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PERFECTLY Imperfec
By Andrea Louise Thomas
R
acing toward perfection dominated much of Mt. Eliza jeweller Jeni Danks early life, but now she takes pleasure in the beauty of imperfection. In her jewellery making practice, she deliberately selects stones that a traditional jeweller might reject. She loves them because their inclusions and tiny imperfections tell a much more interesting story.
Her own life story is quite extraordinary. While she grew up in Melbourne, her parents had a holiday house in Mt. Eliza. Every Friday after school they would pick the children up and head to the Mornington Peninsula for a contrast to city life. Seaside adventures and sailing out from Davey’s Bay Yacht Club were part of family weekends.
By ten, Jeni was skippering her own boat. Sailing gave her a great skillset for life. She learned courage, vigilance and persistence. Reading the weather and looking out for other sailors became second nature. She started to sail competitively in the days before classes were divided into mens and women’s divisions. Prior to that men and women sailed as equals. When classes were divided in 1988, she teamed up with former rival Addy Bucek and the pair of them started racing at World Championships. They went on to compete in the Olympics in Barcelona (1992) and Atlanta (1996). Jeni Lidgett (her maiden name) and Addy Bucek routinely ranked in the top ten virtually everywhere they sailed. It wasn’t just the peaks and troughs of the ocean that Jeni was riding, but the waves of the stock market too. She began her career as an investment advisor. This was in the heady days of the 1980s before, during and after the crash of 1987. It was an interesting time to work in finance. After eighteen years in the market, she decided to leave it behind to focus on her own family. It was then that she and her family moved to Mount Eliza and Jeni started her foray into jewellery making. “It all started with the Mount Eliza acorn,” she says. She had an epiphany standing under the great oak that overlooks their seaside property. She decided then and there that she wanted to make jewellery. The acorn became her first casting and a symbol of a new beginning, but before that she was knotting pearls which, as a yachtie, was a perfect start.
Jeni Danks creating another unique piece of jewellery
E ssence
38 | PENINSULA
October 2019
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