Greg Mann

An interview with Greg Mann - Jeweller. "As a student of the arts, I was attracted to working with textural details, ending with a Fine Art degree in Gold and Silver smithing. My development towards a professional career has often been a process of making the common place more precious.

My inspirations involve an environmental awareness believing in the need to recycle - and upcycle discarded things to create more desirable objects.

A continual process of collection, collation and planning is a result of responses to the items found. The studio has an inevitable stream of new works produced and an ever broadening range of collections in the works.

Holding market stalls offers me an interface with the public that helps my business in many ways. Not only do I gauge reactions to my work, but also the exposures to increase my networks."

Able and Game

We are Able and Game and we make greeting cards from our studio in Brunswick. Anna has a fine art background and Gareth has a computer science background. We put these two skills together to create our little card business. We both work on the card concepts together with Anna doing all the illustration. Gareth grew up in Scotland and Anna grew up on a sheep farm in East Gippsland. We love watching TV, watching people and looking at everything and how it relates to a card. We just went over to Hobart recently and visited Mona which was really amazing. So many rock star artists. Oh and cats and booze also seem to feature strongly in the cards so I guess they are big inspirations.

We just got a new printer, so lots of ideas are coming from all the things we can do with paper now. We love being able to create our own products so we can release lots of weird and wonderful things.

We have been doing Rose Street for a few years now and it really did help Able and Game get started. We love having a little mini shop set up every weekend and talking to the customers about which cards they love. We often say we love hearing people laughing at the cards and share stories after each market on who we spoke to on the day.

Linogirl

I'm  an illustrator and ceramic designer working with porcelain clay, creating one-off wearable objects and small vessels. I further use these works to create my limited edition prints and gift cards. I studied printmaking and photography at RMIT (Melbourne) and did a very short stint in the gold and silversmith department at RMIT a few years later. I'm a self taught ceramicist. I like to explore themes of uncertainty, and the small unseen aspects in everyday life. I'm very interested in silence and quiet pauses in time.

I like to paint small moments in time. It's an extension of my photography work but with my painting I'm illustrating what I feel and imagine and not what can be seen though a camera lens.

I have started working on small sculptural forms which are hand formed in porcelain which compliment my more functional wearable works and vessels.

My stall at Rose st has been invaluable in helping me build a loyal customer base. It offers the opportunity to be able to introduce new work and get instant feedback, see what works and what goes unnoticed. It's like having a open studio every Saturday. It's a great place to catch up with other artists and designers which is important if you are working alone all week in your studio as I am.

Shonah

If old world treasures are your thing, then you'll love Shonah Tomkins and her antique inspired jewellery and accessories. Combining her skills of life-drawing and screen printing while drawing inspiration from her small town roots, Shonah's beautiful range of wearable art is totally handmade, eco-friendly and all individual. Very much reflecting Shonah Tomkins as a designer.

In-between her role teaching music Shonah is working on a new linen, demin, vintage lace and Tasmanian Blackwood range to debut at the market soon.

Not bad for a small town gal!

Affinitive Designs

Sculptor, musician, jeweller and all round nice guy Craig Swindells creates his range out of his Healesville studio in Melbourne's Yarra Valley. You can expect to see an ever evolving range of sculptural jewellery pieces in silver, which reflect his enjoyment of music and just generally being creative.

Ingrained the the market community, Craig loves participating in the Melbourne art scene.