Gaffa Gallery. 281 Clarence Street, Sydney.

After my weekly German lesson/lunch with my eternally chic grandmother, we ventured away from our all time favorite QVB tearoom and popped into Gaffa’s new digs (well could well be old digs by now but last time i visited they were tucked away on Surry Hills side of Central st). Now housed in beautiful old heritage listed building on Clarence st, a leisurely wonder through the upstairs gallery space (particularly liked Richard Byers sketchy sculptural drawings in Gallery 1 and Kate Dambach’s minimalistic rainbow touches in Gallery 3) was mildly outshone (for me anyway) by the kaleidoscopic little treasure trove of innovative Australian jewellery and object design that is ‘Sterling by Gaffa’; the gift shop!

Well, maybe more of a gallery in itself than a gift shop in the standard ‘museum gift shop’ sense as such, but i am such a museum gift shop fan that i do hope this is taken as complimentary- housing exciting jewellery encounters such as Zoophite’s pastel hued polymer clay necklaces (shown), Natalia Milosz-Piekarska’s captivating pendants; reminiscent of gastronomical delights or curious sea anemones. Polly Van der Glas’s silver and human hair and teeth jewellery… i want one of her tooth rings right now sooo.  bad.  it.   hurts.

Also lovely sales girls who let me style stalk them, and educated me about designer Ted Noten who is like the Margiella of the jewellery world it would seem (here’s an informative write up from Zink mag if you need to educate yourself also!). Of course during all this time poor Grandma got bored and i found her recuperating in the cute little cafe across the arcade… yes you could probably wile away quite some time in this charming space…