Peter Drewett

Peter G. Drewett is a Grafton craftsman. Drewett grew up in difficult economic circumstances in Melbourne. His earliest memory of making art was copying the Rosella logo off the factory wall next to his grandmother's house in Richmond. His mother was a florist who favoured dried arrangements, and Drewett would collect materials for her to use, making little animals himself out of clay and sticks. He had four years' secondary schooling, focusing on carpentry and woodwork, and worked as a screenprinter from the age of 16. In the mid-1970s he took his young family to live in the bush on the North Coast of NSW, and built a house, furniture, sculpture and toys from bush timbers. He worked as a logger for 15 years before personal injury forced him to stop work. In 1999 he visited the Northern Territory where he met and stayed with arts administrator Peter Yates. Here he began experimenting with pokerwork, an art form that he credits with restoring his sense of self worth and joyfulness as he recovered from alcohol addiction. His work Unfoundlands was exhibited in the National Gallery of Australia exhibition Home Sweet Home. He is currently pyrographing six enormous poles supporting sails in Skinner Street, South Grafton, funded in part by the Australia Council for the Arts, and negotiating sales of his work to a commercial gallery in California.