Gerard Wollaston

Up high on the tenth floor Gerard Wollaston creates miniature works of art, with every piece designed to reflect the individuality of its wearer.

Gerard does not call himself a jeweller, he is more than that, yet he was born to create. As a kid, Gerard says, “I was always playing around with bits of jewellery, going to trash and treasures and doing crazy stuff. Then when I was about 12, my grandmother said, ‘why don’t you think about becoming a jeweller?’ And it was like, the big beam from heaven. Wow, you can do that?”

His path moved from TAFE student to apprentice to professional then business owner. Gerard Wollaston launched ten years ago in The Dymocks Building, which he chose for its “happy position.”

What Gerard loves doing is, “custom made pieces for people who have some idea, or no idea of what they want, creating something for them that fulfills their needs and generally goes a little bit beyond what they had considered.”

How he arrives at the end result is an intriguing process, saying “it all starts with a kind of therapy session. Tell me about all these aspects of the person who will be wearing the piece. Generally, you will find that people do have some idea of what they want but don’t know how to get there. The process crystallizes it.”

Gerard spends a lot of time in his imagination, with nature being a powerful inspiration. This is not about bling. “Bling is boring,” says Gerard, “it’s about weaving things together and creating stories that are yours.Customers trust me and having collaborated on the design, they are anticipating something wondrous, but the response is delight.”

Luckily for his customers, Gerard says that, “my passion and enthusiasm borders on obsessive compulsion that it just has to be right. If it takes an extra hour or extra day to make that little bit of difference, to take it from being a piece of jewellery to a work of art, I will take that step every time.”