Making an exhibition for yourself

Welcome to Make Good Things Happen, a podcast for makers in business presented to
you by Angela D’Alton and Renee Baker.
Welcome to the final episode in this season of Make Good Things Happen,
the podcast for makers in business. This is episode 10 and yes, as I said, this is
the final in this particular season. The reason is that we have some large projects
coming up in the next few weeks that we are working on and we will need to focus
our attention on those very closely and very specifically for a little amount of
time, but we will be back and we will be better. And we will learn from all of
the things that we did in the first season and we also will learn from your
feedback. So dear listener, if you have some feedback for us,
be it critical or otherwise, please let us know what you think of the podcast.
If you’ve got some suggestions, if there’s something we do that is annoying, if
there’s something that you would like us to talk about in our next season, because
we are definitely committed to doing another season. And I know Renee is really
looking forward to season two as well. I thought you were going to say I was
really looking forward to the feedback, which that too. But yes, I think so. If we
can get our technology to work in our favour, I mean, it’s not something out of our
reach, but as we’ve learned with podcasting, it’s sort of a bit of a different ball
game. There’s a lot of new tricks we’ve had to learn ’cause this is entirely self
-produced, which is why we also came for that feedback because we’re not getting it
from anyone that we’re working with. It’s just us. So yeah, we’re really looking
forward to continuing with season two. And I think what’s really important for us is
keeping up the momentum that we’ve built recording and Angela producing 10 episodes.
Yeah, we don’t wanna lose that momentum ’cause what we’ve learned really is that
these things are better when you’re consistent with them. And the same goes for you
listening, it’s probably more enjoyable knowing that there’s a regular episode than
just having us disappear for months on end. Yeah, we are going to be back after a
short break and I’m really looking forward to expanding our content, in particular,
like you say, interviewing some makers. It was something that we did a lot during
COVID when we had virtual events that we hosted. We did a variety of them,
but we would often interview other makers and it was always heaps of fun. Arriving
in my inbox during the week was the newsletter from Collective Closets,
Melbourne -based brand that create bold, amazing,
vibrant clothing fashion who have recently returned from a combination of hiatus and
taking a break to sort of reassess the business as well as a large undertaking by
going to New York to kind of learn more about fashion over there. The thing that
caught my eye initially was the subject of the newsletter. 30 + wears at just $2 .08
per wear. The question is posed. Firstly, I felt like that was such a compelling,
interesting subject line, I was definitely keen to find out more,
and it was a very smart way to get me to open that email. So, mission
accomplished. First off, tick. Throughout the newsletter, as I said, they informed us
of why they’ve taken a break recently and how they’re back and what their plans
are. But it also extrapolated on that subject line. The notion of what they are
saying is that they’re not here to give financial advice, But they are here to make
the next wardrobe splurge feel justified, which I’m always up for. And they called
it either, what did they say? It girl logic or cost per wear calculus. Either way,
it makes sense. And they’re talking about the fact that when you do invest in a
quality piece, and you do wear it over 30 times that the cost per wear drops
dramatically. And if you are buying a garment that is $250, for example,
a collective closet’s garment, that if you wear it 30 times, that comes to $8 .30
per wear. And then if you wear it over two years, that is just $2 .08 per wear.
And of course, their closing argument on that particular summary was that it’s less
than your coffee, which I always love things that are compared to coffees or Big
Macs or, you know, it’s so that we can understand the value in an easy to digest
way. And they talk about the benefit of slow fashion and why you buy pieces with
good fabrics and and how garments that are made with high quality fabrics actually
improve over time. And also the beauty of when you buy a limited edition or small
batch item as they produce in their own studio in Melbourne. Once it’s gone, it’s
gone. And so it kind of becomes an investment piece, you know, that you own forever
and that obviously you’re going to wear it more than 30 times, generally speaking,
if you’re going to spend something like $250 on an item. Renee, I know you
personally have a jacket, a collective closet’s jacket. And I know you’ve worn it to
Death, not to death because it’s thriving. No, I think I just wanted to, you caught
my ear, caught my eye on when you said, you know, obviously you’re going to wear
it more than 30 times. And I think what was interesting about this particular piece
of marketing is I don’t think it is that obvious for people to wear things more
than 30 times, particularly at the moment where we have seen that shift back into
fast fashion. Obviously, those sorts of waves come generationally. But right now,
it’s worse than ever because we have those huge marketplaces. The idea that people
buy things and wear them once or sometimes not at all is actually really, really
common. And so a lot of marketing now, particularly from the handmade maker -based
small batch slow fashion movement, does need to focus on the fact that fashion can
be worn, not just more than once, but for as long as possible, ideally. I mean,
I often think this even now, sometimes when I’m wearing something that starts to
fall apart or it just doesn’t sort of hold the quality over time. And I think
that’s a shame. I won’t be able to pass that on to my daughter, much like my mom
and grandma and great grandma did for me. We talked about in our previous episode
with our twin set online store. A lot of the clothing that we sold was actually
from my great grandma. A lot of the clothes that I have now, not any fault of
mine, perish. Yes, I did buy a collective closet’s piece, a very awesome jacket.
And I was trying to remember exactly when I bought it, but I know I bought it
when I was working at The Finder’s Keepers, which just by my maths on the fly was
at least seven years ago, I think now. – I’m gonna say circa 2015,
2014, 2015 is possibly when you purchased that. – Yeah, I actually think they were
debut at Finders Keepers when you purchased the jacket. They are phenomenal,
beautiful sisters who make these gorgeous products, have a predisposition to tartans
and checks and high quality fabrics. The interesting thing that I found about this
particular campaign, given what you’ve just also said about fast fashion,
and obviously fast fashion is cheaper. Doesn’t cost as much and that’s part of the
problem. The slow fashion movement requires consumers who are willing to invest in
pieces. So the initial outlay is always going to be higher in many cases,
substantially higher than if you were to purchase a similar item from a fast fashion
business or brand. So I think in a comparative moment between slow and fast fashion,
when you get down to cost per wear, that’s one of those bottom line arguments where
you are identifying the value because you can talk to people until you’re blue in
the face about the value and the meaning and the sustainability in the environment.
But when you talk to people about comparing one single wear of an item that you’ve
invested into a cup of coffee, that provides a very easy to understand value
proposition for your customers to understand. The campaign goes on to talk about a
new release, a new collection and how subscribers can have access early and continues
the sales pitch. And I think it was a very smart way to do it. So props to
collective closets. And I’m glad they’re back and going strong. Yes,
absolutely. If I didn’t already say it, the jacket is awesome. So good. I had a
conversation with a friend recently who borrowed the jacket once off me. And we were
sharing the photos of her wearing the jacket. And I think she even said, “Oh, I
still like bombed. I never got one of those jackets.” Because yeah, there you go,
once the piece is gone, it’s truly gone as they’ve said themselves.
Making news, this episode’s updates that we’ve come across in the community for
makers and general information that we come across while we’re on our phones usually
that we found interesting and we are sharing with you. The first of which Renee,
you shared with me and I was immediately fascinated was yeah, Stella McCartney has a
new, has developed a new fabric. To be fair, I didn’t really read much more about
it beyond what they’d shared on Instagram, but Stella McCartney had used an Instagram
campaign to announce this new fabric development, which I don’t know if it’s meant
to be pronounced as a word or as the letters individually. I think it’s a word.
HYDEFY. That sounds like a word. Written in all capitals. And to be fair, I
wouldn’t get it either way because not great with the word than reading, but because
being dyslexic. Yeah, they’ve actually called it a fungi -based fungi. Yeah,
either is fine. You can say either. They’ve actually called it a fungi -based
alternative to leather grown using, say what? Again, more words I don’t know.
I think it’s mycellium or mycellium and sugarcane waste. I’m not sure though. I
guess I send it to you. I usually send you things because they have relevance to
me and you in more than one way and I think you do the same thing. Like we’ll
usually share something and be like “Oh, this, but also this, but also this.” Just
to tie it on with the conversation we’re having about fashion and waste and fast
fashion and slow fashion, I think any kind of innovation that we see that can be,
I suppose, considered more sustainable. And that’s, I guess, to continue, which I
haven’t actually said. They’ve said this particular alternative to leather reduces
resource consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and pollution in the manufacturing of
it. So, I suppose sorry to jump around, but I did actually read a headline recently
that said something like the day or whoever invented the idea of changing the name
of vinyl to vegan leather. As a result, then making products cost 300 % more without
any extra justification. There is, I suppose, the flip side of vegan leather, which
isn’t often talked about, but the fact that yes, it is typically vinyl and that
requires production and production and manufacturing and all that goes with it. Yeah,
let’s face it, it’s plastic. So, you know, and I think that sometimes those products
have a place. I just thought it was interesting to see that there is an alternative
to that. That’s also an alternative to leather that is still produced, but in some
ways organic. It is organic matter. The fun guy that they’ve used was discovered in
Yellowstone National Parks volcanic hot springs through research done by NASA.
And this particular fabric can be grown using a type of fermentation technology. And
as you’ve said, it reduces consumption of resources, gas, pollution, admissions, et
cetera. I love hearing about these sorts of developments where fashion leads the way,
where fashion reinvests in making its own industry more sustainable and kinder to the
planet, Stella McCartney is obviously widely known as being a major player in green
fashion where she’s able and invests a lot of her time and money in making
sustainable clothing, etc. So that was a good story. I enjoyed that one. Another
item that came up in the news via the Guardian in the US was the suggestion that
Gen Z loves lower case and that we might be seeing the death of capital letters.
I mean, obviously to an old lady grammar like me doesn’t feel right.
I mean, I have had to adapt a variety of the ways I do things over my career,
primarily from going from a typewriter to a computer. But because I learned to type
on a typewriter, I have a lot of very traditional ways. And mostly because it’s in
my muscle memory, not because I necessarily have an attitude about it. But there are
certain things that I also feel are more accessible. I think we’ve seen lower case
being kind of used as a cultural marker for quite some time in Australia.
In particular, I think we know Frankie magazine to this day, predominantly using
lower case. And obviously, Gen Z have been existing,
I think we mentioned in a recent episode, with a phone in their hand most of their
life. And so their tone of conversation doesn’t necessarily require capitals.
And they apparently turn it off on their phones. I think what it does too, is it
allows them to play with uppercase in a different way. It means they’re really,
really yelling when they do use a case. But there’s a variety of businesses that
they also mentioned in this particular story that are using lower case in their
output to connect themselves to that particular generation. Businesses like Spotify,
even Billie Eilish and people like that who play with the case of letters in order
to connect to their particular target market or their audience or their fans. It’s
also kind of, I guess, a challenge of formality. It’s a challenge to create another
newer form of communication as every generation likes to do to differentiate
themselves from the generation before. I think it’s one of those things that’s just
important to notice. If you have the Gen Z demographic in your target market, Maybe
that’s something that’s worth considering. Maybe it’s more than just a passing fad.
Maybe that’s something that you need to consider. And I guess conversely, Renee,
there’s probably accessibility issues to consider on the flip side. – Possibly, it’s
just making me laugh because I went totally went through this phase. Probably around
the time I met you because I remember doing it on my blog and very specifically
using what font is it? Is it Korean you? The one that looks like a typewriter,
always writing in lowercase or always using that font. Text messaging as well. But I
think I remember then like making a really conscious decision to always use proper
punctuation in text messages. Like it was like, I remember that as a shift and it’s
only been in the last sort of six months that I’ve gone back to using you, like
just the letter you instead of why are you purely because I don’t have time Or you
don’t have two hands. I don’t have two hands. I’m just like stabbing at my phone.
But what did you ask me about? Oh, accessibility. Inclusivity and accessibility. I
think, you know, there are some methods of communication that are about separating
yourself from other cultures or other generations. Then there’s a line to cross that
becomes potentially inaccessible for other people who potentially have,
you know, neurodivergences such as dyslexia, for example, visual impairments who need
to use readers, for example, to digest information that’s found online. There’s a lot
of things to be considered. And I mean, I see it often with color schemes. And I
know you do too. And I think we will talk about accessibility and our passion for
accessibility and design probably in another episode but I think it’s important to
consider our dyslexic friends. Yeah and I don’t know, I’d have to look at it.
I mean it would make me struggle to know when the end of a sentence was. I also
find it really hard to read all caps sometimes but not always. It sort of depends
on the context. Sometimes it actually helps breaking up sections or helping me
understand like a new heading or things like that. But yeah I But yeah, I think
with everything, especially anything that’s, like you say, either a fad -based or
purposefully different, I think it is worth always considering the readability and
just finding a space that you feel comfortable from both a brand perspective but
also an accessibility perspective where you can because I’ll admit that even though,
yes, we are totally passionate about it, we’re also still learning about it and we
certainly aren’t perfect and there are sometimes where it’s hard to actually get it
right and so you kind of have to go with what’s good enough otherwise you get
paralyzed and nothing gets done. I don’t know if that’s the wrong or right thing
but always just trying to do your best with those things is all you can do.
Another thing that we saw unfold before our very eyes on the internet recently was
the AI action figure trend, which was people creating what looked like a doll
wrapped in plastic with a variety of accessories relating to their particular
character or themselves and kind of being one of those trend based meme type things
that goes around and everyone’s suddenly doing it. And it’s everywhere on Instagram
where people were sharing the AI -generated version of themselves as an action figure.
After a couple of days, we then saw the response come full circle from our friends
in the illustration and artistic community who were creating the anti -AI action
figures that they had drawn of themselves or their characters, if you like. And
almost every single one that I saw in that series had an anti -AI message of some
description, talking about human intelligence as opposed to AI and the environmental
impact of people doing these sorts of things. I had a moment of being really glad
that you and I don’t tend to sort of jump on things too quickly because you and I
have already had several conversations about AI in our business we’re going to,
you know, use it as sparingly as possible because we are fully aware of the
environmental impact. I think some people still aren’t aware of it. Some people were
sharing like five, ten versions of these dolls. What I took out of that is we are
consistently seeing some people comfortable with using AI and many people not
comfortable using AI or not comfortable with the other people using AI as well, and
particularly when it comes to artistic endeavour or creative projects.
So again, I guess just a word of caution if you are a small business owner and
you see a trend happening that you feel is entertaining and interesting.
Sometimes it’s not always worth jumping straight on there. Sometimes it’s worth taking
a breath and seeing how things unfold. I think these sorts of things, I mean,
I think I said to you already earlier in the week that it was all kind of making
me feel a bit, I didn’t really know what I thought about it. And I think that’s
usually when I feel like uncomfortable is because I don’t actually know what my
opinion is. And so I have to kind of sit with it for a bit to figure that out,
I suppose. But as you were talking then, I had that thought of actually think these
things are only interesting to the person who they’re about because it’s kind of
like, “Look, I did this thing and look, it kind of looks like me and how cute and
fun.” And it would be fun. Like, of course, I would love to see a version of
myself characterised with a little baby honey dog and whatever else makes up my
personality. At the end of the day, as a viewer and as someone who’s consuming the
content, I actually, no offence, I don’t find it because it’s not a feed.
You’ve just hit on this whole centre of social media and what it’s actually really
about. And I think in that as well, it is about ego. It is about I want to see
what my doll looks like. I want to see what I look like as a doll. I want to
see this. If it’s through a business lens and you’re posting it through your brand
and your business, what’s the goal? And I guess I’d love to actually know how
effective posting that kind of content is in terms of like engagement, in terms of
producing new followers. I mean, it’s not going to get you sales in that moment.
You are part of a conversation, like there’s hopefully a couple of hashtags being
used that are linking people together. If someone could let me know from a more
strategic point of view with some data as to how effective these sorts of trends
are, then maybe we do need to be jumping on them soon up. I struggle to see what
the benefit is apart from a bit of fun, which maybe I need to lighten up. I mean,
maybe we both need to lighten up.
Speaking of supporting artists, our next segment, Making History is really all about
that. It’s very much our origin story and really was grassroots moment of supporting
artists in a time of need. So this making history story that we wanted to share is
actually about one of the, well, the first major project that Angela and I worked
on together. In 2009, we had our dates checked for this one. And it was called
Once Upon the Exhibition. This was an artist, I think we had 38 artists, I feel
like I can remember that off the top of my head, in a group show that we held at
Ambush Gallery. The inspiration behind the show was actually after I had tried to
have an exhibition alone, it was actually a duo exhibition with another artist called
Ashley Meaghan. We tried to put in our own exhibition, just the two of us, both
very talented illustrators. I’ll give myself a prop, I’m happy with that, but Ashley
especially. And we’re sharing our works online and had gained an online following and
we wanted to have an IRL show. And we hosted that at the Wall. I don’t know if
that’s still a venue in King’s Cross. The Wall was the event. The location was…
Oh, World Bar. World Bar. Thank you. It was at World Bar. Of course, I invited all
of my friends and family to come along, and Ashley did the same. And we did what
we thought was a decent job at promoting it to our following online. But when the
night came around, the only people that were there were those said friends and
family and one of them being Angela, who really at the time was more of an
acquaintance than a friend, I would say. You were doing your bit to support an
emerging young pair of artists. And yeah, you came along and you were like, “Whoa
dude, these are amazing, but oh my god, where’s all the people? I feel devastated.
We need to do something about this.” And I think you actually said to me like,
“You held my my hand as you left and you’re like, “We will fix this.” Don’t you
worry. Don’t worry. We’re gonna fix this. This is not over. Yeah, I think it was
seeing the full on look on your face when I walked up the stairs feeling your
spirit drop throughout the evening and I thought, “No,
we can do better than this.” I just thought, “We can make this work. We just
needed to work on something together.” And I think, yeah, it was the opportunity
that we didn’t know we needed to work out that you and I worked together incredibly
well, and we did from the beginning. Well, and I think we must have had a bit of
a brainstorm and I don’t know, it was largely led by you. I was kind of going
along with a lot of what you thought, but still very much inspired by the ideas.
But together, we came up with the theme once upon, which was fairy tales and we
wanted and we wanted artworks that were based around a fairytale. Again, you might
have pulled that number of 38 artists, and we thought that was a great idea at the
time. We asked people, but we also took applications because it was a celebration of
Leeloo’s second birthday. So we decided to create an event around Leeloo being the
business that I had, which was the online store that I had. We decided, let’s
create an event around Leeloo second birthday, because at that point, Leeloo did have
a little bit of a following, and we decided to use that as a means of creating a
sensible connection to this particular exhibition that we wanted to host. We actually
took applications. We did, yeah. We couldn’t accept everybody, but we accepted almost
everybody. And I think that Once we’d chosen those 38 artists,
we then came to allocating everybody a fairy tale to interpret.
So everyone had to create a new work for this particular exhibition, some had four.
So we had, I think it was maybe 20 of them had four pieces each, maybe more, I
can’t remember. And then we had one wall, which had one artwork per artist on it.
And so we had a variety. And we specified the size. We framed every single artwork
ourselves with a preset frame. We had the poster designed by one of the artists
that was involved, Tabatha, who was a designer that I had at Lee Lu. As in, I
stocked her goods at Lee Lu. At the time, she was a graduate of fashion school.
So she was making purses that looked like cakes that were really cool. She designed
our poster and the font that went with the poster. I never know how to tell these
stories so that they’re interesting to listen to. Or in chronological order. Yeah, or
in chronological order. So I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know if they’re
sensical, interesting, I don’t know if they have value to them. But I do know I
wanted to say that the poster that Tabitha had created, I remember so quickly, it
was like we had asked her to do it and she said, “Yep, here you go.” go. We’re
like, okay, that’s perfect. Don’t change a thing. But I think what happened in that
moment when Tabitha created the poster for this show was that you and I both had
this sense of that’s it. This is what it needs. It really set the tone for the
artists to make their work, but also, I guess, for people to know what to expect
to come to the show. And I really do think that a large part of the success of
the exhibition, which was Spoiler Alert, was a very successful event was to do with
that poster and that the impact that that had. And I still believe that things like
that, like posters and artwork around events is really, really important. Yeah,
absolutely. I think to impart the success was due to my first foray into
partnerships management, which It’s cold calling and cold emailing if you like.
Thank you so much. We had Frankie Magazine who gave us coverage on their website,
but also provided us with a backlog of… We had… coverage too.
Frank Bits. I’ve still got it. There you go. They also provided us with back
issues for us to give away. we had goody backs at the exhibition. We secured a
wine sponsor. We worked with the gorgeous boys at Ambush Gallery,
Bill and John, who are still there to this day and still absolutely killing it in
the event exhibition artistic space. They were a huge support to us and really
mentored us through that process. We could never have done it out them. I have no
doubt in my mind they were also an integral part of the success of the show and
because they had regular events they had a database of people on their email
newsletter at the time that they could invite along to the opening night and their
opening nights were known to be a nice place to go and hang and see people and we
had a lot of artists involved who have developed their careers further and who still
work as artists today, people like Kareena Zerefos, people like Manuela Strano,
people like Meeri Annelli, and of course yourself, Bec Winnell, Caitlyn Shearer,
Chrissy Lau, Courtney Brims, Jordan Clarke. These are names of people who are still
in the artistic world today, 16 years later. We had the support of our family and
friends, of course, which we could never have done it without them. We had your
brother working on the bar and your mum working on the sales and I remember she
was just like she kept running over to us like I don’t know what to do like
things just keep selling and she wasn’t flustered but she was like ah yeah yeah I
think it was a very very charged atmosphere because there were a lot of people
there yeah and I think like again just to add value to the conversation really the
driver for this whole project for both of us was wanting to have a successful
exhibition. And so neither of us really had, well, we didn’t necessarily have the
knowledge for that, but we had that as the goal. That was what we wanted to
achieve. And so we worked backwards from the, like you say, we set the date, we
found the space, we took applications for artists, we curated the show, we figured
out parameters to make it interesting. And that was the other thing I guess I
wanted to say was at the time there were a lot of group shows and I had been
part of group shows, some successful, some not so successful. And I remember thinking
that one of the big struggles for me was framing and having like a framed artwork
because it was expensive to ship and send and do. Whereas we said to the artist,
just send us your artwork in a flat envelope and we’ll take care of the rest. And
so that was an healing, I guess buying for the artists who were like, cool,
I’m going to get, not only am I going to be part of the show, but I get framed
artwork out of it. And if it doesn’t sell, I’ll get the frame back anyway. So all
good. But I do think that that also really aesthetically made the show look awesome
because we had this consistent wall of frames, the wall, the same. And they were
these very detailed frames. They weren’t just like a plain frame. Well, I think too,
the thing that you and I have, And I think it was it was a moment where we
established a lot of our working relationship and our working dynamics, but also the
philosophy of not knowing how to do something wasn’t an excuse for us not to do
it. And if we wanted to do something, then we find out how to and we do it.
We don’t say, oh, this is too hard or I don’t I don’t really get it.
I don’t really understand it because of that goal, because of that shared goal, and
because we were working together, that helped maintain that momentum that we needed
to propel ourselves towards this particular project and learn a lot along the way,
like the amount of work that goes into an event, for example. I mean, I’ve done
markets at that stage, so I knew about participating in events, and I knew about
participating in markets, but I’d never hosted an exhibition before, that’s for sure.

Well, with that many artists. – With that many artists, that many people visiting,
the other thing that I think was interesting was having Frankie involved, obviously,
as a partner and a variety of other businesses and organisations at the time who
are no longer around, people like Design Federation and Forth Thread. Oh, and
Finders Keepers, but what I did learn thanks to the lovely Kashi Somers who got in
touch with me and very politely explained to me that when you have a partner for
an event, the right thing to do at the other side of the event is to create a
report to go back to the partner and give them a wrap up of how things went, the
numbers, the data that they’re looking for to determine whether or not that was a
worthwhile endeavor for them as a business and as a partnership. That was the first
time I’d ever heard about doing partnership reports and event reports, which now I
do without even thinking. – Thankfully, we had lots of beautiful brand in the hand
photographs from the photographer that was working at Ambush Gallery. – Yes. – And Zoe
Marto. – Which we can share as well. – And we will definitely put some pictures up
on the show notes for you to have a look. Not necessarily the artwork, but perhaps
of the exhibition itself. That again, we’re tying together this beautiful episode.
Many artists equals many emails. And that is still true.
And that takes us to this episodes this week. I
because one of the reasons that we are having a break between this episode and the
next season is because I am currently project managing and curating craft lab 2025,
which is a massive undertaking by the City of Ballarat as part of Ballarat Heritage
Festival in conjunction with Craft Victoria and the Rare Trade Centre here and as
part of the City of Ballarat’s commitment to maintaining their designation as UNESCO
Creative City of Craft and Folk Art. This is a huge event. I was involved last
year as a support curator. This year I am the curator and yeah and I am dealing
with very many moving parts. Many artists, many emails. Many artists equals many
emails. It’s true. It’s true. And I think one of the things that I have learned
over the years that I have been able to put into practice for this particular event
is streamlining communications where possible, working out what the questions are that
people are going to ask, making sure I’ve got an easy way to respond to people
that doesn’t require me having to necessarily type everything out every time. But
it’s been a huge undertaking. I mean, for example, I think, well, there’s 18
practitioners. So all of them are demonstrating in the alcoves around the outside of
the Ballarat Mining Exchange over two weekends. And they’ve been involved in a sector
development program where they are fortunate enough to receive training and mentoring
from a variety of sources, but also Craft Victoria. And there’s central exhibition,
which involves usually, I think it’s almost 40 artists. And then of course, I’ve
also arranged all of the commissions of the dinnerware for the Great Takeaway. So
there’s a lot of people that I’m talking to and everyone has their own stuff going
on and everyone has their own processes and their own reasons for doing things and
their own practice, their own formats of what they produce and ways of communicating.
And there are personal challenges. So it is kind of the herding cats job
description. Having this sort of moment of talking about the first exhibition in
2009, and the current exhibition that I’m working on in 2025 is kind of a bit of
a strange feeling. – Well, it’s a strange feeling when you think if what we’ve just
said is that the idea of doing that once upon show was because we had the goal of
doing it and we learnt. And like, I think it was pretty clear, but obviously we
had support where we could. But a lot of it was just you and I like really
bunkering down and working hard, you know, even like you say, to the point of
framing everything and hanging everything and sweeping floors and all that stuff that
I’m sure we did. I don’t know, we probably didn’t because I’m sure Ambush had that
spick and span for us. But I’m just glad John cleaned all the glassware wear for us
because I had not even thought about that. And then when I saw him doing it, I
was like, “Oh, thank God they’re here to show us what actually needs doing,” because
you and I were running around like, “What I’m trying to say is sometimes these
things that if you do want to do them and you want to make them, you want to
make them into something, you have to do the first one.” And the first one I did,
you know, essentially a failure, you then have to keep going and try again. And I
mean, there was plenty that we would have learned from once upon, but now look,
it’s something that you’re doing at a prestigious level for a global event really,
because you’ve had, I mean, I know last year you had delegates coming from all over
the world, but yeah. And we will this year as well because of the UNESCO
designation. So it’s just, you know, you’re, wow, look, and that’s where I’ve come
and I kept going. Yeah, it’s keeping going and in the beginning, not knowing how to
do something wasn’t a barrier. Now I know how to do something. Because of Craft Lab
and what I want our loyal listeners to know is that as we do take a break,
the next episode that we record may be a bonus episode in between seasons where I
actually just unload about Craft Lab and tell you all about it because, you know,
I’m sure I’ll have a lot of stories to tell after the event, if you are listening
to this and you are interested in attending Craft Lab, it is on the Ballarat Mining
Exchange on Saturday the 17th, Sunday the 18th, Saturday the 24th and Sunday the
25th of May, 2025 in the Ballarat Mining Exchange and it’s free. It’s totally free
and I can’t tell you, there’s also another part of this particular event that I am
not gonna talk about until later because it’s kind of a surprise. So it will be a
very exciting thing to be able to talk about on the other side of the event. Yeah,
I’m at the pointy end. I’m looking forward to bonus episodes as well. I think,
yeah, I’d love to hear about craft lab, but we might sneak in a few others just
to keep that momentum going. Like we said, just want to say a huge thank you for
listening 10 episodes in if you are still here or if this is your first episode.
Thank you so much. It means so much to both of us. We are just like, we have the
feeling like we did when we first had Once Upon, when we were seeing people get
excited and interested with this podcast and it’s something that we’re both really
proud of. So thank you so much for being part of it and your contribution means so
much to us. We’re still kind of getting used to the fact that a podcast is very
different to the way social media works in that It’s very anonymous from your end.
You can reach out to us and let us know that you’ve listened. That would actually
make our day. You can find us @mgth .com .au on Instagram.
And we also have our personal Instagrams as well, which are probably linked
somewhere. Reach out to us in any way that you can. And for more information about
us, what we do and what we offer, you can also visit daltonbaker.com.au which is our
website that shares a little bit more about our consulting and website work that we
offer as well. So please have a visit of those platforms and really looking forward
to getting back into it for season two. Thank you for joining us and we look
forward to seeing you on the other side. See you later. Thank you, thank you, and
for making it happen. You too. Thank you. Yay. Thanks for listening to Make Good
Things Happen. If you enjoyed this episode, why not write a review or share it with
a friend? For show notes and more, head to mgth .com .au. This has been a D’Alton
Baker Production.

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