For the second year in a row, a recent ANU School of Art Gold and Silvermithing graduate has won the Design Canberra craft + design award, as well as a current Furniture student winning the People’s Choice award.

Simon Azzopardi, who graduated with honours in 2015, was awarded the overall prize for his understated and yet highly refined knife. The judges identified it the winner from a large field of nominations, which were collated across the duration of the festival. His work was produced in response to a brief issued through a new elective course at the ANU School of Art; Multiples and Production – the unique offering, which enables students to bring together creativity and enterprise to produce innovative products.

Simon’s work was made in response to the experience of living in a share house that, as many share houses do, had a mixed cutlery set. One of the forks in this collection had a name engraved on the back of it: Francis. Simon used Francis’ fork, and another spoon from the share house set, every day that he lived there, and developed what he describes as “an emotional attachment” to these utensils.

“When I moved on from that share house, I rescued that little fork and spoon and carried this odd set with me for nearly a decade all over the world,” Simon says. When the search for a suitable knife to accompany his other two utensils proved unsuccessful, he decided to make one instead.

This idea is now the basis of a product that Azzopardi will take into production in 2016 with the assistance of funds this award has provided.

Furniture student Joel Douglass was awarded the People’s Choice award for the stool he made and exhibited in the ANU School of Art Furniture Workshop exhibition, Furnished, held at the Old Fitters Workshop, Kingston.