~ YOU'RE INVITED ~

That end of year fever is in the air and we're ready to celebrate! Please join us for the Guild Christmas Market on Sunday November 27 from 12 noon to 4pm and help us celebrate the end of a fantastic year!

A bunch of our makers will be in store, so you can chat to them about their practice. We'll have bubbles and Beatrix cakes on the go to say THANK YOU for being such a wonderfully supportive community throughout 2016. And we'll be offering a range of specials to help you tick off the items on your Christmas shopping list early. 

For every $100 spent on the day, you'll get an entry into the draw to win a $500 voucher to spend at Guild! A good excuse to get all that Christmas shopping done now and then treat yourself later! 

Shop locally and mindfully this Christmas and give gifts made with love! We'll wrap your presents in our limited-edition double-sided artist wrap featuring the illustrations of Seb Brown and Edith Rewa. 

We also have a series of workshops running throughout December so you can MAKE YOUR OWN presents for loved ones, or simply have a good time with your hands covered in clay.

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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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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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