Fit for a Queen

Leah Willian was raised in a home full of antiques. And when her parents passed on, she decided to let go of their collection. “Once everything was sold, I realised that I really enjoyed the game of buying and selling and recycling.”

She tells me every piece carries its own story. “There's some things that were very hard to let go of that might have told a story throughout my family through my parents, grandparents and their parents.” She says the pieces eventually forge new stories for different people.

She recalls a chair fit for a queen she once found at her parents place.

“It was a red velvet quilt chair, I did used to love sitting in it. And then one day, I just decided, I think this would look fabulous in my shop. Of course it did. And of course someone bought it immediately. I just love that story, carrying on to another family.”

Leah’s calling from her antique shop; Rocket and Belle in Ballarat. But her journey began in Daylesford, at the Mill Markets, with a friend.

“We had quite a lot to sell. And once it was all sold, I remember quite clearly, my friend said to me, “Well, we've sold everything now we might as well close our store down.” And I said, “no, I really, really enjoyed this.”

So she rang another likeminded friend, “his nickname was Rocket, and he was a collector. He lived up up in the Mallee area.” They decided to go into business together. “And so we called ourselves rocket and Bell, we didn't really have a name, and I didn't want it to be Rod and Leah.”

It wasn’t long before Rocket and Belle outgrew the Mill Markets and moved to Leah’s father’s old industrial tin shed in the middle of Ballarat. Rocket moved on, so Leah went solo while keeping the same. She began to focus on specialising in antique Australian pieces that expressed a sense of time and place.

“Some of the furniture that we're selling or recycling at rocket and belt has been around since 1840s. We love to sell depression era pieces, like a cabinet made out of cheese boxes, made out of whatever they could find back then.”

The pieces of the depression era were often hand carved, artisanal items that pine for the ornate precision of the Victorian style, softened with the passion of a utilitarian sentiment.

“There’s something about making do with what you have around you. It was the depression. So there's creativity, and there's passion, and there's usefulness. They really tug at your heartstrings because there's also there's an emotional aspect to a piece of depression furniture too, because it's from someone who had nothing.”

These days in Ballarat, young couples who have recently moved to the country are visiting Leah to decorate their homes. “And they're finding out the history of their home. What I'm learning about their passion is that they want to put things into their home that's from the era when it was built.”

Rocket and Belle capture the sentiment of something American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson meant, when he said, “our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural.”

You can find Rocket and Belle at 'The Shed on Mair' 37 Mair Street West, Ballarat. Thursday, Friday and Saturday: 11am till 4pm rocketandbelle.com.au

This winter, from the soaring St Peter's Church to the Bullarto bush hall, some of Australia’s finest musicians will be pouring out their souls in a series of events for Winter Sounds.

“It was a long development period,” laughs Dave. “We run a an event up in Echuca called the Riverboats Music Festival, which is a three day outdoor festival on the Murray and for years we’ve wanted to develop a sister event.”

The Riverboats Music Festival sells out every year and hosts artists like Paul Kelly, Neil Finn, Missy Higgins and the Cat Empire.

“My family have a place out at the back of Daylesford, in a beautiful old school we’re restoring at the moment and hoping to do some shows in eventually.”

Over the years, as Dave was coming back and forth from the region he says he was struck by an idea, “to create a event over the winter months that could bring some of these artists that we've worked with into some of the extraordinary spaces around Daylesford.”

“One of the really unique things about the region is that every bush track, you go down, there's another abandoned church or school hall, or little village and I suppose as a music promoter, I'm sort of peering into these beautiful LED light windows and thinking, imagine if we did an intimate show with some of these acts that we've worked with.”

He began reaching out to people who managed these bucolic spaces in Glenlyon, Bullarto, Daylesford and Clunes. “At the Clunes town hall, I opened this door. And it's got this incredible painted backdrop like a Frederick McCubbin pace. And it's from the 20s or something!”

He says, “The great thing about it is how encouraging and supportive that community has been. A lot of these buildings are never used to their full capacity now, particularly the churches. We were in the United Church last year, and that was built back in the gold rush for a congregation of 350 people, a local minister said they're lucky to get 10 a week to services now.”

We're not just ring fencing a footy oval and bringing toilets to the staging and rolling out a traditional festival. We’re not using the word festival. It’s a series of one off performances in unique, extraordinary spaces, so a lot of these bands that do play in front of 1000s of people If you're on a festival stage, are like, ‘This is amazing. You're telling us we can go and perform in a bush Hall you can only get to via Art Deco train that we've charted?”

This year, Winter Sounds will be hosting intimate performances by Adalita in the Bullarto Village Hall, Jen Cloher at St Peter’s Church in Daylesford, Gareth Liddiard in the Bullarto Village Hall and Watty Thompson in the Clunes Town Hall, among others.

Dave runs me through his top picks, “I think Mo’Ju at the townhall will be pretty extraordinary. They just performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. And they will be supported by Coda Chroma, a Ballarat artist who was PBS’s artist of the week a couple of weeks ago.

Dave Frazer - Festival Director Winter Sounds wintersounds.com.au

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