Meet talented locals at the

Plenty on offer at Sunset Artists’ Market

Come along to February’s Sunset Artists’ Market to meet some talented locals who are producing beautiful handcrafts available to purchase. Here some of the stallholders give an overview of their creative journey and what unique products they will be offering from 5-8pm, Friday 9th February in the Lane Cove Plaza.

Karen creates luxe, casual, timeless designs, that are either hand dyed or hand illustrated.

Karen Tam

At the market, I will be offering hand dyed and printed scarves, wraps and sarongs, as well as homewares such as cushion covers, tea towels and napery.

As a nature lover, all my products are either hand dyed by me from natural and botanical ingredients, or hand illustrated designs which are either screen printed or digitally printed.

I am conscientious about healthy textile practices, using techniques that minimise pollution. I use either natural ingredients, or water-based printing inks on natural fibres such as silk, cotton, wool or linen. As the earth becomes more and more polluted, it is really important to me to ensure that whatever I produce treads lightly on our earth and leaves a small footprint.

Celebrate emerging creative talent

Kasia Jacquot

All my work is original and hand stitched by me and features bold and modern floral motifs. As an artist and designer, my aim is to offer people a way to create embroidery by way of uncomplicated lessons and kits. I believe that anyone can learn this ancient craft and the creative and mental health benefits are enormous.

I was taught informally by my grandmother and aunts and turned my passion into a business when I discovered a great interest from others to learn this craft and also to have access to easy instructions and good quality, interesting patterns.

Kasia will be selling hand embroidered pieces on linen, embroidery kits and providing information about her classes and workshops. Millie makes children’s clothes ranging in size from newborn to around 3 years. Each piece is individual, as is each child!

Millie Stephen

My aim is to make beautiful, unique and practical clothes for babies and young children, while contributing to a culture of sustainable fashion by using vintage and recycled fabric, and focusing on quality to ensure my pieces will last and be cherished.

I first fell in love with sewing watching my grandmother transform my visions for imagined dresses into reality.

After the birth of my daughter, it was a natural creative expression for me to start making her clothes. It began with a tiny hat, and I continued to develop different patterns inspired by her emerging character, together with fabulous fabrics.

$5 from the sale of every ‘Pointy Pembleton Visits the Dog Park’ book will be donated to Greyhound Rescue.

Olivia Reily

Storytelling is a major part of my practice, and I work predominantly in illustration. I am often inspired by folk art and tales, as well as the beauty of nature.

I will have a wide range of illustrated paper goods such as cards and stickers on sale, together with hand screen printed t-shirts and ceramics.

I also make jewellery out of translucent polymer clay. Each piece is unique, hand painted and filled with a variety of precious things like gold leaf, dried flowers, or even green tea.

Olivia’s products appeal to young children and adults alike, due to their harmonious colours and whimsical style.

Nat Panzarino

I will be selling a children’s picture book entitled ‘Pointy Pembleton Visits the Dog Park’. I will also be selling a number of original Pointy Pembleton watercolour illustrations and screen prints.

Fer Wicker and I came to the idea of a children’s picture book when looking for unique ways to fundraise for Greyhound Rescue, where we both volunteer. My background is as a teacher of Visual Arts and English, whereas Fer's expertise is as an artist and graphic designer, so it was a perfect fit for us to write and illustrate the book together.

The book has sold over 1000 copies so far. It’s perfect for kids aged 3-8 and is a wonderful story about diversity and acceptance.

This holiday season we've just finished an outdoor renovation and so decided to have a staycation to enjoy it. By Liz Foster

In any case, it's an obvious choice, as the benefits to all of staying in Sydney are innumerable. Lack of traffic, for one. Whilst supine on your couch, novel in one hand and a chilled glass of Sav Blanc in the other, think of the hordes of travellers heading south/north, making great time until confronting the inevitable roadworks/ breakdown/ single lane bottle neck/ learner driver accumulating his/her hours.

Avoiding air travel is even better. No back-to-back queues to the airport producing nail biting nerves whilst contemplating missing your flight. No stripping down to your underwear for the international travel detectors. No lengthy flight delays due to errant volcano eruptions and ash cloud plumes.

You can hang around the house/ garden all day in your shorts (or swimmers if you're lucky enough to have a pool), joining the great unwashed and living off beans on toast and the dry remnants of a very old Christmas ham. All parental duties involving education and nutrition are suspended (although their use as a taxi service does increase dramatically at this time of year). It's OK to read more than one novel in a week, have multiple consecutive late nights and go to bed before the children.

The best part of our staycation is that our Wi-Fi connection is faulty. The patchy connection is no problem for my husband and I with mobile data packages, but yes, it is a problem for my teenage children. They've been forced back to the Dark Ages of reading books. This has the added dual benefit of creating enormous household peace and quiet whilst being able to engage with them at normal decibels since headphone use is not required.

Problems with staycations, however, have been identified by experts; if you leave home you leave your comfort zone, meaning you're missing one of the pillars of brain health - to challenge yourself. It's easy to over-focus on mundane everyday household tasks. Disconnection from work is also considered harder when at home (just think about that for a minute!)

My answer to these concerns is quite simple. Swap houses with your neighbour and don't ask for their Wi-Fi code. It's not a problem to nip home if you forget something and I guarantee you'll never be tempted to do their washing or housework.

Foodfaith and Bagshare receive grants

The Sustainability Small Grants Program assists the development of a range of initiatives that have direct and practical benefit to a sustainable Lane Cove community.

Organisations and community groups can apply for a grant of up to $5,000. In the latest round of funding, two projects were allocated funding on the basis that they were deemed to have direct and positive community based outcomes and environmental benefits.

This included FoodFaith, to enable the purchase of gardening tools and to cover the cost of a plumber (to the value of $4,652); and the Lane Cove Sustainability Action Group, to purchase a sewing machine and consumables to make reusable bags (to the value of $1,000). Council deemed that these initiatives had direct and positive community-based outcomes and long-term environmental benefits. The FoodFaith community garden provides an important cultural, community and multifaith attraction for residents; and the Bagshare program supports Council’s goal of reducing single-use plastic bags in the community.

Round 15 of the program will be advertised in February 2018, with $15,000 available in the budget for this financial year.

No! You cannot text / talk / and drive

The Richardson Family knows first-hand the pain of losing a loved one through texting and driving.

Vicki Richardson’s daughter Brooke, aged 19, was killed in a car crash while texting and driving. Vicki has been campaigning to raise awareness of the dangers of mobile phone use, in particular texting while driving, through the Brooke Richardson Foundation

(www.dont-txt-n-drive.com).

"Our Foundation is concerned that society is changing and the younger generation are becoming dependent on their phones,” said Vicki Richardson. “If we don’t start educating them about how to use mobile phones appropriately and safely; then sadly we may see an epidemic on our roads in the future."

The ‘Distracted’ road safety campaign comes with a hard-hitting message for all vehicle users, and targets the dangerous use of mobile phones while driving.

You cannot hold your phone in any way while driving. If you want to use your device, you must be parked out of the line of traffic.

HERE ARE THE RULES:

Fully licenced drivers, motorcyclists and bicycle riders CANNOT use a mobile phone to: ● Text or audio text ● Email ● Use social media ● Take photos ● Video message

Provisional (P1 and P2), Learner (L) drivers and motorcyclists CANNOT use a mobile phone AT ALL while driving or riding.

LIMITED USE of mobile phone is restricted if the phone is FIXED IN A CRADLE and operated via BLUETOOTH or VOICE ACTIVATION to: ● Make or answer a call ● Play music ● Navigate or use speed advisor app