Exonian Profiles
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“It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up,” says Tom Selby ’45 of the circuitous career path that brought him to his current work as a pewter artist. “But I’ve learned along the way that at heart you should never really grow up.” After years of jobs he found less than satisfying—from working in national sales and marketing for the New York office of Alexander and Alexander, an insurance brokerage firm, to serving as a development officer for schools in Florida—Selby “dropped out of the corporate world” to pursue something that made him happy. He founded his business, Canterbury Pewter, in 1989. Ten years later, Selby’s commemorative medallions, Christmas ornaments and Canterbury crosses are in demand by such clients as the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, the Grand Ole Oprey, the University of Wisconsin, and Phillips Exeter Academy. Selby became interested in pewter when he met a pewtersmith in Virginia who offered to teach him about the craft. “I fell in love with pewter,” he says. “It’s a very friendly metal. I loved what you could do with it.” But, he adds, it’s a “black art,” with few places to learn how to sculpt pewter and fewer books on the subject. Selby experimented in his garage, learned a lot on his own and joined the American Pewter Guild. Canterbury Pewter was originally located in a former Mennonite church north of Charlottesville, but a Thanksgiving fire destroyed Selby’s home and shop. Undaunted, he rebuilt the business in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Today he sells his crosses and religious mementos to churches all over the country. His work was featured at the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops in Canterbury, England, and 2,400 of his Noah’s Ark crosses recently sold in four minutes on the QVC Home Shopping Network. For Exeter, Selby has designed a paperweight for the 50th reunion of the class of ’45, a faculty dormitory service award medal, and commemorative pieces. He says, quite simply, that Canterbury Pewter is “a miracle in progress.” For more information, call: (800) 348-7064. —Katherine Towler |
