The Reality of Being a Handmade Jeweller in Melbourne

“It's a dying trade, I think. In Melbourne we're pretty lucky that we have a lot of jewellers, but I don't think it's so prevalent everywhere else.”

At the bench

Adam Nash Coleman is a jeweller, "pretty much", as he puts it. He makes jewellery and accessories in silver, by hand, under the name Camp Nash Silver Goods. His work takes its cues from Native American jewellery and Western design, and everything is built at the bench: wedding bands and signet rings, belt buckles and bolo ties.

He works from home, and he likes it that way. Some of his methods, he admits, probably aren't the textbook ones. "There's probably things I'm doing in a much easier way," he told me, "but it works for me."

Giving it a crack

The idea of being a jeweller came from his mum. She used to put it in his head, and he would brush it off. "I always was like, 'Oh, you just want free jewellery.'"

He was making little bits and pieces while he was studying. Adam started studying in 2017, did two years of uni, and at the end of 2018 he started the business. He was about 29, and he knew he didn't want to stay in the job he was in forever. "I decided to give something a crack, and that made sense at the time."

The thinking behind it was simple. A lot of what he liked to wear could only be bought in the States. "I thought if I can make the things that I love and make them accessible here, then maybe people will buy it." More than anything, though, he wanted the work itself. "I really just wanted to be at the bench making jewellery."

He also had people around him. "I had a pretty good network around me anyway. I got really lucky there." A lot of them were skaters, a crowd he describes as pretty into fashion.

Belt buckles and bolo ties

Ask Adam what he likes making most and the answer comes quickly.

“If I could make belt buckles all day, I'd be very happy.”

He showed me two of his own. They are his favourite things to make, with one catch. There is probably about a thousand dollars' worth of silver in a buckle now. "You don't just make it hoping that it'll sell."

Then there are the bolo ties with silver tips, which he loves doing too.

Trial and error

A lot of what Adam knows he worked out himself. He talks about seeing something, not knowing how it was done, and figuring out a way. "Chucking it in the vice with a file and being like, 'Okay, I think that's how you do it.' Whatever works."

That process is where he gets a lot of his joy. He likes putting his own twist on things, the little touches that make a piece his. "I love it when people ask me, 'How did you do that? How did you get that in there?'"

Smells like eggs

He showed me one of those finishing steps. He boils the kettle and uses liver of sulphur, which he describes as pretty much a gardening product. It turns silver black, and it happens in about 30 seconds. He fishes the pieces out with chopsticks. He doesn't know why he started using chopsticks, he just did. The pieces come out black, and the smell is like eggs.

Then he polishes them up. The high points go back to silver, the recesses stay black, and the detail stands out. "It just makes it pop," he said. "It's nice."

Keeping it personal

Adam has no plans to build an empire. He likes being a sole trader and the only one doing the work.

“I think it keeps it personal.”

"I really don't have goals for it to grow into some global business or anything like that," he said. He likes working from home, and doing it for the passion.