About me

I wrote this for the fabulous Women With Altitude‘s SHINE talk in May.

I was really nervous but I had such great feedback and didn’t get all the way through it. I thought I’d share it with you…

You’ll have to excuse me if I read from my notes. I hate public speaking and am an extroverted introvert. Andrea once described me as a ‘creative introvert’ at the Blue Mountains Love magazine launch and it really does fit.

Here it goes…

I’m an inner city girl. Born and raised in the colourful, glamorous, grotty lights of Sydney. I went to school in Darlinghurst where I won Australia Post design-a-stamp competitions, poster comps and more. I became a ‘westie’ in high school when we moved to Annandale in 1985 – my sister and I were appalled we’d be going out all that way out west! It was considered west back then by my mates.

What I remember most about those years is that we constantly played dress ups and I got into the rockabilly scene quite young. My mother was a single mother and sold second hand clothes at markets for many, many years. She has an amazing work ethic and cleaned, ironed, mended and presented the most beautiful vintage clothing. You could actually get a lot more of it back then and I had stunning 50’s bright colourful cotton frocks, petticoats, hat boxes and beaded cashmere cardigans. I did a lot of artwork for 50’s bands back then, all hand illustrated with text overset, photocopied and posted all over record stores across Sydney. It was awesome.

I always drew and wasn’t a particularly academic student. I was described as ‘dreamy’ and ‘unfocused’ throughout my school years. In Year 11 my art teacher Mrs Pritchard decided I needed to get out of the school system when I stopped going altogether. She pushed me to apply for a Graphic Design course at Randwick (which is now the Enmore Design Centre) when I was 16. There were no computers back then and I had to draw various items and stories as my application. I got in – they accepted around 100 of us out of around 3000 applicants. Being so young I didn’t appreciate or understand this. Because of this I dropped out after my first year, held down some shitty jobs but soon realised that the boss was just getting me to create newsletters and cartoons for his soccer club and I preferred doing that to actual work. So I had to beg to be allowed back into my course where I finally completed it. I was too young, too ‘dreamy’, too ‘unfocused’ but still see these qualities about myself many years later – and they haven’t always been a bad thing.

My first job as a graphic designer was at DoubleDay Australia – direct marketing for books. There were several designers and copywriters working as a team, photographer and production people. One of these dear friends recently lost her battle with cancer and it will forever affect me. We had an absolute ball then – I was making money, being creative, partying pretty hard and lived with my mates in a pink terrace in Glebe. We didn’t understand why the terrace was painted what I now describe a ‘vulva pink’ throughout with heavy pink drapes and carpets. It had a heavy dungeon door at the back of the house. One night we switched the front porch light on, loving the red glow through the glass shade. All night we had door knocks with drunk old men asking for a girl. We really had no idea that it had previously been a brothel – that’s how silly we were.

I moved around Sydney freelancing in various advertising agencies – some very large ones – and got into PolyGram Records for some time where I designed 90’s album covers. The best thing about vinyl compared to designing for cassettes was you actually had a lovely big surface so your design could be seen – not that my record covers were particularly exciting as I was sort of known as the cartoonist so I got really bad 90’s compilations where I drew boom boxes and that sort of thing.

Somehow I ended up at Reader’s Digest for many years. Yes, I was one of the designers creating those direct marketing campaigns that ‘trick’ so many out there. I say ‘trick’, but honestly you have more chance of winning $250,000 from Reader’s Digest than from the lotto. Truly! I worked closely with a copywriter in a team and was sent all over the world to work on major campaigns with the International group, flying business class, given a gold credit card and more. Not bad really… And my first born daughter is born from a relationship at Reader’s and I am still friendly with her dad. He works with myself and Geoff in raising her and we all work pretty well together. So much so that my younger child (not his) calls him ‘Daddy (name)’ too despite him probably not being too keen on that title.

So in-between all of that, before my first child and the relationship at Reader’s, I married a pommy bloke and we decided to go to the Northern Territory on an adventure. He wanted to join the NT Police and I was sick of the rat race of Sydney and sick of working in making money off other people. Advertising is such a high and such a wreck on your conscience.

My sister was living in Darwin at the time so this made it easier and off we went. He trained as a policeman all dressed in khaki and a hat like Smokey the Bear. I hated Darwin – too tropical and wet for my liking plus I get eczema so not a good fit. Darwin is spectacular in the wet season. Everyone goes in the dry but I always encourage people to go take a look. The crashing thunder storms, the crackling of lightening across the plains, the smell in the air. Plus a local tip is to stand under that rain to help the eczema. It does work. I don’t know why.

I was worried about leaving a big city and finding work in the Territory. I didn’t know if I could find some sort of design work or whether I could be a check out chick or work in an office again. I didn’t have to worry. I got a job at the Newspaper up there straight away working on their ads. Not the most creative, but I had cash in my pocket. Then I got full time work at an agency working on government publications once I settled myself in and looked around.

My hubby’s first posting was Alice Springs and we were excited to be moving there. I mean, come on, Alice Springs is like the real wild west of Australia. I was excited to leave the tropical climate, crocodiles and stingers too.

Alice Springs breaks my heart. It is the most beautiful region. The colours are so over the top – like a dodgy biblical painting with the clouds, sun streaming down, that sort of thing. Electric. Bright orange sand, brilliant blue skies without a cloud. Big skies. Soft gum greens over bleached white gum trees. It only rained a handful of times while I was there for 3 years. The Todd River in flow, the birds and creatures coming to life, singing and croaking away. And the smell, it’s so weird when you forget that you can smell things after it rains. The dry deadens that sense. All of a sudden I could smell the earth and the gum trees.

I managed an advertising agency out there in Alice. We had a ball. I have had some of the most creative clientele there including CAAMA (Central Australian Aboriginal Media Assoc) where I had lovely artists coming in wanting cd covers designed and photography. These boys would be in things like white stetson hats and white leather fringed vests with cowboy boots, shy as anything, terrified to walk into our little agency. We got to put on their music, get them singing a little and start shooting as they loosened up. A real privilege to be working with awesome Australian artists!

I met some amazing friends out there. Other women from outback Queensland and NSW, there in Alice to study and learn about the Beef Industry. Through that I created books on the Native Grasses of the NT and their importance to the indigenous community, the beef industry and agriculture. These girls were fascinated about me being a city girl from Sydney and I was fascinated about their life in the outback, going to boarding school and studying agriculture taking their skills back to their parents stations.

It was at this time that my marriage broke up. We had a little corrugated iron house in the middle of the MacDonell ranges outside of Alice Springs. The most beautiful setting where you could watch the colours change on the ranges and the brilliant skies lit up at night. He wondered if I would go back to Sydney. No, I was going to find some flatmates at that little tin house and push on.  I found a paramedic and a pilot for the NT Police to move in with me. We partied hard (again), created some incredible memories, I got to explore the outback and met some lifelong friends along the way.

Some work came up for Parks and Wildlife to tender for. Now there was something I could sink my teeth into. It involved illustration, map work, designing interpretive signs and you got to go on field trips to some pretty unusual locations in Western Australia. Yes please, sign me up! As my marriage had fallen apart, my boss really pushed that I go and do this stuff. It would also keep me from leaving Alice Springs I guess if I was happy at work and getting such great opportunities.

So I will give you my best ever client briefing job in over 20 years of being a designer.

Two Parks & Wildlife people take me out through Kunnunurra to a remote location in Keep River National Park. We go through mud doubled up on quad bikes in the most remote location. I have mud all over me as I’m not properly dressed like them. I have bites all over me. Grass blades biting into me. I’m sore cos I sit at a desk all day and I’m unfit. They are marching me all over this incredibly remote location not shown to the public to have a look at rock art as I am a special guest to this country. My marriage has broken down and I’m confused but suddenly I am in heaven it seems.

We pull up and there is a beautiful gold grassy field with ancient high sandstone walls around it, scrubby foliage and tall strange palm trees here and there. It’s silent. In the middle of the field is a funny old Troop carrier sitting with its two back doors open but I can’t really see inside. It’s raining too by the way. These guys walk me up and urge me into the back of the Troopy. ‘This is it I think. I will probably die now’. I have no idea what these pleasant, friendly, country people are doing. I can only be suspicious of their motives.

I squeeze in with the two Park Rangers where there are shouts from others in the Troopy to shut the doors because of the rain. I sit down to see 3-4 older aboriginal men in the back sitting next to me smiling shyly. In the front is two women, a couple of babies roam throughout the car and about 3 small camp dogs are licking me and rolling around the place. There is rain coming in through the roof in running mini rivers over my head. I am introduced quickly then told by one of the elders to start drawing. He tells the tale of the serpent in this valley. Of the rain and the people, the good and the bad, and why this story is important. ‘Take it back to the white people to know about’ he says. I have no idea of some of the characters he wants me to draw. All of these men lean in and encourage me when I start to get the figures right. I’m nervous – this is such a big honour and I don’t want them to be unhappy with my drawings. It’s like a bad identikit sketch but slowly we come together on it. I have water dribbling over the pad, making my quick pen marks run. I finish, they announce they are leaving, handshakes and I’m back out in the rain and back on the quad bikes for the journey back to camp.

Of all the conferences and meetings I’ve had in Brussels, New York, Melbourne, Sydney, Darwin, Alice Springs and Brisbane, this is the one that means something.

I am not producing consumer rubbish. I am not producing advertising. I am not trying to get money out of anyone. I am helping people understand the region they are visiting. And I am ecstatic.

So eventually I reconnect with my old Readers Digest flame and he moves out to Alice Springs with me. After a year or so, in a weirdly unhappy relationship, we moved to Brisbane for a spell, then we decide to move to Wellington NZ for a new experience. I don’t think we were both particularly happy together but we enjoyed the transient lifestyle.

Back in Sydney, flights booked, looking for jobs in Wellington, I say to my mum and sister let’s go up to the Blue Mountains for the day so off we head. Standing at a lookout in Leura, the wind blowing full force around me, I look down and think ‘jeez this is almost like windy Wellington. We should just move here’. So I ring him and he says ‘sure, less stress anyway’. So I arrive in the Blue Mountains in 2003.

I had a lot of vintage fabric then and started making one or two handbags from it. I got asked to make more and suddenly I had a full blown business, artisan markets, winning local awards and it’s sort of out of control with my rocky relationship. And then I am pregnant. After the birth of my darling girl, it was a little tricky. She was in leg casts for turned in feet, screaming with reflux, jaundiced and it was not the birth I had been hoping for. It wasn’t a pretty birth at all and he was right there in the thick of it. Let’s just say epidural, hot lights, etc was making it stressful for me and not great at all on my partner… 

She’s six months old and he says he can’t come home anymore, just can’t do it and doesn’t love me. But if I want him to stay to help with the baby he would do that. I told him to leave right then. ‘But where will I go?’ he says looking around. I was stoney, ‘I don’t know but you should have thought about that first’.

Suddenly I’m raising this little baby girl on my own. Of course her dad was still supportive for her financially – but not there – so I am exhausted. Luckily I had amazing support in my Mothers Group here in the Mountains where I have formed some incredible friendships. That’s the best thing about the Mountains – we have community. I couldn’t believe these women. Educated, interesting, life experience. Welcoming interesting women. I have lived in many places but I can tell you this place has it all.

My mother and aunt tell me I should just be happy raising my child as a single mum. But that was how I was raised and not part of my plan in life. Eventually I turned to internet dating to see ‘who was out there’. I was terrified. After some dating experiences, I met my husband.

We eloped when my little girl was 13 months old. Whirlwind, right? It was perfect and as we’d both been married before we felt it was the right thing to do. You can’t ask for another toaster the second time around, right?

I had my HUGE 2nd baby girl – known as Dancey by her big sister – in 2011. I’d done Calmbirth after panicking about my experience first time around (highly recommend to everyone), had an amazing Doula (yep totally recommend again!) and had quietly panicked that my husband might leave me like the first one had done. Nope, he’s a stayer. A good ole fashioned country boy and proud as punch on the birth of his 12 pound baby girl. I blame the donuts for her size during that pregnancy of which there were many from the Helensburgh bakery.

So that leaves me talking about Mount Vic and Me. My range came about sitting with children at home. We’d bought our beautiful little cottage in Mount Victoria for a song, lots of work to do to it but happy. I was designing something for a client. Kids screaming, house chaotic and I just sat there and thought ‘I should be designing something for myself’. So after 20-something years I pondered… but what would I do??

I started just doing what I liked to do. I’d always loved native birds, our dogs (Lucy the cattle dog and Badger the Pug) and my many many chooks. The chooks are another story – but let’s just say I am nuts and I show them. People asked for more designs. The greeting card range grew. I got stockists, then more stockists. Then started designing tea towels to go with them. Then earrings, then magnets. Now I am doing paintings and exhibiting my work. There is talk of a children’s book…

Last year I became one of four in Blue Mountains Love – an amazing bi-annual magazine showcasing the wedding industry in the Blue Mountains. I love this magazine but also suffered. I realised that I was madly treading water trying to please everyone. I had too many projects, kids, renovations, Geoff’s book keeping to do, Mount Vic and Me, graphic design projects. I couldn’t stay on top of it. I felt ill. I stopped sleeping and got up every day at 4am to catch up. My children mucked up. I was miserable. I was unavailable to all including myself…

The wonderful Andrea at Women With Altitude was mentoring me through it all. She wanted the four of us to sit down and do a post mortem on our first issue. It was a very very hard decision. I told the girls that I couldn’t continue and wanted to concentrate on my business.

But I walked away feeling it was the right decision. Actually I felt amazing.

Sometimes saying no or not doing everything is the best thing. We all know our limits.

I am open to so many opportunities now. Things are coming flying towards me. I had one of my illustrations sought after by a publishing company for an up and coming international book, WWA finalist, artisan market opportunities, exhibitions, more stockists and features.

I walk. I breathe. I garden again. I’m even excited to be showing my chooks again. My brain is now focused.

One last thing. On holiday in Sydney, from Alice, sitting in a bar with friends many years ago. Talking about living in Alice Springs and working in a remote advertising agency, one girl says to me, ‘you are so lucky.’ I was surprised. As we all know, every single woman here, it’s not luck, it’s bloody hard work.

I applaud all of us for taking that leap and going for it.

Tuesday 16th May 2017