Notes from Broome on pearls, Mookaite and rediscovering the colours of home.
I came to Broome with pearls on my mind.
They have always been one of my favourite materials to work with, and coming north to source them felt like an opportunity to reconnect with something that has been woven through my jewellery for years.
Broome has a way of making you pay attention.
The red earth. The impossible blue of the Indian Ocean. The old buildings of Chinatown. Pearls and shell. Ochre, rust, cream and dusty pink appearing everywhere you look.
And then, one afternoon, I looked down.
The Colours Beneath My Feet
Walking through Broome's historic Chinatown, outside Sun Pictures, I stopped to photograph the ground.
Sun Pictures has stood on Carnarvon Street for more than a century. The building dates back to 1903 and began screening films in 1916, eventually becoming recognised as the world's oldest operating open-air cinema.
But on this particular day, it wasn't the cinema that first caught my attention.
It was the colours beneath my feet.
Ochre. Burgundy. Dusty pink. Mustard. Cream.
They instantly reminded me of Mookaite.
The paving itself isn't something I'm claiming to be Mookaite. It was simply the colours that stopped me.
They were the colours of a stone I've loved and worked with for years.
And once I noticed them, I seemed to see Mookaite everywhere.
In the pindan earth. In Broome's old streets. In the changing afternoon light. In the deep reds and golds of sunset.
The colours of home.
An Ancient Western Australian Stone
Mookaite is unmistakably Western Australian.
It takes its name from Mooka Station and is found around Mooka Creek in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia, associated with the ancient Windalia Radiolarite.
Its geological story stretches back more than 100 million years.
Over immense periods of time, silica-rich sediments were transformed and coloured by natural geological processes, creating the extraordinary reds, yellows, creams, purples and browns we recognise in Mookaite today.
No two pieces are ever quite the same.
Perhaps that unpredictability is what has always drawn me to it.
One stone can be the colour of red earth. Another almost ivory. Then mustard, dusty rose, burgundy or deep earthy brown.
When I design with Mookaite, I don't want that variation hidden.
It's the point.
An Old Favourite
Mookaite isn't a new discovery for me.
Alongside pearls, it has long been one of my favourite stones to work with, and over the years I've made some really beautiful pieces with it.
There is a richness to Mookaite that I love.
It can feel earthy and raw, yet incredibly luxurious when it's paired with gold. It can be soft and feminine in creams and dusty pinks, then suddenly bold when those deep burgundy and ochre stones appear.
My Mini Gemstone Necklace in Mookaite brings those colours together in one piece.
Every necklace has its own combination. Its own little landscape.
DISCOVER THE MINI GEMSTONE NECKLACE — MOOKAITE →
From the Earth. From the Sea.
There was something beautifully full circle about rediscovering my love of Mookaite while I was in Broome sourcing pearls.
Pearls immediately belong to the sea.
Mookaite looks as though it belongs to the earth.
Yet Mookaite's geological story is tied to an ancient marine environment.
And suddenly these two materials I've loved independently for so many years didn't feel quite so separate.
Earth and sea.
Pearls and Mookaite.
Two very different expressions of Western Australia.
Perhaps that's why I've always been drawn to both.
Looking at an Old Stone Differently
Travel does that sometimes.
You leave looking for one thing and come home thinking about something completely different.
I went to Broome to source pearls.
I came home thinking about Mookaite.
About the pieces I've made with it in the past.
About larger stones. Irregular shapes. Deep burgundy beside soft cream. Mookaite against gold.
And perhaps, inevitably, about Mookaite and pearls together.
I don't know exactly what that will become yet.
And I quite like that.
Because sometimes the best part of designing is the moment before you know.
When an idea has started following you around, but hasn't quite revealed itself.
Broome reminded me why I've loved this extraordinary Western Australian stone for so long.
And I know one thing.
I'm not finished with Mookaite yet.
Tania x
