Sandy Dann chats with John Miller about his 'Bring­ing it back to Broome!' exhibition. For the first time since 1984, artist-jew­eller John Miller returns with his icon­ic dis­play of Broome inspired jew­ellery incor­po­rat­ing icon­ic land & seascapes of the North.

John Miller is regard­ed as one of Australia’s lead­ing and most orig­i­nal and cre­ative design­ers of fine jew­ellery. He spe­cialis­es in hand-worked, bespoke ster­ling sil­ver and gold pieces inspired by native flo­ra, fau­na and the ele­ments. He opened Broome’s first jew­ellery shop in 1979, Dampier’s Chest, inspired by the icons of the Kim­ber­ley — lug­gers, pearls and shell­fish, seashells, divers and mer­maids and was the town’s first res­i­dent jew­eller . After 25 years liv­ing and work­ing in Yallingup in the South­west, he returns to Broome with an exhi­bi­tion of his work at Red­bill Stu­dio Gallery from end of June through July.

Mr. Miller’s fam­i­ly his­to­ry also runs deep in the Kim­ber­ley region. His moth­er was best-sell­ing author and his­to­ri­an Dame Mary Durack and his dad was Hor­rie Miller, pio­neer­ing avi­a­tor and direc­tor of Mac­Robert­son Miller Air­lines. MMA was WA’s only com­mer­cial air ser­vice from 1927 to1993, with Hor­rie based in Broome as region­al director.

40 years on from his last exhi­bi­tion and into his 50th year of mak­ing his unique Aus­tralian hand­craft­ed jew­ellery John is bring­ing his jew­ellery back to Broome.