Stallholder Chat with Billie Hardy Artistic Design

Name: Billie Hardy Artistic Design (Lara)
Location: Wynyard, Tasmania

What do you make? I make gift cards and art prints. I'm also a graphic designer, so what I did after I studied graphic design was that I combined my Fine Art and my design and made something that's marketable, that people could buy for gifts.

What/who inspires your work? My daughter inspires me just because she's so innocent and beautiful and I try and portray beauty in my work and make people see things differently, that they might not see as beautiful. Like a dirty old dandelion and try to make people see that as beautiful.

How does your location in Tasmania effect your work? Being in Tassie, the landscape inspires me. Coming from W.A. it's pretty boring and flat and can get a bit stale there, so being somewhere really pretty is definitely inspiring to me.

If you could give one piece of advice to someone thinking about setting up a regular market stall, what would that be? I don't do markets that often, this is only my third market this year. I really enjoy doing markets. Don't have any expectations, don't come into it thinking you're going to sell it all and then you're really disappointed going home. You just have to go and experience it. A lot of markets I've done, I've actually picked up contacts for design work and things like that. So that's always a bonus even if I don't sell anything.

Thanks so much, Lara for having a chat with us about your work and being a Tasmanian maker! You can find Billie Hardy Artistic Design on Facebook and the web.

Naomi x

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Stallholder Chat with Lisaloo

Name: Lisaloo

Location: Somerset, Tasmania

1. What do you make? A whole range of different homewares, mostly. Ranging from bags cushions to bunting. My favourite materials to create with are natural and recycled materials. In fact, I rarely use anything that hasn't had a life before. 
2. What/who inspires your work? Often it is my materials, in the first instance, that inspire me. I'll have something to hand and  it just comes to me what I'll make with it. But I do also have a very bad habit of checking out way too many blogs and other handcraft sites and so forth. Especially my favourite at the moment is Bespoke magazine. They send inspiration and stories every day.
3. How does your location in Tasmania affect your work? I think it's something about the atmosphere here that is conducive to being creative, that laid-back lifestyle where you've got the time and there's so many other people around who are so inspirational. Also, being somewhere I can go to op-shops and things like that is another thing about where I live that makes it all happen.
4. If you could give one piece of advice to someone thinking about setting up a regular market stall, what would that be? How you present your stall and having some kind of consistency or theme, would be a really good place to start. Have a think about what it's going to look like as soon as people see it.

Many thanks to Lisa for agreeing to be our first MWL Stallholder Chat! Make sure you have a look at her website and say a big friendly hello to her next time you see her at the market!

Naomi x

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