Loretta Houghton sits in the spare bedroom come studio in her home in the Grampians in Western Victoria when we chat over the phone, but it was while she was living on the Victorian Surf Coast that she first discovered pottery and the idea of Hey Lenny was born. A business of thoughtfully made ceramics to enhance everyday moments, so you can enjoy the good things in life.
With a background in interior design and styling there was always a strong creative interest for Loretta but it was industry setbacks from Covid that launched her into pursuing Hey Lenny as a full-time business venture. She’d had a taste off pottery through local classes and short courses in Torquay and had slowly been building up her experience. It was the move to the Surf Coast that ignited her creativity, discovering that in her new environment she was surrounded by creative inspiration, it fed into her love of the outdoors and the desire to slow down and enjoy the smaller moments in life. In her words, “ceramics is a vessel for that lifestyle, sitting down to enjoy your favourite cup of tea in your favourite mug or sharing a meal with friends in a beautiful ceramic bowl, it is the ritual and sharing moments of joy”.
Loretta lives this mantra in her everyday life having found the perfect intersect of work and life through pottery, she can’t define where one ends and the other starts and she loves that she can call that work. It is a freedom that is so much more fulfilling than she has ever experienced creatively and personally.
As Loretta talks about the journey the business has taken so far, the gratitude oozes out of her. She’s grateful for the opportunity to be doing something she loves everyday as a job, amazed that people want to buy and use her beautiful handcrafted ceramics, and pinching herself that dream stores have approached her to stock Hey Lenny. Pottery is such a “tactile thing”, the process amazes Loretta herself, “I love that I have made something with my hands, it’s functional and now someone can drink from it or eat from it”. She loves how messy it is, that even if she creates something that doesn’t work out the way she wanted she can recycle the clay and start again.
Even though she admits she struggles with imposter syndrome, it’s hard to see why. She has managed in three short years to transition from a pottery hobbyist to a full-time ceramics business owned and operated from her home studio. She managed to get her hands on a $50 pottery wheel from a community house, has installed a kiln, and can now complete the whole creative process from the comfort of her home. The home studio is in a “beautiful spot, overlooking the garden” in a “close-knit, small community with lots of creative people” all providing unique sources of creative inspiration.
It is with such love and care that Loretta has built Hey Lenny which is why there is so much anticipation around how the business will grow. Loretta hopes that the home studio will allow for greater freedom to streamline product collections and has some exciting new stores joining a growing list of stockists and one day she hopes the Hey Lenny business will grow again into something bigger than just her – perhaps building a community, pottery classes, and even a retail space. It will be hard to look away, the future is so bright for Hey Lenny.
Follow along the Hey Lenny journey at heylenny.com.au or @_heylenny
]]>Cormach, a proud Yorta Yorta man, who grew up in Wadawurrung country in Geelong took the leap a few years ago and quit his job. When his wife, Coco, was pregnant with their first child Cormach came home and told her that he had decided to leave behind the security of a stable job to follow his passion of helping and supporting young Indigenous Australians. He shared how important the timing was for him and his family to take that jump and without the support of his partner it wouldn’t have been possible. The now father of two, to Waari and Winnie, founded Strong Brother Strong Sister in 2017 and Ngarrimili shortly after in 2018. Today, Cormach and Coco run both organisations together and Cormach believes that’s the reason for their success. The outcome of that decision has been to the benefit of many young people and hundreds of First Nations businesses across the country since both organisations were founded.
Strong Brother Strong Sister is a culturally appropriate safe place for Aboriginal young people to access and thrive. They operate Australia wide with a range of services and programs offered across the country. The organisation is Aboriginal youth led and designed, a tangible show of Cormach’s advocacy in not just the programs of Strong Brother Strong Sister but also in the legacy it will build internally amongst its people.
Cormach founded Ngarrimili with ‘the view to creating the best opportunities for the First Nations business community and drive generational wealth’, nurturing and supporting First Nations businesses. The organisation operates with a deep respect for the rich economic history of First Nations communities that have thrived through trading and ceremony for more than 80,000 years. They want to continue the legacy of this economic development by supporting First Nations businesses and entrepreneurs.
Hearing how passionate Cormach is as he talks about both organisations, you can see there is plenty more he wants to tick off a big to-do list. He’s got grand plans and there’s nothing that’s going to stop his drive. It is a gift to meet a person like Cormach offering so much to other people particularly young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. He shows great pride when says he’s “the oldest at Strong Brother Strong Sister – the next oldest person is 23 and I love that”, he recognises that change isn’t just going to come from one person but if he can be the first cog in the wheel the rest will follow. There is great optimism and confidence he has in the great young people in both organisations and how they are going to positively change the future.
Ngarrimili will soon be opening the first of its kind space across Australia in Geelong that will include a retail space, gallery, co-working space, café and live music venue, check out the great work of Ngarramili at www.ngarrimili.org.au or @ngarrimili on Instagram and Strong Brother Strong Sister at www.SBSSF.org.au or @strongbrotherstrongsister where you can donate to both organisations.
Ranger Outdoor will be donating 10% of all profits of the Australian Made Steve Shirt as seen on Cormach to Ngarramili.
]]>Seb Robinson is a film by Kane Chenoweth.
]]>Alex Servinis, a bit of a craftsman himself, has great memories of family winemaking days too, although it may not have been as fruitful, laughing as he remembers “very bad Macedonian wine” – his words, not mine. Tim and Alex, along with Darcy Muller founded Pool in 2019 after building a friendship on a shared love of making and creating. They’ve helped each other with building jobs, camping trips, cooking projects, formed a punk band, and then came natural wine. The idea to make their own - ‘just a small batch’ - quickly followed.
The three of them bottled their first vintage of Shiraz without a name. Darcy, a Creative Director, knew they wanted something catchy with strong design elements. Tim claims the naming rights, coming up with the idea at a Brunswick pub overlooking a game of pool. Plus, he confessed later that they felt a resounding sense of approval after reading that Gwyneth Paltrow says double letter names are great for branding – an unexpected brand reference.
Darcy gifted one of those first bottles to footballer Ed Curnow, a friend from Darcy’s time at the Carlton football club. Ed loved the wine so much he joined the Pool Wines crew for the following vintage and never left, rounding out the four-man crew. Having been raised on a farm on the Surf Coast, and now raising his own family on land, it is no coincidence that Ed’s addition to the group was a natural one. Used to working on the land, he has an appetite for taking on new projects – especially ones that get him outdoors.
Alex describes the dynamic of the group as complementary, ‘everyone gets around each other and makes everyone enthusiastic about wine. Everybody brings something different but there is enough in common that it doesn’t create any dissonance’. It is an apt description that you can see play out during a busy day of bottling, each of them happy to get their hands dirty, seamlessly transitioning between different jobs with the continual hum of laughter in the background.
There is freedom in how they work together that Darcy pins down to the fact it is ‘a business and a hobby’. They’re not dictated by what labels or bottles or varietals they choose nor are they restricted in how they do it. As Darcy’s saying this, he points to a few of the day’s bottling crew kicking the footy in the sun, others lying in the grass eating lunch and those having a glass of this year’s wine. It’s important to them that they continue to enjoy the work and being together.
They’ve stayed true to their natural wine roots; handpicking grapes, minimal human intervention and no sulphur added, ever. The Pool Wines future will be even more sustainable, there’ll be more wine, and ideally a premise in Melbourne. They’re looking forward to building the Pool family with plenty of events, bringing people together and not taking winemaking too seriously.
There is a love and respect for making things by hand that is held by the group and the finished bottle – a true labour of love – is even more sweetly enjoyed having seen the process itself.
Pool Wines 2021 vintages of Shiraz, Vermentino and Rosé will be available at alternative wine shops and you can follow @poolwines on Instagram for more details.
]]>Kai shares with us about the transition of moving back to Tathra after being away for 20 years, putting on the tool belt, renovating his house, and living the simple life with his family and friends.
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As soon as i opened the door Sammo’s workshop, my senses are overwhelmed by the smell of leather. Everywhere I look, there is a mix of beautifully crafted saddles, offcuts of leather, original hand tools to longhorns. I could spend hours rummaging through this workshop. It’s a workshop where someone has spent decades honing their craft. Sammo explains this as his organised chaos. To me it’s a creatives dream.
Andrew ‘Sammo’ Salmon was born in England in 1951. When he was 9 years old, his family set out on their adventure to move to Australia, where his father was going to work as a chief engineer in Geelong. The Family packed up their life in England and prepared for their five week voyage on the ‘Strath Naver’ ship. Their trip took them through the Suez Canal, stopping in Yemen, making their way to Bombay where Sammo recalls seeing the beautiful blue ocean and skies turning into a long dark hazy cloud that went for 100s of km. After a stop over and tourist trip around Colombo, they sailed across the Indian Ocean and made their first step onto Australian soil in Fremantle, WA. From here, they sailed through the Great Australian Bight which Sammo recalls as being radical seas where the ship often seemed vertical and even the indoor pool on the ship was emptied. Finally, they reached their destination of Melbourne. For Sammo and his brother, the five week trip was nothing but fun and adventure, where as he believes his parents may have had a different experience.
The Salmon family settled in Belmont where it was nothing but dirt roads and five months of rain, opposite to the hot and sunny videos they had previously seen of Australia. After leaving school at the age of 15, Andrew began his first job at the wool mill in North Geelong as an apprentice designer. This is where his passion for hand crafting began. Sammo started riding horses at 12 years old. He was given a saddle by a friend, but the saddle needed repair work. After receiving some quotes for repairs, he and his father decided they’ll learn to fix it themselves. They bought an awl, needles and thread and figured out how to repair the saddle. Andrew became infatuated by western saddles, and saved up money from his paper round to purchase a book released by R.M Williams titled ‘How To Make Cowboy Horse Gear.’
The first product he and his father ever made was a set of leather coasters, which he still keeps to this day. Sammo moved to Torquay where he worked multiple jobs such as greens keeping, managing local surf shops, and pouring beers at the local pub. He then began crafting leather bags, which had engraved designs on them influenced by the Torquay lifestyle. A group of the boys established the name ‘Happy Days Leather Co’ which they engraved on their leather satchel bags. Andrew reflects on this stage of his life as being a time filled with surfing, friends, parties and pure happiness.
Sammo then set out on an surf adventure up the coast with Rip Curl & Quiksilver founders Brian Singer and Alan Green. He was dropped off in Yamba where he then made his way to Maroochydore where he worked at the Hobbit leather shop. Wherever Sammo went, he took his leather tools with him. He then found him self going to Thursday Island on a mission to repair a yacht and sail it to Botany Bay with his friend. After they set out on their voyage, they ended up returning to Thursday Island where Sammo lived on the yacht and spent a year there making leather products such as stubby holders, belts and bags.
By the 80s, Sammo returned home to Torquay where he worked various jobs whilst travelling to different parts of Australia. He established a nursery and would delivery flowers around town in a horse & cart. A group of the locals had an idea to start the Bellbrae Cup which ended up being an annual event of fun horse racing where they would have shetland ponies racing against draft horses. The event was help as a fundraiser and Sammo was responsible for driving people to and from the races in his horse & cart with a barrel of beer. The event was eventually shut down by the Australian Jokey’ s Club, so Sammo packed his things and moved to WA to work and play Polo Cross. As usual, his leather machines and tools travelled with him and he continued to craft his products.
After various injuries, Sammo returned home to Torquay where he met his wife in the early 90s. He began making saddles in various houses around Torquay. His family then moved to Moriac, where he is still living today. He established a workshop and shop selling leather products, hats, boots and clothing. His workshop still exists today, and Sammo is still in there crafting his beautiful leather products every day trading under the name Of Leather & Wood.
Cheap isn’t good, and good isn’t cheap. You can connect with Sammo by phoning 03) 5266 2188 or through a google search.
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Brad was born in Darwin and grew up on a cattle station in the centre of NT. He spent his childhood with constant dirt up his nose helping out on the station, riding horses and spending weekends travelling around the country side to compete in campdrafting events. At the age of 12, he set out on his new adventure of boarding school in Adelaide. Monday to Friday he attended school with a neat uniform and a clean nose, but he was still lucky enough to spend weekends on friends farms and holidays back on the family cattle station.
Brad was drafted for footy straight out of school where he joined the Richmond Football Club. In 2005 he made the move down the highway to join the Geelong Football Club where he played for seven years, winning three premierships. In preparation for retirement from footy, Brad managed to complete an apprenticeship in cabinetry. In 2011 he decided it was time to hang up the boots and pick up the tools to put his skills to work.
When the time came for Brad and his wife Sarah to tie the knot, they wanted to hire some furniture for the wedding. Unable to find what they were wanting, Brad decided to make it himself. After receiving multiple requests to borrow the furniture after their wedding, they realised there was an opportunity in the market for handmade timber furniture hire. Pepper Sprout Hire was established which was a boutique furniture hire company, servicing events throughout Geelong, Melbourne and Regional Victoria.
After operating Pepper Sprout for four years, Brad & Sarah sold the business to allow time for the next stages in their lives. They welcomed their first son into their world, and Brad had time again to focus on making furniture for custom orders. They now enjoy the simple pleasures in life on their property with their two boys, scruffy jack Russell and Gabby the goat.
In the coming year Brad will be releasing his own furniture range. You can visit Brad at www.bradottens.com.au and follow him @bradottens
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