We’ve been big fans of Kim Russell’s work for a long time. Brooke and Chela shared a studio with Kim many moons ago. We enjoyed sharing a space with such an intuitive and whimsical creative soul - truly an artist who dances to her own beat. Kim began her creative practice making small, limited-editions of jewellery, but has since moved on to clay, making one-of-a-kind sculptures which ooze personality, movement and spirituality.

We are so excited to be showing Kim's exhibition of new works entitled 'Masks' this month at Guild of Objects from 22-30 July 2016.

Please come help us celebrate the launch of Kim's exhibition at a special preview on Thursday 21 July from 5pm - 8pm.

We recently interviewed Kim about her work , her practice and her perspective on life and creativity.

Can you please tell us a little about yourself and your craft?

I designed and made jewellery which I loved but I'm influenced by materials so working in a studio with ceramicists led me to creating with clay.  I make small sculptures and feel like I'm on my own little exploration of surrendering and letting it unfold.  I'd love to make large sculptures one day but have no idea how to go about that so for now it's fun playing with form and shapes on a small scale.  My craft goes hand in hand with many of my spiritual practices.  I love the spontaneity and immediacy of clay.

Do you have design philosophies that guide your practice? 

Get out of my head and into my body and let the creativity flow.

What does your studio look like? 

I have an alter with candles, rocks, crystals, palo santo and other trinkets, but besides that it's pretty bare. I don't like too much visual stimulation when I'm making.  Being surrounded by trees is all I need.

Where do you draw inspiration from?

From stimulating conversations...

The other day I was walking through the forest and came across a guy watching a lyre bird.  We started chatting.  He composed music and I said I made sculptures.  We spoke about nature, creativity and the ways of the Universe then thanked each other and continued in our opposite directions, both knowing that we had crossed paths for that moment to creatively inspire one another.  I live for those synchronisations.

What does your perfect day feel like?

It doesn't matter what order but it would include.....meditation/dancing/yoga/walk in nature/eating healthy meals/snacking on sweet treats/cups of tea/connecting with friends/making lots of sculptures while contemplating life's mysteries.

Who's work do you admire?

It changes all the time but at the moment it's Jean Miro and John Byrne.  Oh, and Bjork and Patti Smith, they are constant inspirations.

If you could do anything tomorrow what would you do?

Fly to the magical lands of Peru.

If you could teach your kids one thing, what would it be? 

I would probably want to nurture their curious and free nature and hope they would never lose it.

What are you reading at the moment?

Mysteries of the dark moon by Demeter George

If we rummaged through your grocery bag, what would we find?

Vegetables, chocolate, tea, nuts, Danish sweets.

Can you tell us the first thing that pops into your mind when we mention the word …

Breakfast...yum                 

Weekends...relaxing

People...mix bag

Pause...keyboard

Sound...healing

Smell...nature

Place...travel

Texture...tactile

Ritual...necessity

Color...black

What’s one thing you can’t live without at the moment?

Living in the forest

What are your words of wisdom?

Tap into your own unique gifts and don't follow the crowd.  It doesn't matter if your work isn't always popular.  Evolution and growth of your own practice feeds your soul.

 

Exhibition Open Hours:

 

Find Kim on Instagram, her website, and the Guild shop. 

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We recently had Mr Fancy Plants transform our workshop space into a veritable jungle and we had a launch evening to celebrate! Thanks so much to everyone who came along to the pop-up shop – here are some piccies of your faces. 

 

Photos by Linsey Rendell

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Naomi Savio and Dana Cooke are the creative couple behind new venture Mr Fancy Plants. Combining their backgrounds in visual merchandising and industrial design, and a love of all things leafy and green, they began to grow (literally) the idea for this side project. Now their weekends are filled with designing and producing planters and propagating and tending to greenery for indoor and outdoor spaces.

We chat to Naomi ahead of our first pop-up shop-within-a-shop! Mr Fancy Plants will be taking over our workshop/exhibition space during April 15–17, with a launch event on the evening of Thursday April 14 from 5–8pm and a free workshop on Sunday 17th April 2 - 2:30pm (reserve your spot here).

Can you please tell us a little about yourself and your craft?

I’ve always had an interest in art, design and nature. Most of my childhood was spent wandering around our six-acre bush property in outer Eastern Melbourne. I moved to the city after high school, and studied Visual Communication at RMIT followed by Visual Merchandising at RMIT, and have worked in retail design ever since.

The other half of Mr Fancy Plants is my partner Dana – he is originally from the US and moved to Australia when he was 16. His background is in industrial design and works as a toy designer.

We’re really lucky in that we both love our day jobs, to the extent that it creeps into our hobbies and side projects too. Mr Fancy Plants is the result of that – a combination of horticulture, product design, and visual merchandising.

When and how did you first get interested in plants?

I come from the ultimate ‘green family’ – my dad is a horticulturist and my mum is a landscape architect. While growing up, dad ran a wholesale plant nursery specialising in rare and unusual house plants. He bred, propagated and introduced some well-known plants to the Australian market from the early 1980s until 2003, such as the beloved Chain of Hearts, String of Pearls, Hoyas, Zygo-cactus (which included one named after each member of our family!) and 'Fairy Lights'. I often assisted with plant propagation and the selling of plants at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show from an early age so I guess plants have become second nature to me!

Can you describe the early days of setting up your business?

Dana and I had been discussing doing a side project together for a while. We wanted to find more constructive ways to spend our weekends besides watching TV series and finding the next best breakfast café! We thought it would be fun to do a micro version of dad’s nursery business model, and Dana was just looking for an excuse to buy a 3D printer, so we decided to grow plants and create some limited-edition planters for them as we couldn’t find any interesting pots to buy.

 

What does a typical day look like for you?

On a typical weekend, we usually wake up early, have a quick breakfast and get a coffee at our favorite local cafe. Then it’s off to the nursery to water and care for all our little green babies (translation: plants). We’ll usually pack a lunch and eat there. After hours of propagating, potting, pruning, weeding, and fertilising, its back to the house for a cat nap. Our evenings are usually spent on designing and setting up the pots to print overnight – our 3D printer is constantly humming away!

What do you draw inspiration from?

Besides nature and being surrounded by greenery, one of my biggest inspirations is my grandmother (who just turned 99!). She has an amazing eye for colour, texture and materials and I’m constantly referencing the art works she collected both here and overseas. She definitely helped me to form my creative sensibilities, and still inspires me today.

Dana brings a totally different set of influences to our work – he is a bona fide pop culture geek, growing up on comic books, Japanese monster movies, and 80s cartoon shows. It’s no accident that some of our pots end up looking like little creatures. He also moved around growing up, so travel and experiencing new cultures is something that inspires him quite a lot.

 

What are your top tips for keeping indoor plants healthy and happy?

All plants have different needs, but the single best thing you can do for any plant is get to know it. By that I mean, observe the plant and note when it’s looking healthy, and notice when it looks less happy; signs of ‘unhappiness’ might include drooping, poor colour and dry leaves. Once you notice any issues, you can alter the amount of light, air-movement, temperature, nutrients and moisture levels depending on the symptoms to address the problem.

If you could do anything tomorrow what would you do?

Trek the Inca Trail in Peru.

If you could teach your kids one thing, what would it be?

Failing and learning from whatever life throws at you is better than being comfortable and not trying at all.

What are you reading at the moment?

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (book club choice!)

If we rummaged through your grocery bag, what would we find?

Yoghurt, kangaroo, parsley, chocolate

Can you tell us the first thing that pops into your mind when we mention the word …

Breakfast … Grapefruit
Weekends … Eat Sleep Plant Repeat
People … Complex
Pause … Dramatic
Sound … Magpie warbles
Smell … Mint
Place … Tokyo
Texture … Lamb’s ears, the plant variety
Ritual … Wattle pancakes on the first day of spring!
Colour … Grrreeeeen 

What’s one thing you can’t live without at the moment?

Podcasts.

What are your words of wisdom?

Work hard and enjoy the ride!

Find Mr Fancy Plants on Instagram, online, and in store at Guild of Objects April 14–17.

 

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So you may have heard we collaborated with local illustrator Ashley Ronning on a map – specifically the Guild Of Objects' Guild to North Melbourne! Naturally, we had a little soiree to celebrate. Thanks so much to everyone who came along – here's some piccies of your faces. 

 

Photos by Linsey Rendell. 

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For our first Maker of the Month for 2016, we introduce you to illustrator and zine maker extraordinaire Ashley Ronning. From her studio in Brunswick, Ashley sketches plants, ponders the cosmos, and explores anxiety with illustration. Her risograph creations are often dark and twisty, but also colourful and comical. She's also the maker behind our very own Guide to North Melbourne map! You can now pick up a copy in store, before taking it out for a test run in our wonderful neighbourhood.

Can you please tell us a little about yourself and your craft?

I live in a quiet corner of Brunswick in a 1950s-built, 1970s-renovated house with some good friends. I work in my studio just a short bike ride away from home, where I make my illustrations, zines and other projects. I grew up in Canberra and don’t go back to visit often enough! It was a great place to be as a kid, but I needed a change when I was old enough to flee the nest.

How did you first get started in illustration?

I was planning to stay in Canberra for university to study politics, but realised that it was absolutely not for me. Shillington College in Melbourne had the perfect graphic design course, and it wasn’t until after Shillington that I realised illustration was a possibility as a career! As for zines, I first saw them at small bookshops in Canberra and zine queen Vanessa Berry came to town to put on a zine workshop. She had me hooked!

 

What has the journey been like since those early days?

I felt a huge change when I met other illustrators and makers in Melbourne. It’s so amazing to have a go-to-gang for advice and support. I suppose my practice made a huge leap last year when I switched to full time. It has its stressful moments, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. 

Can you give us some insight into your creative process?

I get ideas from exhibitions, books, music or conversations, and often sketch out some ideas until I fall in love with something that I want to make into a drawing, print or zine. When I’m ready to begin the final piece, I make a rough sketch, refine it a little, and then ink over the top. If I’m risographing it, I’ll usually just draw the line work and then add layers of colour in photoshop, before churning it through the riso.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I usually wake up, sneak around the room in the dark so I don’t wake up the boyf, feed Fritz the cat, have some toast, hop on my bike to the studio, put on a pot of tea and fire up the computer. If I’m not feeling very inspired, I’ll organise online orders or answer emails, then I’ll usually do drawing in the middle of the day, and then risograph printing at the end of the day if I have printing to do. I do so many different projects so every day is different. Afterwards I’ll either head home to hang out with Fritz or go to an exhibition or gig.

What do you draw inspiration from? 

For over a year now I’ve been really inspired by space – I find it endlessly fascinating. I’ve also drawn a lot of inspiration from my trip to Japan last year, friends’ art, exhibitions, sci-fi books and films, and nature.

What are you reading at the moment? 

Men Like Gods by H.G. Wells. 

If we rummaged through your grocery bag, what would we find?

Pasta, pesto, zooper doopers, bread, broccoli, pumpkin. 

Can you tell us the first thing that pops into your mind when we mention the word … 

Weekends ... Halloumi for breakfast
People ... Sometimes
Pause ... Record player
Sound ... B-52s
Smell ... Tea
Place ... Tokyo
Texture ... Corduroy
Ritual ... Risograph
Colour ... Rainbow 

 

What's one thing you can't live without at the moment? 

Halloumi.

What are your words of wisdom?

Worry less about what others think and just keep making what you love! Eventually everyone else will realise you rule.

 

Find Ashley on Instagram, Twitter, her website, and the Guild shop. 

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Hello friends! We know it's February already (can you believe it?!) but welcome to 2016! We hope you had a magical festive season filled with good food, good wine and good humans. We've reopened the doors this week and are super excited for the year to come.

So we made a map! Or rather, engaged local illustrator and zine maker extraordinaire Ashley Ronning to sketch a map of our beloved neighbourhood of North Melbourne.

The Guild Guide to North Melbourne features a few spots to pause for a coffee or a bite to eat surrounding your visit to our shop and other great places in the suburb. It's by no means a complete list, but rather a few haunts to frame your day, while perhaps stumbling upon some more gems along the way.

So to celebrate we're having a launch! (Can you tell we enjoy a good soiree ...?)

Come along to the shop on Wednesday February 17th from 6–8pm to be a part of dem warm and fuzzy hood feels. 

Join us for a drink, receive a free map on the night, and meet some of the folks behind the great bunch of local businesses that make up North Melbourne.



Ashley Ronning is an illustrator based in a studio in Brunswick, Melbourne. She has been drawing since she could pick up a pencil, and when she was four, cut her own hair to complete a picture of a pony. After studying graphic design, Ashley found her way into freelance design, then set dressing and prop making, and now spends her time in her sunny studio illustrating and risograph printing. Ashley loves to draw plants, explore anxiety with illustration and comics, and ponder space through her mysterious and sometimes haunting ink drawings. She enjoys working with others to realise their vision through her illustrations, but is also warming up to begin working on her first book. When her pen and ink cartridges are down, she's playing pinball, going to gigs, or having a tinnie in the sun.

~ See more of Ashley's work here ~

Photo by Tatanja Ross.

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