It’s been a month of glittering prizes at the Thyregod household in Oatley.
Jeweller Gary Thyregod has just won the 2017 Awards for bridal category for a wedding ring made of gold and diamonds.
And his son, Hugh has won two awards from the Jewellers Association of Australia’s 2017 Australasian Jewellery Awards including Apprentice of Year.
Gary Thyregod has been a jeweller for 35 years and has his own bespoke jewellery workshop and studio in the city.
He designs handmade individual jewellery working with diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other precious stones to create unique pieces.
His jewellery has won the De Beers Diamond Facets Award in 195, Harper’s Bazaar Diamond Guild of Australia 2007 and Harper’s Bazaar in 2011.
The Jewellery Design Awards were presented at the 2017 International Jewellery Fair held at the new International Convention Centre at Darling Harbour last month.
Gary won for his design Tie the Knot, a bridal ring of diamonds set in gold and done in the shape of a knot.
“The ring consists of two large marquise-cut diamonds at each end of the ring and the centre of the ring is pave set which graduate in colour from light to dark,” Gary sai.d
“This was one of my own designs and took about 60 hours to make. I hand-carved the ring in a wax form and from that wax I did a one-off casting.”
Gary’s son, Hugh, who has just finished his apprenticeship in Jewellery Design at the TAFE Design Centre at Enmore, won in the Jewellery Association of Australia’s 3rd and 4th year Design and Craftmanship Award, as well as Apprentice Student of the Year award.
Hugh won for his design Undergrowth, a bracelet in silver and gold.
The inspiration for the bangle was from the bark of a tree he saw in a park.
The work took 100 hours to make and was a combination of hand-carving in a wax format and and 50 per cent hand-made.
Hugh is currently working in a jewellery design workshop in Denmark and will return home to work alongside in father in their city design studio.
Gary said that it is fantastic that Hugh is carrying on the family tradition of jewellery design.
“It takes a lot of patience to be a good jeweller. The precision of making jewellery is a hard thing to master,” Gary said.
“You need the motor skills to make the pieces, an accurate hand, and artistic eye.
“Hugh is much more of a natural.
“The aesthetic eye develops over time and he already has a lot of that in place. And he’s only going to get better.”