Blue Salt Jewellers A RARE GEM WORDS BY ANITA BUTTERWORTH
Joseph Courtenay is a rare gem in the jewellery industry. While the talented jeweller now crafts exquisite pieces from his Inverloch-based studio/workshop Blue Salt Jewellers, he’s been a part of almost every facet of the industry since he was a schoolboy. Growing up in the pearling heartland of Western Australia, the 40-yearold has now come full circle, crafting exclusive jewellery for some of Australia’s most discerning customers. As a teenager in Broome, Joseph was working on pearling boats at just 15 years of age. He went to school with and played sport with the sons of pearl divers, and it seemed his destiny to end up chasing precious gems. “It was just in the blood basically.” For a young bloke, it was a dream come true, “Getting paid to go to all these magical places in The Kimberleys that people pay thousands of dollars to go to. “ After finishing school in year 11, Joseph studied aquaculture part-time, while working on pearl farms as a diver & deckhand, and it’s where he cut his teeth in the jewellery trade. “I was good friends with the showroom manager for the company I worked for and they had a massive fish tank in their store. They asked me to come and set it up, so I was trapping fish when I was out diving and bringing them in to get the tank going. I got talking to the jeweller and he said he needed an apprentice and asked if I was interested. “I thought, there’s always going to be dive work there I’ll give this trade a go. It was a five-year apprenticeship in Western Australia, because it’s quite detailed. And I did a specialised pearl and diamond apprenticeship. So I got the real ins and outs, I did all the setting and all the traditional techniques. I was just really lucky to grow up in an era in Broome when there was some of the best jewellers in the world working there, it was a real pearl hub. It was a real gem hub really. A lot of people travelled there from around the world to buy the pearls and the diamonds and to experience The Kimberleys.”
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After finishing his apprenticeship, Joseph headed to Kuri Bay in the middle of The Kimberleys - home to the first pearl farm set up in Australia, owned & operated by Paspaley Pearls. “I just worked around in the pearling industry, tripped back into the showrooms and the jewellery shops every now and then. I was based between Broome and Darwin and I worked mainly on the fleet boats as a diver. I left the trade for a little while but I always had a jewellery set up at home. I started working in oil and gas and lived in Darwin, where I met my now ex-wife who was from this part of the world.” Joseph made a home with his wife in Inverloch and started a family, and has remained in the town following his separation to stay close to his sons. He opened his own business, Blue Salt Jewellers, in 2017, and has become a sought-after craftsman.
“I’m very unique. I’ve worked in every part of the jewellery trade, in every part of the pearling industry. I’ve worked as a pearl technician, a diver, a decky,on the farms,in hatcheries, in the pearl grading rooms, in the sales’ teams, in the show rooms and as a jeweller . And in doing that I’ve got to meet a lot of really good jewellers, really hands-on craft people. " "I’ve also got connections with opal, sapphire & diamond miners. I deal straight with the sources. I don’t deal in anything other than high value, high-end jewellery & gems. I don’t really even do repairs.” His clientele includes Gippslanders and customers from as far as Western Australia and Queensland. His unique pieces all tell a distinctly Australian story.