Drought vessel
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- Place made
- Gray Street Workshop, South Australia
- Medium
- sterling silver
- Dimensions
- 12.5 x 24.5 x 23.0 cm
- Credit line
- Rhianon Vernon-Roberts Memorial Collection 2011
- Accession number
- 20113A20A
- Signature and date
- Impressed "JB" to base, not dated.
- Media category
- Metalwork
- Collection area
- Australian decorative arts and design
- Copyright
- Courtesy Julie Blyfield
- Image credit
- Photo: Grant Hancock
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A leading Australian craftsperson, Adelaide-based jeweller and metalworker Julie Blyfield (b.1957) is renowned for her use of the traditional techniques of chasing and repoussé to produce delicate works of jewellery, objects and vessels that reference local Australian plant specimens. Often drawing on collected plant specimens found in public collections, her practice involves deep research and documentation of collected specimens. Blyfield has practiced for over thiry years and in that time has worked closely with various natural history and decorative arts collections in South Australia and internationally.
In 2007, Blyfield was the feature artist for the South Australian Living Artists' (SALA) Festival with a monograph written by Stephanie Raddock and Dick Richards. In this publication, Richard's explored the connection between Blyfield's practice and the traditions of colonial South Australian metalwork and jewellers. He describes how her Margaret's pressings brooch, 2007 (20172A47A) was made using techniques similar to those used by the colonial gold- and silversmith, Julius Hogarth (1821-1879). In this work, by Blyfield, Australian flora has been interpreted with attention paid to the unique textures and detail of collection specimens, pressed by archaeologist Margaret Nobbs (1925–2014; her late partner Chris Nobbs’s aunt).
An avid gardener herself, Blyfield's practice is environmentally conscious as is her life which is deeply entrenched in the natural world.
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Julie Blyfield is a South Australian craftsperson and metalworker who makes contemporary jewellery and vessels. Blyfield draws on South Australia’s nineteenth-century gold and silversmithing traditions, which utilised Australian flora and fauna in elaborate centrepieces and jewellery. She sees her work as an extension of this history, taking inspiration from historic botanic specimens across South Australia’s landscapes, as well as plants and flowers she has collected herself. Her work with plants enables her to observe human interactions with the natural world and comment on issues of drought, extinction and environmental destruction. Primarily working in gold and sterling silver, Blyfield uses the techniques of oxidisation, chasing and repoussé to create delicate and detailed works.
Drought vessel, 2009, is constructed from finely chased silver leaves, which form an open vessel. The permeable nature of Blyfield’s vessel means that it cannot hold water and represents her response to the parched Australian landscapes of the millennium drought.
Rebecca Evans, Curator of Decorative Arts & Design
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[Journal] Articulate.
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[Book] AGSA 500.