Tag / Craft

by brandsa2018

Riverland nature the inspiration behind Jax and Co

The Riverland’s native flora and prime horticulture crops including pistachios, citrus and olives are often the inspiration behind handcrafted contemporary jewellery label Jax and Co.

Maker Jax Isaacson doesn’t have to wander far to gather materials used to make the durable and sustainable pieces made predominantly from resin and reclaimed Australian Mallee wood.

“I use all local reclaimed Australian wood, and my signature wood is white Mallee, which is indigenous to this region,” she says from her home studio in Waikerie.

“It’s all reclaimed from naturally fallen trees or agricultural clearings, and I use a bit of orange, pistachio and olive (trees) that people might be pulling out.”

Jax and Co spheres encase botanicals sourced from Jax’s garden. Photo by Rosina Possingham.

Living on a pistachio farm, Jax can forage around the property to collect the fallen bits of wood, while she also sources botanicals from her garden and those of family and friends.

The botanicals are preserved and set in resin – a glass like material – and made into decorative spheres and ring holders.

“I am originally from Waikerie and the environment and area is very special to me,” Jax says. “I want to share the beauty of Waikerie and the natives which a lot of people don’t get to see.”

For jewellery pieces such as earrings, pendants, rings, bangles and cuff links, Jax predominantly uses resin and the sustainably reclaimed Mallee wood.

She will set about to collect the burl – a knot or lump that grows on a tree and often sought after by artists and furniture makers – before cleaning the bark off and naturally drying out the wood for 12 months.

Mallee burl. Photo by Rosina Possingham.

The wood, once dried and cut, is mixed in with the resin and set before the product is carved, shaped and polished into finished statement pieces.

Jax has a background in graphic design, but decided to experiment with resin kits as a bit of a hobby while at home with her small children.

“I always loved the bright colours in the resin and the durability of it. At one point I put wood into the resin and the outcome was spectacular,” she says.

“I was wearing one of the pieces of jewellery I had made when somebody saw it and wanted to buy it, so I let them, and I made another one and sold that too. I got all this interest just through word of mouth and it was really quite full on, I wasn’t expecting that.”

In 2016 Jax decided to officially start her own label, giving it a name and using her graphic design skills to launch the brand.

Aside from online, Jax and Co now sells in four stores in Adelaide, a handful of shops in the Riverland, and also interstate.

Jax says there is growing demand for sustainable and handmade goods in the marketplace.

“In the last couple of years I think there has been a real shift in consumer attitude towards sustainability. People are starting to see that the outcome of our throwaway culture isn’t positive,” she says.

“A lot of people are happy to pay more for a quality product that offers a difference, and is handmade locally and they can appreciate that time and effort has been put into it.

“I like the way we’re heading.”

The Jax and Co workshop. Photo by Rosina Possingham.

Header photo features Jax Isaacson with a Mallee burl. Photo by Rosina Possingham.

Industry in focus: Craft industries

Throughout the months of November and December, the state’s craft industries will be celebrated as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian craftspeople make up some of our most creative thinkers and makers of sustainable and innovative goods. Read more craft stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

From butcher shop to leather craft studio

Raw red brick walls and the scent of leather surround talented bag creator Sasha Carroll in her old butcher shop studio at Mile End in Adelaide’s inner western suburbs.

“The locals say this was once a really popular continental butcher, it was one of the first in Adelaide making yiros and chorizo sausage,” Sasha says from the studio on a street lined with old workers’ cottages.

Now its interior has beautiful hand crafted leather handbags hanging from the original butcher hooks with sewing machines and stacks of leather scattered around the space below.

Sasha has about 15 different styles of carefully designed and handmade classic satchels, tote bags and wallets that she sells in rich colours like whiskey and tan through her Butcher Byrd business.

It’s a business attracting a growing number of fans including well-known Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist Dan Sultan who recently discovered Sasha’s work via Instagram and bought four bags.

Small hip satchel.

“It’s about simplicity, I just like really classic designs so they are mostly about the leather, there’s a place for the sparkly, crazy stuff, but I just like to create a lifetime bag, a bag you will have forever, and a bag that improves with age,” Sasha says.

It was about five years ago that Sasha started Butcher Byrd after having first studied bespoke custom shoemaking at the former Marleston TAFE and then worked together with well-known JamFactory shoe and leather maker Rose-Anne Russell.

She was still busy making shoes when her true making passion gradually emerged.

“It was when I realised that the satchel that I had designed and made for my husband and the tote that I had designed and made for my mother were still going strong after 10 years of everyday use,” she says.

“They were battered, soft and worn, better with age, and would get numerous comments from strangers and friends. My mum had often joked that she could have sold hers many times over.”

At the time, Sasha and Neil had moved into a Mile End house next door to her sister’s former butcher shop home – and, when her sister moved interstate in 2014, a new inspiration emerged for the building’s growing history.

Sasha Carroll in the old butcher shop which has been transformed into her leather bags and accessories studio.

“Suddenly, I was next door to this space and I said let’s turn it into a workspace as I was just getting into making bags,” Sasha says.

“The name Butcher Byrd made sense for the business, it was about the woman working in the butcher shop and working with leather, it was like it was meant to be.”

There’s been growing success for Sasha since she sold her earliest bags at One Small Room in Queen Street and later won a place at the Bowerbird market.

Now the bags are also stocked at Brick and Mortar Creative in Norwood, a café and store featuring more than 80 local, independent artists, along with Field Trip at Balhannah in the Adelaide Hills where Mim Clarkson and Linda Marek also sell their own clothing, jewellery and homewares.

Most of her sales are made through Etsy with plans underway to revamp the website next year and to possibly redefine the product range with some core designs and releasing two seasonal ranges each year.

Sasha says there’s a strong support network among designers in South Australia with the Bowerbird market particularly drawing the local community together to forge bonds.

Each bag is designed and crafted on site.

It was through the market that she also built solid relationships with Adelaide furniture designer, maker and I Choose SA ambassador Robin Wood and the team behind Frock Me Out who are “now going gangbusters”.

And then there’s Bulb Lighting that share her studio space for their growing events business.

Sasha says working from the Mile End studio has created an important life balance while her children Frankie, 6, and Bobby, 2, are younger, and it has also given her the opportunity to constantly reassess the direction of the business.

She plans to expand during the next few years and to employ staff to help with the making as she finds it increasingly difficult to meet demand from more stores wanting to stock her products.

Sasha is also considering using more of the traditional vegetable tanned leather, made using an age-old process that can take two to three months, with all her leather sourced through local retailer D.S. Horne.

“There’s something about sitting down with a piece of leather and a pattern and drawing it up, piecing it together, putting the handles on and then putting it up on the butcher hook that works for me,” Sasha adds.

Industry in focus: Craft industries

Throughout the months of November and December, the state’s craft industries will be celebrated as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian craftspeople make up some of our most creative thinkers and makers of sustainable and innovative goods. Read more craft stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

Bottling the nation’s best gin

South Australia is aiming to become the gin capital of the nation as 27 craft distillers produce dozens of award-winning bottles and create their own industry association.

Last month, Adelaide was also host to the Australian Distillers Association conference with its finale event held at the Prohibition Liquor Company Tasting Room in Gilbert Street where its owners showcase gins from across the state.

“We serve 40 plus SA gins,” says co-owner Adam Carpenter, adding that the new state industry association also held its first event at the same venue in August.

“We’ve been trying to own the title of the gin state, there are more distillers in other states but they don’t work together as collaboratively as we do, that’s where we have a real strength.”

The Prohibition Liquor Company Tasting Room on Gilbert Street, Adelaide.

It’s been a rapid growth story for the SA industry and the Prohibition Liquor Company started by Adam Carpenter and Wes Heddles in 2015 has been riding the wave.

The two have a range of five core gins along the selection, including the Original and the 69% proof Bathtub Cut Gin – “1% higher and it’s officially a dangerous liquid” – both winning a swag of national and international awards.

Adam and Wes opened their tasting room and bar a year ago to showcase their own gins produced at Applewood Distillery in the Adelaide Hills, along with 90 others from around Australia and the world.

They have educational gin tasting flights with many locally crafted brands rotating through the SA version. Adelaide Hills Distillery is in the mix at the moment, a clear sign of Adam and Wes’s commitment to supporting other craft distillers.

Their inclusion marks Adelaide Hills Distillery opening its own tasting and bar venue Lot 100 near Nairne this month. For Adam, it makes sense to work together to jointly promote the state’s rich offerings.

“SA logically is one of the best places in the world to produce gin, first of all most of us use grape-based spirit and we have access to some of the best in the world,” he says.

“Then we have that quality in the gin coming from the best botanical ingredients, some of the best Riverland citrus, we use Adelaide Hills lavender and there’s a whole range of bush ingredients.”

On the bush ingredient side, Something Wild and Adelaide Hills Distillery are making Australian Green Ant Gin with the unique bush tucker hand harvested in the Northern Territory by the Motlop family of the Larrakia people and the product handcrafted and bottled in the Adelaide Hills.

Ambleside Distillers in Hahndorf produces Kifaru Gin using native botanicals found at Monarto including mintbush and wattleseed – with money from bottles sold supporting threatened Southern White Rhinos.

Ambleside’s Kifaru Gin, in collaboration with Monarto Zoo.

While Kangaroo Island Spirits forages for native juniper on Kangaroo Island for its award-winning Native Gin, also using fresh limes from nearby Fleurieu Peninsula.

Some of those capitalising on the state’s top quality fruit include Rowland Short in McLaren Vale. He uses Japanese native yuzu being grown for the first time in the Riverland, bottling under the Settler’s Gin label.

And Twenty Third Street Distillery – owned by the Bickford’s Group and based in the old Renmano winery in Renmark – has created an award-winning Signature Gin with “tiny explosions of Riverland sunshine”, using local mandarin and lime.

It’s an industry daring to be different, and Prohibition Liquor Co is keen to continue being at the forefront. This month, the company is installing Adelaide CBD’s first functioning and visible distillery at its Gilbert Street venue.

The gin bar at Prohibition Liquor Co.

Red Hen Gin uses a copper column still for its London Dry Style gin in the city but it’s not on display. Adam says the new still will be used to make existing gins along with some new offerings crafted on site.

Prohibition Liquor Co gins are now distributed nationally through Dan Murphy’s stores along with other independent bottle shops, online and the business is exporting to New Zealand and Singapore.

Adam says the new year will see an even greater focus on expanding exports along with the two continuing to build strong relationships with other SA gin makers. Wes is treasurer for their new industry association.

“We were about the fifth on the market in SA when we started out, now there’s 27 or 28, it was all starting to emerge in 2015 but it’s just exploded in the last three years,”  he says.

“We have been working together well as an industry on an informal basis since about 2016 but as more and more emerge we are bringing them into the fold, we’re sharing the knowledge so everyone benefits.”

Industry in focus: Craft industries

Throughout the months of November and December, the state’s craft industries will be celebrated as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian craftspeople make up some of our most creative thinkers and makers of sustainable and innovative goods. Read more craft stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

Sustainable hemp at the heart of Good Studios

Ethical fashion designer Anny Duff is championing the use of hemp fabrics to create her contemporary clothing designs with minimal environmental impact.

Her South Australian-based ethical and sustainable fashion label Good Studios features clothing and homewares made from luxurious hemp linens and hemp organic cotton blends woven in Adelaide’s sister city of Qingdao, China.

Industrial hemp is still a fledgling industry in SA, with a number of growing trials rolling out in the Riverland and South East.

Anny, Brand South Australia’s latest I Choose SA ambassador, is passionate about hemp linen as a sustainable fabric, which she uses to create simple and minimalistic pieces, with colour palettes of blues, greys, naturals, blacks, earthy oranges and khaki greens.

Hemp linen is made from the largely misunderstood hemp plant, which aside from the clothing industry can also be used in the manufacturing of some health foods, skin care, construction materials, paper and biofuel.

Anny is quick to point out the differences between the hemp plant and its infamous cousin, marijuana. While it’s a variety of the cannabis sativa species, the chemical compounds of hemp are different to marijuana as hemp contains little to no levels of the psychoactive ingredient THC.

I Choose SA ambassador Anny Duff is behind sustainable fashion label Good Studios. Photo by JKTP.

“I could spend hours talking about the vast differences between marijuana and hemp, they are completely different plants, just of a similar species. If you were to smoke a field of hemp you’d just get a headache,” she says.

“It was only recently that SA changed legislation that allows farmers to apply for licenses to grow industrial hemp. But we still have a long way to go.”

Anny works hard to ensure as much of her supply chain as possible follows sustainable paths.

“We have really tried to find companies who are doing really incredible things and we showcase their fabrics as much as possible with really simplistic designs,” says Anny, who has showcased her pieces from creative workshop, retail and gallery space Ensemble Studio since 2016.

“One of our suppliers is an incredible organisation and is the first Chinese company to be fair wear certified. We work with them to get their surplus and deadstock if we can, so we try to not make too much from scratch.”

Once Anny has sourced the fabric, it is dyed by Oeko-Tex Certified dyes before all design and manufacturing is done in Adelaide.

Some of Good Studios pieces are made from Australian wool, while the label’s line of swimwear is made from up-cycled nylon from salvaged fishing nets.

Good Studios also has a homewares line with bedding made from 100% hemp linen, known for its durability, antibacterial properties and for being naturally thermoregulating. The bedding is made to order with the help of Anny’s mother, a talented seamstress.

Anny says having a sustainable supply chain is sometimes a challenge due to cost and logistics, but she “couldn’t do it any other way”.

“There are moments you have to compromise but my mantra is to try and not compromise as much as possible,” she says.

“There are things you could just turn a blind eye towards but at the end of the day why should some people have less of a livelihood than you just because of the way things are? “Things need to change and need to be transparent.”

Anny founded Good Studios in 2012 after working in the film industry but longing to get back to the roots of her upbringing.

She grew up on an organic farm at Wistow in the Adelaide Hills and attended Mt Barker Waldorf School, a Steiner school offering an education rich in creativity and dynamic learning.

Ensemble Studios has a small retail space showcasing wares made by fellow SA makers, as well as a few selected pieces from sustainable makers across the country.

After completing Year 12 she got an apprenticeship in the film industry as a camera assistant before moving into art direction and production design. She worked on local feature film One Eyed Girl as production designer and set out to find simple, minimalistic, op-shop-style outfits for the cast.

“That sort of aesthetic of really paring back design to the bare minimum was really enjoyable for me and was definitely the first seeds of Good Studios,” Anny says.

“It (fashion design) started as something on the side in-between film projects but then it took on a life of its own and I was hanging onto the proverbial coattails.

“I had no background in pattern making or sewing, I have done a pattern making course since, but it’s been a baptism of fire making sure I work with the right people to deliver my vision.”

Filmmaking still takes up some of Anny’s time. In August she travelled to China to document Good Studios’ supply chain beginning in the hemp fields, and hopes to release a film in the near future.

Aside from Good Studios, Ensemble Studios is also home to two other resident designers, Beccy Bromilow of BB Shoemaker and plant stylist Emma Sadie Thomson.

“That’s probably the best thing that has happened from starting my label, meeting an incredible group of people,” Anny says.

“Consumers are placing a lot more value on the handmade and it’s such a human thing to make. To be able to do it for a living is really special.”

Industry in focus: Craft industries

Throughout the months of November and December, the state’s craft industries will be celebrated as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian craftspeople make up some of our most creative thinkers and makers of sustainable and innovative goods. Read more craft stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

Robyn Wood crafting bespoke furniture pieces from Adelaide

Despite still being on the road travelling home from three long days at The Big Design Market in Melbourne, furniture maker Robyn Wood is keen to talk about her passion for the South Australian industry.

The talented designer runs her own studio from The Mill creative studios in Adelaide and is firmly behind the state’s craft and making industry growing its presence on the national stage.

“We have such an amazing culture for the arts, the next step is getting people to embrace the designers and makers, the artisans along with that, to somehow connect the dots,” says Robyn, Brand South Australia’s latest I Choose SA ambassador.

“I’m really keen to see the craft and making industry becoming like the food side of things, the wine, food and cheese in SA that is so well known.”

It’s been four years since the aptly named Robyn Wood – she married into the name, “how is that for serendipity?” – set up her own design studio at The Mill in Adelaide’s CBD.

After working as an interior architect for 20 years, her interest in furniture making was particularly stirred during a seven-year stint with joinery firm IJF.

Furniture designer and I Choose SA ambassador Robyn Wood at Neigbour Workshop. Photo by James Knowler/JKTP.

Robyn remembers a moment working with IJF after the Adelaide company won a three-year contract to fit out Federal Government embassies around the world.

“It was in Paris, 1995, 15th arrondissement. I was overseeing moving furniture out of an Embassy apartment complex as part of an interior fit out,” she says. “But this wasn’t just any furniture – it was mid-20th century. Timeless, elegant, iconic, built to last. It was beautiful.”

The experience stirred a growing appreciation for beautiful furniture, and in 2014, Robyn opened her own studio.

She now makes furniture and bespoke objects for architects, galleries and “lovers of good design” throughout Australia, selling at galleries, online, at two markets – The Big Design Market and Bowerbird – and on commission.

Her very first piece made for small production is a favourite, a hand turned timber base Bud Lamp. It drew committed fans among the 70,000 people streaming through The Big Design Market held in the Carlton Royal Exhibition Building last weekend.

“Some of those people at the market saw me there four years ago and they bought my lamp and they came in just to say hello and thanks for the lamp,” Robyn says. “I can still remember their faces from when it was sold, I have some bizarre connection with it.”

There’s also a Reflect desk, vases, candle holders, along with a glass topped coffee table she’s recently finished. Most are made from wood and Robyn has a particular soft spot for sycamore maple and “walnut is lovely to work with too”.

There are other pieces made with glass and steel, with Robyn committed to ensuring each is made from sustainable, renewable materials.

“My design philosophy can be summed up in three words: warmth, simplicity and connection,” she says.

Her plan is to scale back selling smaller pieces with the focus turning to one-off larger designs “to show what I can do” through exhibitions, high-end galleries and stores.

It’s a carefully considered decision in a local industry where artists and designers are working to raise their profile and build stronger business models.

Robyn is a member of craft and design industry group Guildhouse and features on the organisation’s Well Made website, also regularly attending its professional development programs to hone her skills.

She believes there are enormous opportunities to develop a more vibrant local industry.

“I think there’s growing confidence coming through from artist and designers,” Robyn says.

Her career has been marked by the local scene’s strength in collaboration. Robyn regularly works with other makers like Tony Neighbour from Neighbour’s Workshop in Kensington.

“Adelaide is still small scale, its designers and makers are a tight community and I have access to all of that, there’s a lot of old school skills that are still around and I’ve a lot of people mentoring me,” she says.

“The collaboration and skill sets in SA are wonderful, we have so many great makers here.

“Guys like Tony, they don’t get the press and they don’t look for it, but he would be one of the preeminent production makers in SA – if you speak to (acclaimed furniture designer) Khai Liew and others in the know, Tony would be a guy they would all work with.”

Industry in focus: Craft industries

Throughout the months of November and December, the state’s craft industries will be celebrated as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian craftspeople make up some of our most creative thinkers and makers of sustainable and innovative goods. Read more craft stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

MJP Studio a showcase of quality craftsmanship in our city

Crafting timeless pieces that are made to last is at the core of South Australian furniture designer Matt Pearson’s studio in Adelaide’s north eastern suburbs.

The craftsman is behind MJP Studio, maker of handmade and one-off designs that are manufactured from high quality materials with precision and passion.

Matt has an eye for refined style and a drive to make use of SA’s local supplier base wherever he can, and says Adelaide’s strong support networks allow the small but strong craft and furniture industry to flourish.

Matt Pearson in action at the Hendon-based MJP Studio. Photo by Lewis and Wilson Photography.

“The thing about Adelaide is that people support each other, they support good design and culture, they give back, and that instils confidence in me and my business,” he says.

“Supporting local is incredibly important and it’s something I’m doing in my business as well, I use local suppliers as much as I can. If local businesses expect people to buy local then they should be supporting local too.”

Matt strives to craft furniture pieces “to be woven into the fabric of the family home” but also builds custom designs for commercial and retail markets.

The Husk chair features Australian Wool-blend fabric. Photo by Heidi Wolff.

He encourages consumers to see the value of investing in high-quality locally made products and not fall victim to “high turnover consumerism” where furniture is mass manufactured and likely to be thrown away – not repaired – if broken.

He says a market of consumers who choose well made and sustainable bespoke pieces does exist, helping to sustain not only his own business, but the industry as a whole as the effects trickle through.

“With low cost furniture, if it breaks people will just throw it away, whereas if you’ve spent time with a furniture maker along the process you become connected to the maker … good furniture is made so it can be repaired,” Matt says. “A lot of contemporary makers push that and it’s always something MJP Studio has always done.”

His playful yet sophisticated works are made from high quality, locally sourced timbers from Australian and American origin, while leather and Australian wool also works their way into the fabric on some pieces, such as dining chairs and armchairs.

MJP Studio’s coffee table, the ‘Crossover’. Photo by Heidi Wolff.

Matt is originally from Sydney and moved to Tasmania in 2011 to complete a Bachelor of Environmental Design with Honours at the UTAS School of Architecture and Design, majoring in furniture.

He had heard of SA’s renowned craft and design hub JamFactory during his time at university and ended up applying for a coveted associate position within its furniture studio.

Matt was successful in gaining the spot at JamFactory in Adelaide and worked under the guidance of furniture designer Jon Goulder before going on to have his own studio there for one year.

Matt says he made the decision to remain in SA because Adelaide “ticked all the boxes”, with MJP Studio now settled as one of the city’s high end furniture manufacturers.

“Aesthetically, my style is influenced by Scandinavian design and contemporary Australian architecture and I think that comes from my training in Tassie,” he adds.

Industry in focus: Craft industries

Throughout the months of November and December, the state’s craft industries will be celebrated as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian craftspeople make up some of our most creative thinkers and makers of sustainable and innovative goods. Read more craft stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

Slowing it down in the world of craft

In an industry consumed with fast fashion and big brands, Adelaide shoemaker Matea Gluscevic is proving that slow and sustainable is best when it comes to the world of custom-made creations.

“I can’t really participate in fast fashion or trends because by the time a trend comes and goes, I’m only at the research, development and pattern making stages,” says Matea from her workshop at creative hub The Mill on Angas Street, Adelaide.

“My satisfaction comes from making something that I know will last a long time. I want somebody to be able to have my shoes for ages.”

The 30-year-old designer and maker launched her own shoe brand just over a year ago, with the first order placed by a woman in Portland, Oregon, in the US who had spotted Matea’s shoes on Instagram.

Matea’s workspace at The Mill. Photo by Christopher Arblaster.

Since then Matea’s brand has transitioned through a few name changes and different style directions, from minimalistic and basic block coloured sandals to more futuristic and colourful designs.

Her label underwent a rebrand recently to become Matea Gluscevic Handmade, – in response to Matea’s desire to adopt to a more genuine and sincere style suited to her own personal taste.

The shoes are made to order, taking about three weeks to craft from sustainably sourced materials including wild kangaroo leather, cork and recycled rubber.

The vegetable tanned kangaroo leather is considered more environmentally friendly than typical chrome tanned bovine leather and is sourced from South Australian kangaroo leather tannery Vacel Leather in Adelaide’s north.

“Veg tan leather is made using bark tannins, so it’s better for the environment … I would rather not have too much of a guilty conscience in terms of what I’m doing,” Matea says.

“Even the rubber I use is made from 20% recycled content.”

These custom fit house slippers feature green holographic vinyl, yellow kangaroo leather and a medium density orthopaedic insole.

Matea has been a resident at The Mill for three years, with the first two years of her tenure spent as a sculptor and installation artist.

She brought with her qualifications in shoemaking as well as a Bachelor of Visual Art specialising in sculpture and installation from the University of Adelaide. She even studied a year of dental technology to learn more practical skills with plastering and mould making.

Matea admits that life as an artist can be a tough gig compared to a regular nine-to-five job, and so she works on weekends as a bartender and is also an event manager for a dance party held at an Adelaide nightspot roughly once a month.

Matea’s shoes are made to order and take about three weeks to create. Photo by Michael Papez.

“In terms of being a maker I prefer it here in Adelaide, the environment is better and it feels like a more supportive scene,” she says.

While the life of a craftsperson is usually seen as one spent tucked away in a one-person studio, Matea’s everyday surroundings are quite the opposite.

Although she occupies her own dedicated workspace at The Mill, she’s surrounded by a number of like-minded creators, artists, makers, writers and designers – some emerging, others established.

There’s JamFactory trained jeweller Tanis Blines who shares a studio with her husband John Blines, an artist whose works are entrenched in medical and behavioural science.

Other associate artists include Lisa Penny of Hey Reflect’o, furniture designer Robyn Wood, ceramicist Kate O’Callaghan and tattoo studio XO L’Avant.

Furniture by Peter Fong.

Illustrator and furniture designer Peter Fong has been at The Mill since its establishment in 2013.

Graduating with a visual communications degree at the UniSA, Peter went on to become a freelance illustrator using traditional tools of nibs and ink.

Peter’s portfolio includes wine labels and magazine illustrations and says Adelaide’s close-knit community means he’s rarely had to promote his brand to find work.

He recently pushed the pen to the side to pursue his love for woodwork and furniture design and is preparing to launch his first collection of custom furniture including tables and stools in the near future.

“I mainly use hand tools and try not to use many screws or nails, it’s all joinery,” Peter says.

“I just love building things that last. It makes me happy seeing something down the road and saying ‘yep, it’s still there’.”

A sideboard by Peter Fong.

Industry in focus: Craft industries

Throughout the months of November and December, the state’s craft industries will be celebrated as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian craftspeople make up some of our most creative thinkers and makers of sustainable and innovative goods. Read more craft stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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Shop South Australia is home to a unique collection of over 300 South Australian gifts and goods from more than 70 local makers and producers. Choose local and Shop South Australia.

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by brandsa2018

We love our wine … but what happens to the barrels?

South Australians love their wine, but what happens to the barrels once they’ve reached the end of their useful life?

Barossa Valley craftsman Peter Ruchs has a few imaginative second uses for aged oak wine barrels – fashioning them into lasting homewares pieces such as cheeseboards, platters, and tea light candle holders.

The up-cycling idea was born when Peter, also a winemaker, took home a couple of wine barrels that were destined to be thrown out or used for firewood and decided to make something from them.

His daughter Kristal caught sight of what he was crafting and saw an opportunity to sell the homewares products – each uniquely stained and scarred from years spent ageing wine – at local markets.

Winestains duo Peter Ruchs, front, and daughter Kristal.

The backyard hobby turned into a full-blown business – Winestains – run by the father and daughter duo from their workshop at Williamstown in the Barossa Valley.

“To be able to make something from a product that is no longer useful is really important to us,” says Kristal, who looks after administration and marketing.

“Wine barrels are worth over $1000 and the timber is in the top 10% of the oak, so it’s quality timber.”

The old wine barrels are sourced from local wineries. All parts of the barrel is reused and recycled including the metal hoops which become handles on the cheese boards.

Most of the homewares are sold within Australia, through Winestain’s online shop, on the Shop South Australia marketplace and also through shops, boutiques and galleries across SA, Victoria and NSW.

Winestains’ cheeseboards and platters will make the perfect Christmas gift for foodies or picnickers.

Kristal says their last local market appearance for the year is on November 23-25 at the Bowerbird Design Market.

She says social media has played a big part in lifting the profile of local artisans and craftspeople who might otherwise only create their wares as a sideline job or hobby.

“I am seeing a trend of consumers understanding what is involved in creating something unique, and the importance of local artisans and makers,” Kristal says.

Fellow craftsperson Tali Strauss is also passionate about giving old-wine barrels a second chance at life.

He runs Tubbies Australia, a Barossa Valley cooperage that manufactures quality port and spirit maturation kegs from American oak ex-wine barrels sourced from local wineries.

The kegs are sold to general consumers or fortified winemakers who store fortified wines in them, as the richness and character of the oak adds to the maturation process.

A Tubbies Australia maturation keg in the walnut stain with steel hoops.

Tali entered the craft industry 30 years ago after working in fashion and advertising for many years but in the end longing to “get back to doing something with my hands”.

“I saw an opportunity 30 years ago with wine barrels, I knew the wine industry at the time had trouble disposing of them,” he says.

“So I moved into buying barrels and doing them up in all sorts of ways; as an example we were selling them as half wine barrels to garden centres and hardware stores.”

Then Tali hired a retired experienced cooper to teach him the traditional cooperage methods of crafting oak timbers into kegs.

Tubbies Australia is one of Australia’s few coopers, a proud and traditional trade that dates back thousands of years but is often seen as a bit of a dying art.

“There aren’t many coopers around and it’s a big process to hire someone and for them to learn the trade,” Tali says.

“You can’t learn coopering by going and doing a TAFE course, you can learn machining, but you have to learn coopering on the job and it takes about four years.

“Tubbies cooperage has evolved to become the largest manufacturer of port and spirit kegs in Australia.”

Industry in focus: Craft industries

Throughout the months of November and December, the state’s craft industries will be celebrated as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian craftspeople make up some of our most creative thinkers and makers of sustainable and innovative goods. Read more craft stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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Shop South Australia is home to a unique collection of over 300 South Australian gifts and goods from more than 70 local makers and producers. Choose local and Shop South Australia.

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by brandsa2018

Kangaroo Island spins its own unique wool story

When sheep and grain farmer Christine Berry walked into a Japanese clothing store and saw suits tagged with ‘made from Kangaroo Island wool’, she couldn’t resist buying a jacket to take home to Australia.

“When we walked into United Arrows, it’s like Myer in Japan, and saw a suit presented so beautifully and with the Kangaroo Island label it was wonderful, it was so powerful,” the chair of Kangaroo Island Wool says.

It’s been a dramatic change in approach for the collaborative group of 22 shareholders and producers who joined forces in 2012 to create a new way to market and sell their wool.

Before Kangaroo Island Wool was jointly started with veterinarians Greg Johnsson and Deb Lehmann, local producers would sell their produce with little idea of its end destination.

“Traditionally, our wool would take us 12 months to grow on the island, we’d shear and the bales would go to Adelaide and then be sold in Melbourne, we’d have no idea where it would go,” Christine says.

The fabric of the island.

Now they can trace where their wool lands in a global market and they are paid a premium for the high quality product.

This year, they’ve even managed to take it to the next level in selling their own range of wool jumpers, beanies and scarves online and at seven Kangaroo Island stores.

“For me personally, I’ve always wanted to wear a garment made from wool from our farm,” Christine says.

“I do now, I wear a jumper every day made from our wool, it makes me feel proud, I love what we do on Kangaroo Island.”

There’s a strong emphasis on sustainability and animal welfare for the producers who mainly sell through their biggest customer, Australian Wool Network.

The network combines Kangaroo Island wool with New Zealand possum fur to make luxury knitwear for MerinoSnug, and is now also helping to produce products for the group’s own brand.

In fact, it was Kangaroo Island that was the first region in the nation to help launch the Australian Wool Network’s unique Direct Network Advantage (DNA) wool supply program in 2015.

The DNA scheme enables consumers to follow the wool’s journey from bale to garment – when they buy a MerinoSnug product it comes with a QR code to scan and links to a video showing how the wool was produced.

Kangaroo Island wool grower Geoff Nutt.

Christine says the group is committed to a code of practice ensuring farmers focus on sheep health and welfare, social good and environmental care.

And, as a result, the company has a reputation for producing high-end fibre, consistently producing wool finer than the national average.

“As professional woolgrowers our simple philosophy is that looking after our sheep will ensure they look after us,” according to the group.

As demand for the group’s new range grows, it has employed Lucy McNaught as sales and marketing officer and plans are afoot to design a 100% Kangaroo Island wool rug with a local artist.

“On the island we have beautiful food and we have beautiful wine and honey, we know people love that but they are all consumables and we thought there was space for a tangible product for people to buy and take home to remember Kangaroo Island,” Christine says.

At her own farm Deep Dene, she cares for more than 5000 merino sheep with her husband Lloyd and daughter Caitlin.

Kangaroo Island Wool chair Christine Berry.

Lloyd’s parents arrived as Soldier Settlers in 1955 and when Caitlin returned to the island in 2015 after studying animal husbandry in Adelaide, she became the third generation to be farming the land.

They also crop 600ha with GM-free canola, broad beans and wheat, and “we can trace where everything we produce ends up,” Christine says.

Much of the wheat is sold to South Australian company Laucke Flour Mills at Strathalbyn for bread flour and Arnott’s for biscuits.

The family is part of a proud history for the island that began farming sheep in 1836 and, at its peak, was home to 1.24 million of them.

Others among the Kangaroo Island Wool ranks are third generation farmer Simon Wheaton, whose family has been working land across the water from Kingscote at Redbanks for 100 years.

While Mitch Wilson is a fifth generation farmer whose ancestors arrived from England in the early 1860s, buying land at Willson River in 1867.

He and his wife, Ros, now shear about 12,000 sheep a year.

“Wool is a natural, renewable fibre, and Kangaroo Island Wool is dedicated to the long-term development of an industry that is socially and environmentally responsible,” the Wilsons add.

Industry in focus: Craft industries

Throughout the months of November and December, the state’s craft industries will be celebrated as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian craftspeople make up some of our most creative thinkers and makers of sustainable and innovative goods. Read more craft stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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Like this story? Nominate a story from your region.
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These inspiring regional stories are made possible by:

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Shop South Australia is home to a unique collection of over 300 South Australian gifts and goods from more than 70 local makers and producers. Choose local and Shop South Australia.

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by brandsa2018

Meet the makers behind SA’s craft industries

In an ever-changing world of emerging technologies and high-tech systems, now is the perfect time to also appreciate South Australia’s skilled artisans and craft industry entrepreneurs.

Our state’s artists and makers – from furniture makers, jewellers, ceramists, glassblowers, leatherworkers, and fashion designers – are creating works that make waves on a global scale.

Many of our craftspeople are professionals who dedicate their creative careers to showcasing beauty and aesthetics with respect to sustainability and the environment.

Throughout November and December, Brand SA News will take you inside craft industries as part of Brand South Australia’s successful I Choose SA campaign.

Not only will the success stories of traditional craftspeople be told, but so too will the tales of our craft brewers, distillers, winemakers and food producers – those making niché products using high-quality ingredients and processes.

Each of the highlighted craftspeople will have sustainability initiatives in place, whether it be a trendy craft brewery using a sustainable water supply, a craftsman giving a second life to aged wine barrels or a furniture maker creating pieces from recycled timber.

The JamFactory at Seppeltsfield in the Barossa Valley provides a space for craft and design.

Across the eight weeks of craft industries coverage, we’ll bring you these exact stories and many more, including a yarn on Kangaroo Island Wool and its tight-knit group of wool growers, organic and biodynamic winemakers, and botanical skincare labels.

We’ll take you on a tour of Adelaide CBD creative hub The Mill, home to a collection of established and emerging designers. We’ll also go inside Kangaroo Island’s honey industry to explore the sweet stuff made from the island’s Ligurian bees, believed to be the last remaining pure stock of the species in the world.

Two craftspeople will be appointed as Brand South Australia’s newest I Choose SA ambassadors, sharing their personal stories, achievements, challenges and thoughts on the industry.

So, step inside the world of paint, fabric, metal, glass, wood, fabrics, recycled materials, leather, botanicals and natural products to uncover something special.

Want to learn more? For a complete run down of the state’s craft industries, head along to Brand South Australia’s Industry Briefing at Plant 4 Bowden on November 19.

Guests will hear from Business SA chair Nikki Govan, JamFactory CEO Brian Parkes and gin producer Brendan Carter of Applewood Distillery in the Adelaide Hills.

What: Brand South Australia I Choose SA for Craft Industries Industry Briefing
When: November 19, 4.30–6.30pm.
Where: Plant 4 Bowden
Tickets: Click here to purchase.

 

Industry in focus: craft industries

Throughout November and December, the state’s craft industries will be celebrated as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian craftspeople make up some of our most creative thinkers and makers of sustainable and innovative goods. Read more craft stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

[logooos_saved id=”13411″]

Shop South Australia is home to a unique collection of over 300 South Australian gifts and goods from more than 70 local makers and producers. Choose local and Shop South Australia.

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