Homes

Malcolm Enright and Barbara Heath

Today we introduce the combined home and studio of amazing couple Malcolm Enright and Barbara Heath! From their eclectic Brisbane home, this creative pair run their sculpture and jewellery business, Jeweller to the Lost.

Barbara and Malcolm are well known in Brisbane’s art and design sector. Mal is a communication designer who has curated numerous exhibitions, whilst Barb was honoured by the Queensland Art Gallery with a retrospective exhibition in 2005. Both have sat on the boards of various art institutions, and have contributed to 21 high-profile public art projects between them!

Our Brisbane contributors, Jo Hoban and Mindi Cooke, along with stylist Bianca Pottinger, recently visited Malcolm and Barbara in their home to learn more.

Written
by
Jo Hoban
Supported by Dulux

The view of the front of Malcolm Enright and Barbara Heath house in Brisbane. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

Creative pair and respected Brisbane art and design patrons Malcolm Enright and Barbara Heath in their living room. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

A wall of Australia shapes, artworks and the souvenir spoon collection in the front room. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

Looking to the dining and sitting area from the main living room. The pair of mid-18th century French water-gilded wing back chairs are from Ros Palmer, Sydney, with contemporary embroidered Frida Kahlo cushions from Ellia Lifestyle, Brisbane. Suspended from the ceiling are three of Barbara’s crown guardians that she created for the 2010 exhibition of ‘Tinsmith – an ordinary romance’. The glass cabinets to the right house Mal and Barb’s tea collection. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

Looking across the dining table into the kitchen. Malcolm’s pie funnel collection sits on a shelf underneath the kitchen bench, and part of a large glass collection sits on a suspended shelf above. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

The view from the sitting area across to the main living room, home to numerous clocks, and the entry to Mal and Barb’s bedroom. Some of the Chinese and European blue-and-white porcelain collection is visible in the kitchen. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

Some of Mal’s antique clock collection, including a prized gilded English Rococo timepiece. Mal first became interested in clocks in the early 90s after selling the bulk of his art collection. As a designer, the case and painted dial work intrigued him. And soon with the help of metalsmiths, he also became involved with the movements. He researched intently for a number of years, slowly building up his skills, and even joined a Horology club. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

Barb provides insight into the female sculpture hanging in the master bedroom: ‘We have a very old highland men’s long house bilum hook from New Guinea hanging in our bedroom. The male figure has always been a powerful symbol – a protective overseer. I couldn’t say I love it, rather I acknowledge it as an expression of fierce energy. Recently, an antique female counterpart came into our collection – I think that is significant and I like the way they now hang on either side of the bed creating balance.’ Artworks behind the female figure are a pair of painted pages from c1969 from Ray Hughes Gallery. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

The view across the living room – clocks galore! Malcolm can tell you a unique story about each of his clocks, most of which he has either restored himself or he knows the restorer. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

More clocks on the verandah alcove that comes off the main living area. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

Afternoon light illuminates the clock faces in the main living room as Mal sorts through his collection of vintage Australian stereograms. Stereograms were popular between the 1850s to the 1930s as a medium of home entertainment – two photographs of the same scene were taken at slightly different angles, mounted side by side onto a card, and then viewed through a stereoscope as a three-dimensional image! Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

Vintage Australian stereograms – just one category from Mal’s bountiful ephemera collections. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

Barb at her workbench with her magnifying glasses on, using her hand tools to set jewels into a client’s ring. ‘I’m working on a ring with in a technique which I particularly love. The ring ends up looking like a meteorite; there’s no particular structure to it – it’s an amorphous shape with all the stones crushed into the surface,’ she explains. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

Barb refining a ring design. The designer is constantly inspired by the collaborative commission process and takes great pleasure in working with her clients to apply symbolic meaning to wearable objects.. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

Barb looks through the Jeweller to the Lost cabinet of curiosities in the client area of the studio. This cabinet functions to help inspire clients’ commission ideas and contains collections of: interesting components, found objects, little curiosities such as enamel buttons or lava stone medallions, even workbench off cuts – basically anything that Mal and Barb have collected or purchased over time that inspires them. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

Mal often mans the showroom desk downstairs as he fulfils all the administrative roles of the business, leaving Barb to focus on designing the makes. On the wall behind him is the couple’s beloved ‘Fountain of Youth’ painting which they see as a metaphor for their jewellery business – the painting depicts old women bathing in the fountain and emerging youthful and refreshed, just as Barb might take a tired old piece of jewellery, and rework it into something fabulously contemporary! Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

Writer
Jo Hoban
19th of April 2017

The well-loved Brisbane abode of designer, collector/curator and horologist  Malcolm Enright, and jeweller / sculptor Barbara Heath, beautifully reflects the artists’ diverse pursuits, and blurs the lines between work, life and play. This is both a domestic haven brimming with intriguing collections, and a fully functional studio and showroom for their shared business, Jeweller to the Lost.

In the early 80s, with his first wife, Malcolm bought and moved into this charming Queenslander style house, originally built in 1906. Meanwhile, Barbara was busy sailing up to Brisbane from Sydney in a yacht she’d built with her then-partner (as one does!). The relationship ended, but Barbara decided to stay and set up a jewellery studio in Brisbane’s CBD. Similarly, Malcolm’s first marriage ended. Eventually, the two met at a 1986 exhibition of New York graffiti art co-curated by Malcolm, and romance ensued – little did they know how creatively fruitful their long-term union would be!

After ten years as a couple living separately, Mal and Barb moved in together in 1995, initially renting an apartment (fondly referred to as their ‘love nest’) and keeping Mal’s house as his studio. But apartment life felt congested for these two artists, and after a year they decided to move to the house with its lush rainforest garden and extra space.

Mal had renovated the cottage before he and Barb met, gutting a centrally-located third bedroom and replacing it with an open plan, west-facing kitchen with views to the surrounding treetops. The kitchen is the hub of the home, connecting to all the main living spaces, which also function as display areas for the couple’s fascinating collections. Over the years, the upstairs rooms have housed colonial pieces, then later Mal’s vast contemporary art collection, and now an impressive antique clock collection set amid Australian and English Georgian furniture. There’s also a library room with books piled from floor to ceiling, everywhere you look.

Mal’s collecting interests have evolved throughout his life and it’s clear he dives in ‘heart’ first, immersing himself in a field of passion, actively seeking out specialised resources, researching intently, and then solicitously collecting and displaying – or in the case of the clocks, collecting, restoring and displaying. In recent years, Mal has also become a skilled horologist as a result of his clock collecting (but that’s a whole other story!) ‘Malcolm’s collector’s/curator’s eye is everywhere here… objects and furniture always get moved about, creating new contexts,’ Barb explains. ‘It’s playful what Mal does, and I love it. We really do inspire each other through our shared love of objects and their stories.’

When Mal and Barb first moved into the Wilston cottage together, they set about creating a home-based studio for their custom jewellery business. They built a large studio area underneath the original house, featuring a wall of west-facing glass that looks out to the garden. Half of this space is dedicated to client displays and inspirational resources, and the other half to the workshop floor. Now, over twenty years later, on a typical work day you’ll find three makers perched on their stools here, pushing metal around with their hands and industrial tools.

Mal and Barb make a great team, and their home is a wonderfully unique set-up imbued with their shared love of craftsmanship!

One half of the living room, with French doors opening to a verandah alcove. Styling – Bianca Pottinger. Photo – Mindi Cooke.

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