a very thoughtful, kind woodwork and art teacher who thought I might have some future and put the form in front of me and said ‘here, you’re gonna become an art teacher’ and that was it – I started off enjoying it generally then specialised.”
When he moved into his current house on a quaint Garfield street eight years ago, he established a workshop in the back shed enabling him to dedicate significantly more time to gold and silversmithing.
Nature is his greatest source of inspiration; he explains that waves formed the inspiration for one of his recent jewels and highlights a red rose that he had seen in his front garden earlier that may inspire a piece of work.
“I love sea and you’ll see in a lot of my designs there’s a wavey line across them and that’s inspired by sand. I love looking at the visual patterns in the sand when the waves go out. Because you’re making visual stuff, you become very attuned to seeing stuff.
“I also look at what people are wearing. My wife gives me a few ideas. I’ll be watching the television, for example, and I’ll just copy them and they give you ideas [by seeing] what’s going on in the world. Lots of new materials in jewellery and one of the problems you’ve got is that there’s so much stuff that comes in from other countries.”
After sourcing inspiration and completing a preparatory drawing, the process can take up to three hours.
When visited by the Gazette, he has an array of his work on display because Covid has reduced his ability to sell. As well as custom-made designs, he provides jewellery to Impodimo Living and Giving in Garfield and lavishes his family, especially wife, Dale, with his work.
Nowadays he prefers working with silver rather than gold to limit the costs. He also emphasised that money has never been an incentive for his creations as his profits are minimal.
“I do it because keeps me busy, I’m doing something that’s worthwhile, visually I find it pleasing. I’m pleased to see a design succeed.”
