Pixel Tracking

Wrapped in Wire

Date: 01-09-2022
Success Story

 

Phil Humphreys

Over the years Phil Humphreys has dabbled with a number of mediums of artistic expression. He started drawing at a young age and in his early 20's discovered juggling as a creative career path.
 
Phil performed and taught at various venues, including schools, around Australia and abroad. This journey led Phil and his partner to Byron Bay where they opened a circus shop. “It was there that I met a French backpacker at the markets who was selling wire wrap pendants, and I was drawn to the craft for its artistic diversity,” Phil says.
 
In 2017, on an overseas trip, Phil bought himself a wire wrapped pendant from a backpacker living in Cambodia. He then landed in Vancouver for a few months, where his partner started working in a bead store. One day she brought home some wire knowing that he had wanted to learn the craft.
 
Phil says, “I spent the next day reverse engineering the pendant that I had bought in Cambodia. I picked up tips and tricks from the few YouTube tutorials that existed at the time. I began experimenting with different styles and analysed as many wire wraps as I could find on Instagram. I always kept an eye out for any work in progress pics to try and understand more steps of the process.”
 
Once Phil understood the basic concepts of wire wrapping, he began to look at each piece not only as wearable art, but as a puzzle to solve. “There are so many ways you can set a crystal using wire and I started discovering new, creative and artistic ways to serve practical functions within each piece,” Phil says excitedly.
 
When Phil returned to Australia, jewellery-making was at the forefront of his creative endeavours. He started collecting rare, high-end crystals to put into his pieces and to sell individually. He continued to grow his craft, and he learned silversmithing skills to incorporate into his work as well.
 
These days Phil works from his Brisbane-based home studio and has established a very respectable online following under the name ‘Gemmatic’.  He also is a regular at gem shows and festivals.
 
About the future, Phil says “I plan to create some online tutorials to pass on the skills I have developed. I am always evolving my style and learning new techniques to improve my craft and open new doorways to share my creativity with the world.”

Connect with Phil:

Website
Facebook
Instagram

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