I've been a creative person my whole life.
I don't remember a time growing up when I wasn't drawing, painting, sewing or pursuing some other creative endeavour. (There was even a time when I had a go at singing in a band, but as a fairly shy, slightly anxious person, that often involved alcohol for some false courage.)
I learnt to sew from my Mum & Nanna.
My Nanna was exceptional at sewing and made me some beautiful dresses in my youth. She could also do most kinds of needlework, like embroidery, knitting and crochet. I think I had the best dressed dolls in the outer Eastern suburbs.
My Mum kept me clothed in tracksuits and leisure clothes in my teens. I wanted to wear the branded gear, like Sweathog and Crystal Cylinders, but Mum told me that wearing the brands made you look like everyone else, and why would you want that? I only found out years later, that it was because we couldn't afford them.
But she was great at translating the crazy ideas I saw in fashion magazines, like colour blocking and drop waists.
I learned to sew by doing. I made a few things from patterns, but mostly, I'd make things up after having a look at how something was made. I wore a mermaid hem tube skirt that I'd made from a white sheet, to a Blue Light Disco in the 80's. I still remember the whole outfit, which was a cross between Madonna's Like a Virgin look and the baggy tops worn by the ever stylish Bananarama. Thanks to my Uncle, an ex-costume jewellery salesman, I had more than enough strings of faux pearls and diamante brooches to complete the look.
I'd paint Liechtenstein style Pop Art images onto sheets with fabric paint, then sew them on to my denim jacket. (Yes, I still have them in a box somewhere. Oh look, I found them!)
I also got my first full time job whilst wearing a top I'd made from an old floral sheet.
When I reached my twenties, I began making handbags from fabric remnants. This came about because I couldn't afford to buy myself a Spencer & Rutherford bag, which I adored because of the bright colours.
In my lunch break, I would often wander around the South Melbourne Market & surrounds. One of my favourite places was an upholstery remnant warehouse that sold end of roll stock, and had a room overflowing with outdated decorator samples. I would spend my whole lunchtime, rifling through tables and boxes over flowing with jewel coloured velvets and rich brocades, many from the high end fabric houses that I admired. (I read a lot of interior design and fashion magazines around that time!)
My stash of fabric pieces from these jaunts became the start of my (*cough* hoarding) sourcing of recycled, reclaimed and vintage fabrics. I scoured op shops, markets and were given gorgeous things by friends and family. I'd spy something at the bottom of a basket and think that it might come in useful someday. Some of those bits of fabric are still stuffed in a box somewhere.
And then began my short stint as a maker of fabric handbags. Originally, I made them for myself because I couldn't find colourful bags in my price range, then branched out to filling requests from friends and colleagues.
When I left work to raise my babies, I had plenty of time to sew and more time to expand my fabric stash. To justify the mounting piles of fabric in our rather cramped townhouse, I began to sell my bags at the markets. I probably made and sold bags at the markets, on Ebay and Etsy for around 10 years. I had return customers and liked being able to buy my Bloke Christmas presents with money that I had earned. When we moved to a bigger house and I outgrew the office that I was sharing with the Bloke, he offered to build me a sewing studio. I felt like I had reached the big leagues! I was very productive and spent many late nights before market day, busily cutting and sewing. It was my quiet space and I loved it and filled it to the brim with all of the materials and trims a crafty diva could want.
It was great while it lasted, but there came a point where it was no longer enjoyable. The market scene was changing and the online scene was flooded. So I stopped making bags and started creating just for the sake of creating. I had the luxury of being able to head in to the studio, picking up fabric and seeing what it became. It also gave me the benefit of trying crafts that I had been interested in for a long time but never had a moment to pursue. I began to embroider onto my fabric remnants to make some textured wall hangings. I used leather and vinyl and velvet and metallic threads to try to recreate the modernist /brutalist wall hangings from the 50's, 60's and 70's. They rarely turned out how I envisioned as I never had the right fabrics on hand, which would often lead to me hunting down more supplies. I would get a bit manic in my search for the right materials and then if I found them, I'd be so burnt out that whatever project I had in mind would be thrown on the WIP pile. This has become a bit of a pattern in recent years and something that I am now very aware of and am taking steps to rectify. (*cough* hoarding!)
Some of these were whipped up in a day, whilst many were worked on for months. There's a lot of hand stitching and beading on some of those pieces, which is probably not the best creative pursuit for someone with failing eyesight! But it's like meditation and I get lost in it. My house gets quite neglected when I get into my creative rhythm and if not for other family members complaining of hunger, I'd probably forget to cook, or just have a some eggs on toast.
I've tried to develop a style, but I'm not sure if I've been successful. I'm easily influenced by designs around me as well as those from the past. I love Mid Century modern, brutalism, art deco and seem to be heading towards bohemian style and maximalist décor. I love colour and I love texture. I love the process of sketching, looking through books and magazines for inspiration, and filling a sketchbook with collages and painted shapes. But I am quick to give up on a project if it isn't going as planned, or I can't find a particular material/product to finish it (particularly since we've been having "supply chain issues" here in Australia.) It's not uncommon for me to lose focus completely, clear the project away and then come back to it in a few months/years time to try again.
Or I move onto another type of project. I'll pack away the fabric, needles and scissors, clear away the sketchbooks and instead go back to one of my true loves but also my true nemesis- jewellery making.
Let's go way back in time for a moment, shall we? My Uncle Frank (who was actually my great uncle) was a jewellery salesman in the 1950's until he retired sometime in the 1980's. He sold lots of costume jewellery, like strands of Czech glass beads twisted together with ornate clasps, and all kinds of rhinestone brooches, earrings and necklaces. He also sold opal jewellery and ropes of pearls, both faux pearls and real pearls. The most vivid memory I have of both Uncle Frank and his wife, Aunty Pearl (yes, that was actually her name!) was the house they lived in at Rosebud and the rings that Aunty Pearl wore.
They lived in a cute weatherboard house, up on a hill behind the Rosebud Hotel. This photo was from around 2016 when it was last on the market. Frank & Pearl sold the house in the 90's when they moved up to the warmer climes of Queensland. Because they were my great Aunt & Uncle, they were always old. They had that papery skin when they greeted you with a kiss on the cheek. Uncle Frank had a gruff voice and hair sprouting from his ears. Aunty Pearl was as slight as a bird but wore massive diamonds on almost every finger. They were childless and their house was not made for small children. So while the adults drank tea in the tiny loungeroom with views across the water, my two brothers and I were shooed out to the yard to expend the energy that came from an hour car trip to Rosebud. We would often roll around on the grass in the postage stamp sized backyard, or swing on the rotary clothesline. On one particular visit, we noticed that the door to the storage room under the house was ajar. Being nosey kids, we went inside to peek. The room was stacked to the roof with boxes of costume jewellery. In the small glimpse that I got before we heard Uncle Frank bellowing down the side stairs to get out of there, my mind was blown. It was like an Aladdin's Cave. I wouldn't have been more than 10 years old at the time and that memory is still as clear as day some 40 years later.
Over the years following, as Frank wound down his business, he gave boxes of stuff to my Mum. When these boxes arrived, it was like Christmas. There were necklace and earring sets, velvet boxes with 9ct gold pendants set with pearls, the occasional opal chip bracelet and the many, many strands of glass and seed bead necklaces. I have a small wooden box filled with screw on rhinestone earrings and some necklaces that I scored from one such box. I always felt so fancy when we had discos and school events that I could wear them to. While Mum kept some of the "good stuff" like the opals and the good pearls, the majority of the treasures went on to be sold for next to nothing at the Dandenong Trash N Treasure market.
Years later I spied starburst diamante brooches at Antique markets, selling for the big bucks. If only my Mum was a hoarder, like me. (She's the exact opposite.)
I did get lots of broken things, though. I think Mum knew that I liked to play around with broken things to try to make something new, so she gave me boxes of necklaces where the thread was starting to disintegrate, as well as earrings that had lost one of the pair. I also remember the velvet chokers with the cameos and the silver neck rings with the modernist pendant, like something Mary Quant would design. I don't know what happened to those, but I know that it was probably what triggered my love for modernist necklaces that I would find in Op-Shops in my late teens.
So, I took all of those beads and brooches and earrings and chains and stored them in boxes and tins. They moved with me and some days I would just go through them for the sake of nostalgia. Some of the necklaces were disassembled and placed into bags. Although I didn't realise it at the time, I have a thing for sorting beads into colour groups. I'm sure the Internet has a diagnosis for that!
Occasionally, I would restring beads into long necklaces that could be doubled up, or I would remake earrings for pierced ears. (Despite having pearl studs from one of the boxes of jewellery, I wasn't allowed to pierce my ears until I turned 16.)
I kind of viewed them as just another craft supply, but didn't realise until years later that I really enjoyed making necklaces.
Before resin casting was less toxic than it is today, I went into Handcrafts in Prahran and loaded my basket with one jewellery mould and some resin casting supplies. And I began to make jewellery, to sell alongside my handbags. It was messy work and very time consuming, but I loved doing it. I made pendants with pin up girl photos embedded in them. I used broken china and beads and metal components and spent as much time on the stringing method as I did the pendants.
But once again, a new craft obsession meant that I had to have all the right materials to do the job. I couldn't just go to my local Spotlight and get some nickel plated findings in small quantities. Oh no! I had to go off to the Bead Warehouse and stock up on bulk quantities of clasps, loops, crimps, Tiger Tail, leather cord etc. I must've made back the money I spent on these materials, because I only have a couple of pairs of earrings and one or two necklaces left over from that time. I must have sold the majority of them at the market. Thankfully, the findings that I had left over come in handy when someone breaks a necklace or wants some earrings for a fancy dress party. Looking back through the photos, I realise that some of the images were a bit cringe and could possibly fall into cultural appropriation territory. ( I was heavily influenced by the rockabilly scene. I know better now.)
So why is jewellery making my nemesis? I think it's because each time I go back to it, I get slightly obsessed, I have more ideas than my head can accommodate and I get frustrated when I can't find the supplies to finish whatever I'm working on. I recently needed some rope end caps for the neckpiece that you see at the top of this post. I had bought lead rope in a myriad of colours from a horse rope supplier (again with the impulse purchases on a whiff of an idea), and thought that I had end caps to suit the diameter of the rope. But I had the wrong sizes or the wrong colours and a search of the internet showed nothing that I needed could be purchased in Australia. All of my go-to beading supply sites had limited or no stock, which only left me the option of purhasing from Etsy (which I try not to do if I can help it) or straight from China. But even then, I couldn't be sure that I was getting the right product. I needed to walk in to a store and see it with my own eyes and then determine whether it was what I was after. In the end, I gave up and instead found some old Lovisa necklaces in the op shop, that I intended to use for parts but instead just included as a whole addition.
Each time I tell myself that I want to create something using the materials that I already have and then I go and buy a whole bunch of stuff to finish it off.
Or I see something that I can pull apart and reuse so I buy it (op-shopped) bring it home, it sits on the desk and then I forget what I was going to use it for so it just gets added to the pile of ever growing "will use someday" craft supplies.
Is it FOMO that makes me do this? I don't know.
I had a bunch of beads from old necklaces that I sorted in to colour groups, then pulled out the ones that were interesting shapes and set about making something with them. I made six necklaces, two of which need to be tweaked a little bit.
But then I lost interest again. My desk is covered in a tray of beads and I look at them, move them around a bit and then walk away. Does this mean it's time to pack the beads away and go back to sewing or needlework? Do I just need to step away from craft completely for a bit and maybe just read a good book? Maybe it's because I'm 51 and I feel like I should have a style or a brand or a passion, but instead I just drift from one thing to the next. I have days where I worry about the amount of clutter I'm accumulating. That if I should shuffle of this mortal coil without having my ducks in a row, my family will be left with the task of getting rid of everything.
I guess it just is what it is. This is who I am. This is how I function. I don't think I will suddenly become super productive of super organised or whatever. I think I have to just make peace with the fact that my creative brain waxes and wains, and be thankful that I still have the faculties to create when the urge strikes and the room to pack it away when that urge goes away.
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