September 14, 2026 • 47 mins
Carla Grace has built her career painting the wildlife she grew up with in South Africa. She’s just landed back in Australia after a piece of hers went under the hammer at Sotheby's in New York for an astounding $40,000.
In this episode of The Edit, Carla tells Home Beautiful Editor-in-Chief Elle Lovelock about her childhood surrounded by rhinos, crocodiles and elephants, and how a stint without electricity in rural Zambia sparked the art career she's built over the past 12 years.
Plus, Carla takes us through the art studio she and her husband spent a decade planning and saving for. The design is deeply intentional, down to the exact colour of the walls, so nothing would throw off-tone light onto her paintings. She also shares her honest advice on choosing frames and displaying art purposefully.
Sending thanks to our partners at Kaboodle Kitchen.
Explore kitchen and laundry inspiration at kaboodle.com.au
This episode covers:
- Landing back from New York after selling a painting at Sotheby's
- Growing up surrounded by wildlife in Zimbabwe
- Her formative years in New Zealand and Zambia
- How a home with no power led her to art
- Building her art studio out of repurposed kitchen cabinets
- What her parents think of her career now
- What "success" really means after 12 years in the art industry
- Inside her 1980s farmhouse, mid-renovation
- Can rhinos paint?
- A listener dilemma – everything especially the kitchen sink
- What makes a home beautiful
You can find Carla on Instagram here.
Check out Carla’s amazing art on her website here.
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Credits:
Host: Elle Lovelock
Guest: Carla Grace
Edited by: Leah Porges
Head of Vodcasting: Rachel Fountain
With thanks to our wonderful Home Beautiful team.
The Edit is a production of Home Beautiful and Are Media.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
This is an R Media podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This episode is brought to you in partnership with a
brand I truly love and live with, Caboodle Kitchen.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
We had elephants coming through our yard.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
At home?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
At home, yes, in Kariva. And we lived on the lake.
And so during the day crocodiles would be sunning themselves
on our lawn. And at night we weren't allowed to
go outside and play in the yard because hippos were
eating our grass.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I'm Elle Lovelock, editor-in-chief of Home Beautiful. Welcome to The Edit,
where we bring you into beautiful homes with the people
who create them. Today, I'm sitting down with Carla Grace,
a wildlife artist who has just landed back from New
York after having a piece go under the hammer at Sotheby's.
Born in South Africa and raised in Zimbabwe, Carla grew
(01:01):
up surrounded by the wildlife that now defines her work.
After moving to Australia 12 years ago, she built an
art business from the ground up and now paints from
her home studio on 15 acres in South Australia. In
this chat, Carla takes us through her studio build and
having rhinos walk through her garden, why she prefers the
(01:24):
term rustic to imperfect when it comes to the home. Carla,
welcome to the edit. We have been having a right
giggle already, so I feel like... We just couldn't get
the cameras going quick enough. No.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
This is good.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
But it's so nice to meet you.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
An absolute pleasure. And you flew in this morning from Adelaide.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I was a bit confused. I thought you had flown
in from New York. I was thinking, you look very fresh.
But that was a month ago.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yes, New York was last month.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And I know why you were there. But share for
our listeners what took you to New York because... It's major.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yes. New York was a very big event for me.
It started, I'd have to say, three years ago. I
flew to South Africa for a collaboration with the Kevin
Richardson Foundation to work on a significant legacy painting of
his iconic lions. So he does a lot of conservation work,
(02:27):
educational program for the canned lion industry and wildlife conservation
as a whole in Africa. And he's a pretty iconic...
figure in wildlife conservation. So I teamed up with him
and spent three months creating this painting and then proceeded
to spend the next two years trying to get it
into basically the world stage to not only for my branding,
(02:52):
but for his message and for what we were achieving
as a collaborative force. How do you do that? A
lot of entering it into competitions, meeting, networking, promoting it.
A lot of it is just getting it out there,
so really making my media reach the audiences that connected
(03:12):
with the painting. And I entered this painting into a
competition with the ARC, which is an organization that is
driven to bring skill-based, realistic artwork back onto modern art stage.
So making the skills and the aesthetic quality, the message
(03:34):
behind the artwork, something that is significant again in modern art.
And so my painting won an award and the award
winners from this competition were exhibiting at Sotheby's in New York.
So that is how I got the painting into New York,
being on the world stage there. And then it sold
at auction and the proceeds were were donated to the
(03:58):
Kevin Richardson Foundation. A grand total of $ 40, 000 Australian dollars
was raised by the.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Sale of this painting, which was amazing. Gosh, that is incredible.
How would you explain to people what Sotheby's is?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Imagine the highest... platform for an artist to get their
artwork into like an establishment. So I think Christie's and
Sotheby's is a auction house for art that sells and
operates at the highest level for artists. So typically there's
(04:35):
about 500 artists that maintain the highest level of prestige
in the world.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Really?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
At any one point in time. This is not talking
like the history of art. This is like current body
of artists.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Wow, I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It's very, very small amount of artists compared to how
many artists are practicing right now.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
And so, I mean, you're talking the thinnest sliver of
the 1% of artists get into this level of the platform.
Oh my God. So for the ARC to get these
artworks into Sotheby's is huge for every artist that was
part of the exhibit.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
The subject of this artwork, you have connections to this
part of the world, don't you? So why don't you
tell us about that?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Well, that's my history. So I was born in South Africa. Yeah.
and then spend the nineties in Zimbabwe, in Kariba. So
that was a particularly significant part of my life because
wildlife was just, it was everywhere. We had elephants coming
through our yard. At home? At home, yes, in Kariva.
(05:45):
And we lived on the lake. And so during the day,
crocodiles would be sunning themselves on our lawn. And at night,
we weren't allowed to go outside and play in the
yard because hippos were eating our grass. And hippos are
among the most dangerous wildlife in Africa. And I remember
we didn't listen, obviously, all the time. And we were
(06:06):
playing hide-and-seek tag in... the dark. And I remember running
out of the light from the patio into where it's
all pitch black because you're in the middle of Africa.
There's no, you don't have a lot of, there's no
real neighbors. So it was just pitch black. And I
turned around and did a big loop. And I remember
seeing this massive, I was like seven or eight at
(06:27):
the time. It was this huge belly in front of me.
And I remember skidding like down and just like doing
one of those classic flip over and like running back
to the house. I was like, there was a hippo
right there. And it just, it didn't see me. It
was like. But that's why. That is why.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
And never again did we play nighttime tag.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
And go outside at night again. And, I mean, that's just, like,
one of many stories. We had to leave overnight in
early 2000. Yeah. And we moved to New Zealand because
we had some family there. Yeah. And we got in, like–
just the smallest window where they were accepting expats from Zimbabwe.
(07:09):
And we stayed in New Zealand for six years. And
my dad or my mom and dad are just African,
just to their course. They always wanted to go back.
So when I was 14, we went to Zambia, moved
to Zambia. I finished high school in Zambia. And this
is where I sort of started painting and drawing more seriously.
Like I won a competition in New Zealand, but I
was more interested in friends and yeah cell phones were
(07:32):
coming out like you could get yourself and I decided
to focus on art because we moved into the middle
of nowhere we didn't have power didn't have like no
hot water that kind of thing so all I had
was pencil and paper and I started drawing birds out
of the bird book whatever I could see on the
farm I would draw And it just sort of grew
(07:55):
from there. I started drawing people's pets, people's kids. People
started paying me to draw their kids. And then their
friends started paying me to draw their kids. And then
it just sort of started growing. And by the age
of 16, I was doing portrait commissions for strangers. And
so I finished high school, moved back to New Zealand
because you just went to university out of high school.
(08:17):
I said, I don't want to go to university, but
I went to university. And then I dropped out. My
parents were like, you tried. and moved to Australia, and
that's where I started my art business.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
And that was 12 years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Is there one childhood home in particular that has stuck
with you? If you were to take us through the
home and tell us what it was like.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Which one do you think of? The most, I think,
it gives me, like, goosebumps thinking about it, our home
in Kariba in Zimbabwe. It was an old fishing warehouse.
And my dad, it was just, imagine bricks, just a
brick warehouse. And there were like some storerooms up the top.
(09:01):
And my dad built every piece of furniture for our house,
including the stairs that went to these bedrooms that he
put flooring in to be our bedrooms, obviously. And my mom,
very creative school teacher, she would make all the curtains.
My dad built this huge, I mean, it was huge
to me. It was probably just, you know, normal size.
And beautiful round wooden table. Like everything my dad did
(09:24):
was just carpentry level, beautiful. He made my mum her
beautiful dresser, like with the three mirrors, with the little
drawers and all of that. But we had to leave
all of that when we left. We took our photo
albums and some clothes. That's all we could do. So
I've packed my life down into 30 kilos numerous times.
So my attachment to things... isn't probably as significant as
(09:50):
what most people would have when you've grown up in
a home and you've got all these beautiful keepsakes. um
now I'm more now I'm starting that for my children
now I'm building the furniture now I'm building the studio
and painting the walls and you know holding on to
things that I love which is a really cool thing
(10:11):
to do as an adult absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
And what do you hope to teach your children? You
have a five year old and a seven year old.
What do you hope to teach them about things?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
You don't need to be good at everything, but just
be willing to be able to do things. You'll be
able to accomplish so much because you don't have to
buy everything new in order to have everything that you need.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
After the break, Carla takes us through her art studio build,
including the kitchen pantry she's fashioned into a sewing cupboard.
Where do you create?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
I work in my studio. So I have a studio
at home. It's one that I have built myself. Of course.
My husband and I, we saved up to build the
studio for 10 years. And we live on a rural
property in South Australia. We've got 15 acres. It's all
gum tree. It's been part of my husband's family for
(11:15):
the past 25 years. When he was a teenager, they
planted 3,000 gum trees on this property. So now that
we own this place, we have all these mature gum trees,
which is just stunning. So it's a beautiful spot. We
have mobs of kangaroos that live in our forest. No hippos.
Nothing that's going to trample me or eat me. Or
(11:36):
impale me, which is great.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
You can just relax.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
It's great. We hear a fox every now and again,
but that's about it. So it's a beautiful, restful place,
and we've built a studio, which is 9 by 12,
and then it's got a little additional lean-to, which is
the workshop bathroom. And we have designed this studio around
the functionalities of what it is to actually run an
(12:04):
artist's practice.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
So what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (12:06):
There are many different facets to being an artist, especially
what I do. So I'm not only just painting, which
is just your easel and you've got your nice table,
whatever you work from. I film tutorials. I package my
artwork myself. I do my framing myself. I do all
the building of the spaces and I use it for workshops.
(12:31):
I use it for presentations.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I use it for Wow, this is a really multi.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
It is a multi-purpose.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yes. So we designed the functionality and then made it beautiful.
So we created a space that served multiple purposes and
could be transitional. So we could move things around and.
That became sort of like the key identifying factor to
(12:58):
my space is that every time I show footage of it,
it's in a different spot or like things have moved around.
There's a corner now that I've set up for filming.
And the backdrop is a particular desk situation. And as
you walk into the studio, you see the easel with
the painting. But then I've got a wall easel behind
(13:20):
that where I hang artworks that are drying. It's a
great space.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
How do you even go about? building a space like
this it's I mean to build an island bench are
you you know lugging timber in how do you do that.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
I so this is probably the coolest part I've used
kitchen cabinets the caboodle kitchen cabinets and we I've created
a structural frame yeah as a base that holds the
two groups of 900 um cabinet drawers yeah together and
they each have the backing to it and the sides.
(13:57):
So they're a complete kitchen island that I've added extra
support on underneath, extra support to hold them together.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
So it looks beautiful.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
It's beautiful, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
What colors, finishes, worktops?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I went for very neutral. So the colors, the materials,
everything that is used in my studio is intentionally designed
to create a neutral palette because light reflects color and
color influences the.
Appearance of paint on the canvas. Even the reflection of grass.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Really?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
The amount of green light that comes in from grass
outside is, once you notice it, it's like, oh, my
painting looks green. So I control, everything in my studio
is very controlled. Lighting, color, intensity, and the neutral color palette. Okay,
so I've got gray, like a soft gray blue, very
(14:51):
similar to the background here, just a bit lighter.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And with white board and batten at the bottom so
we've got viscous clay and that means there's a lot
of movement so using plasterboard was never going to work
there's a lot of movement in the shed so everything
has a gap in it so which is why i
chose board and batten because you can cover the gaps
which is great vj panels up the top so it's
(15:15):
split into two textures so having that broken textures in
the backdrop yeah of footage and things like that creates
a lot of like more interesting yeah because I used
to do a lot of drapery yeah in my footage
and I just couldn't do the drapery anymore it's just
I just need a change I just needed the change
and the the two different textures in the walls was
(15:38):
a really nice way to break that up especially because
everything's so neutral like the first comment I got was
where's the color and I was like It's the paintings, actually. Yeah,
the colour.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
In the artworks.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
So timber flooring and stone back splashes around the cabinetry
that I've got around the walls.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
And I've got the timber look cabinet tops from Caboodle
because the paint doesn't stick to them. They flake off. Yes,
and they're very durable.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And I do a lot of construction, framing, building on
top of these beautiful counters. They serve a very, very
specific function and they look great while doing it.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
What do you keep inside them? Is it all art
supplies or have you got overflow from the house?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
It's all art related. That's good. It's amazingly all art related.
There's a surprisingly huge amount of it. Because we host functions,
I have obviously a wine counter. section where I've got champagne.
And then I have all my art supplies, framing supplies, paints, pigments.
And because I host international workshops, which I supply all
(16:53):
the materials for, because I want everyone to use the
best of the same across the board. I have all
of those. So I have just this abundance of stuff
and I converted, because I also sew dust bags for
each painting that goes out to my collectors.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Oh, you really are end to end.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So I have a pantry unit, a caboodle pantry unit
that I turned into a sewing, like an unfolding sewing cabinet.
So I put in a, using the soft close drawer sliders,
I created a bench top for that, which slides in
and out of the cabinet. cabinet I'm so gonna do
(17:39):
this and it's great and I obviously put a hole
in the back so you can plug it into the
wall yeah and so everything you just push the sewing
machine away and it's all it's all there the pantry
unit is great so steady and so it rolls out
and my dad came over he's like I have to
help with something yeah so he came over from Zambia
hadn't seen him in four years and he helped me
build this sewing adaptation thing and he was just like
(18:04):
I'm so proud of you oh my darling I'm so
So proud, so cool.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
What do they think of your career now, given your
parents really wanted you to go to university? You tried it.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
How do they feel now?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
They're so proud of me. They said, we didn't think
it would last this long. But we are so proud
of you. They are my biggest supporters. Mom said if
they could, they would buy every single painting.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
That I make. She said, we just can't afford you anymore.
It's like, you've got all my freebies, like my art and, like,
the high school stuff. They've got, like, this timeline of
my work in their home, which is really cool.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Do your kids know what you do for a living?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Yeah, they do. They so take it for granted. Of course.
My daughter, they do show and share every week. And
my daughter was like, I want to show them your artwork.
And so I gave her my folder that I keep
all my tutorial paintings in. So every month I release
a new tutorial about how to paint the portrait of
(19:07):
a bear, portrait of a black cockatoo, in realism, realistic, detailed.
It's a beautiful portrait. I do them in a day.
And so I have this folder of all these portraits
of animals. And so I gave her this folder. It's worth, like, $ 50, 000.
(19:27):
And she just takes it to school, and she's, like,
handing these paintings out, and they're all– she loves it.
She's like, I'm going to be an artist like my mom.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
So casual about it.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
It's just going to happen. It makes– but it's so
great because you're creating a possibility where most people– like,
I get so many people messaging me being, like, my family.
would never let me paint they would never let me
pursue art as a career and like you're doing it
you're giving me so much inspiration to pursue my passion
how do you do it I've got kids how do
you manage your time like how do you do everything
(20:02):
that you do and because I do everything my husband
and I we do We do everything together. So we
both do the house. We both work on the business.
We both do the kids. And it's a lot to juggle,
but it's, yeah, there's so much possibility.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
What is it, do you think, that has meant you
are a successful or what is considered today a very
successful artist?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I think success is a very tricky label to give
something like, well, anything really, an art practice, a home practice, anything.
I think success would be more a mindset and the
ability to adapt because the last 12 years in the
art industry has changed so significantly. COVID and AI and
(20:54):
you've got, there's, The world is changing obviously around art
and specifically the design industry. And so being able to
adapt according to how the world is just like slamming
you is more successful than I would say a dollar
figure in your bank account.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
And the ability to just roll with the punches and
change what's not working. Yes. Having the willingness to change,
I think is one of the most important things.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Because you want to stick with what's been working because God,
it took so long to get to something that's working.
And then suddenly it's not working anymore. So how do
you change that? You go back to square one and
you reassess and you reanalyze. And I found that not
knowing how to do something is not an excuse anymore
because because you've got so much information at your fingertips.
(21:47):
You can even now jump on and be like, what
do I need to know about the art industry currently?
Even our marketing strategies have changed with social media. You
don't need your brick and mortar gallery anymore. You don't
need an agent, but you also need to be able
to create content. And so like, that's why I do
the filming because yes, I'm an artist, but I'm actually
(22:09):
a content curator or creator and that is an artist.
So it's like a double barreled kind of approach to
being an artist, being prepared to use what you do
as a way to market to your audience.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I think it's amazing how you blend the creative and
the passion with the business.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
It has to be. Yeah. Cause I mean, I get,
I get maybe five or six emails a day from
people be like, I can sell your art for you.
And I It'll just cost you this amount and they
make it sound so appealing. It would be nice to
just offload that. Yeah. But at the end of the day,
they don't actually care if they're selling your art.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
No.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
They're just getting your– anyway. So being able to do
it and I've explained to my daughter. She's like, you're
so good at– I said, it's not being good at something.
It's just being able to do something. I said, I'm
really good at art. Like I'm really good at art.
That's obviously my thing. Yeah. But I am able– to
do so many other things because I don't want to
(23:12):
ever get caught in a situation where I'm not able
to make progress because I didn't know how to do
that let's.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Talk more about your home yes what is your home
like so if we do a home tour and I
come over and I'm at the front door take me
through what's the first thing we see well when you
come in through the front door yeah You wouldn't get
very far because that's where my husband's office is. So
we live in a 80s home that was built by
(23:43):
a builder.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Who used offcuts, leftovers from his building projects. So our
home is this beautiful work in progress that has this
amazing potential. It is very durable. So we live on
a farm and... We don't use the front door anymore
because the coastal air has sealed it shut. It's an
(24:06):
old timber door, which I would love to redo because
it's solid timber and it's got the beautiful stained glass
window at the top. Yes. So we direct our visitors
to our back door. which now I dug out a
whole heap of grass and laid some pavers down. And
(24:27):
you come in through this beautiful, big timber, chunky fence
and you're greeted by our dogs, which gives you lots
of love. And you come in through this big sliding
door into our home. And we've got this open plan kitchen,
which has timber 80s cabinetry and The home was tenanted
for 15 years, so it needs a lot of love,
(24:50):
like a rip-out kind of new. But we love that
we don't have to treasure it so much with the
stage of where our kids are.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Absolutely, you can live hard.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
We are living hard, believe me. But we've started redoing
the home room by room, and I've started with our room.
So I love warmth and cozy farmhouse feel. My husband
and I call it rustic, which means not perfect yes
there are there is room for me like yeah there's
a gap there don't worry about that that's rustic yeah
(25:20):
it's rustic farmhouse rustic so we are slowly I just
built this window bench because we've got old bay windows
and apparently the dogs think I built it for them
because it gets the afternoon sun my husband's like don't
put cushions on there like it's gonna I was like
no no wait watch this and I just got our
(25:41):
outdoor seating and I covered our outdoor cushions with like
this blanket and straight away. Three dogs knocked out on
the bench all afternoon. It's their spot. They're there all
the time because they get up there and they watch
the kangaroos.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
And the sheep.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And it's just, so apparently I spent two weeks building
a seat for the dogs and we've done board and
batten again in the house because I love having the
two textures on the walls or having something on the
wall that breaks up all that space. And so now
(26:18):
I've just finished doing the kids' rooms where we've done
their wardrobes and board and batten. And I've repurposed an
old desk's top. to build like a bench for my son. Anyway,
repurposing old furniture.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Give them a new thing. It's just, I love doing
that as well.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Do your kids have a say in their bedrooms? Are
they interested? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, they are. Mostly they want unicorns and dinosaurs.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
And how do you feel about that?
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I guide their decision-making process very enthusiastically and drawing up
the designs so they can visually see it. They're more
interested in the toys that fill the space as opposed
to what happens on the walls.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
In a moment, Carla brings out her mystery drawer items
and they are absolutely stunning. So do you have any
house rules where you live with the kids and with,
you know, being an artist or perhaps.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Here we go.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
I'll ask you some questions and you can tell me.
So shoes on or off in your house?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
It depends on if it's been raining or not. We've
got very hard wearing tiles. You can wear shoes. I
wear shoes because I don't like feeling the grit because
we've got dogs that go in and out. Shoes off
on the furniture for sure.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Yeah, fair.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah. When we get new carpets and new flooring eventually,
those rules will change. Currently... The shoes can be on
or off. It depends on the day.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
And the grit. Yes. So how about tidiness and organization?
Are you really organized and everything has a place or
do you have piles of stuff all over the shop
but you know where stuff is?
Speaker 1 (28:15):
My husband and I are very efficient people. We are
very organized. And part of maintaining a home that– is organized, functional,
doesn't have that sense of chaos is really important to us.
It's not so important to a five-year-old. So we are
(28:36):
teaching them, this is the place for your shoes. When
you get home, you take your lunchbox out, you put
your bag away. So there are little habits that are
stepping in. But I mean, my husband and I, we
find it quite therapeutic to clean the house and we
enjoy doing it together. And it's just part of our
everyday life. It's not like a chore.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
What does your home sound like?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Oh, it's happy.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
There's a lot of joy in the home. Whether the
dogs are playing, you know, they do the playing zoomies
in and out. If the kids, it usually depends on
how the kids are, obviously. It's just an open home
that is inviting. I feel invited by it anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
What about scent? Do you scent your home?
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Does it have smells?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Candles. So you're a candle girl.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I love candles.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Are they on all the time or just for guests?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I leave them open a lot, which I know you're
not really meant to do.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Oh, I do it too.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
So nice. My studio, I have a diffuser. I love
the delicious smells.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Like what?
Speaker 1 (29:37):
What do you typically go for? coconut is one of
my favorites yeah i used to really go for like
the vanilla french pear but that as i'm growing older
it's a bit sweet it's quite a sweet smell yeah
so i'm looking for more like the fresh citrusy uh
delicious like smell like you want to eat something like
(29:57):
it's just that smell that makes you think oh i've
It smells yummy.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
What about something you have in your home that is
always fresh? Air.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Fresh air.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
That is the perfect answer. That's what you want.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Fresh air. I cannot tell you. Opening the windows and
getting that sea breeze coming through because we don't have
a lot of really close neighbours and we're about 1.8
kilometres from the beach. So it's not like that fishy
sea breeze smell. It's like fresh air. just that fresh
breeze smell. And that, that to me is a really
(30:36):
important feature.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Do you have a ritual about opening the windows each
day or is it just see a window, open it?
Usually that. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
My husband's always closing windows and doors behind me. And
so it's, I don't know. It's a really basic thing.
It's very simple. But like in winter, airing your house
out in winter, a lot of people don't do it.
It helps. Fresh air helps. Plants. I am the worst gardener.
(31:09):
I am going to put this out there. I do
not know anything about gardening and I have tried so hard.
I cannot keep an orchid alive. And so I get
fresh plants on rotation. If they survive past the six months,
I'm very, very proud of them. I give them to
my mother-in-law to continue on with their life. So I
(31:32):
try very hard with the gardening and I just, I
don't know what it is. I just, I'll build stuff.
I can build almost anything. I can paint anything. Plants?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Can't do. I know.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
But they are so important and I love them so much.
It's just I can't.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Oh, this stuff. We can't be good at everything. We
really can't.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
We can't. Singing and plants. I won't adjust to her.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
I would love to hear and see your voice. mystery
draw item today. What have you brought in?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So this one is a little bit, it's linked between
art and wildlife. What I have here are three little,
they look like prints. They are original rhino hide paintings.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Really?
Speaker 1 (32:21):
It's just a fancy way of saying. These are a
little artwork that I bought from an exhibit at a
zoo where they took the print of rhino skin from
a live rhino.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
While he was getting a lovely pat, they popped a
little bit of paint on his bum. And there we
have a little rhino print.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
That is amazing. They're really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
They're actually really cool to look at. He may have
had paint on his bum for a couple of weeks
after that. Oh, right. But the zoo is part of
the Sala art thing that Adelaide does.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And the zoo decided to let the animals do some art,
like penguins walking across the paper with paint on their feet,
stuff like that. Non-toxic, totally safe. And they decided to
do some abstracts with the rhinos and, yeah, captured the
texture of the rhino skin using just little prints.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
This is beautiful. So for anyone listening who can't see,
there are three circles about the size of a coaster.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Like a coaster, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
With just this gorgeous black inky print on... It looks
like a neutral.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
What I would say, you know, when you look through
an airplane window down at mountain ranges and they're especially
like snow-capped mountain ranges and they've got that broken sort
of rocky texture to the look of them. They look
like that. Like you're looking down at this geographical two-dimensional print.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So interesting to look at.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
How do you display these at home?
Speaker 1 (34:12):
They're just at the moment stuck in my studio just
above where my desk is because I find them so
nice to look at. You know those ink blots where
you look at them, they're folded in half and it's
the raw shot and you see something different every time.
They're like that to me. So I'll have often mental
overload with all the different projects that I've got going
(34:34):
on because I run international workshops and I do exhibits
and the tutorials and there's all these other background things
happening with... family life and the property and things like that.
And every now and again, my brain just does this
like short circuit. And I look at these prints and
I just find just like, there's just some zen about it.
(34:55):
And I just like, I liked it. And so that's
my little special thing that I keep in the studio
for myself.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
So we have had quite a few guests on the
edit now who have spoken about different ways to display
art or buy art or collect art. But I would
love to know from an actual artist, how do you
hope people display art? Whether it's yours or whether they're
(35:25):
buying something else, what does an artist feel when they
see a work go home to someone else's place?
Speaker 1 (35:33):
The world of collectors versus the world of artists, there
is a tiny overlap where The collectors really value the artist,
the career of the artist. They factor that into the
artwork that they collect. So especially with social media, collectors
are buying the work of artists that they like as
(35:56):
opposed to just going into a gallery, seeing a painting
that they like, not knowing anything about the artist and
then just choosing that for their home. Mm-hmm. The response
or what I would love people that are looking at
collecting art, whether it's just decor or if it's a
collectible value item, to not worry about whether or not
(36:19):
they understand the art. Like there's a lot of like
you don't have to understand an art.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
An art piece in order for it to connect with
you emotionally. Because each home, as has been mentioned before,
is like a biography of someone's life. It tells a
story about who you are. And it doesn't matter if
it's a $ 10 little trinket versus a family heirloom or
(36:47):
something you found at a little store in Bali or
whether you really took a lot of time to find
the significant piece. If it connects with you emotionally, that's
all you need in order to justify being able to
bring it into your home. And then once it's in
your home, I've had, because I used to work as
a gallery framer 12 years ago, a lot of people
(37:11):
would often destroy the artwork by picking a frame that
matched the cabinetry hardware or the throw cushions. And it
didn't match the painting. And so the biggest thing that
as an artist I'm hoping when people take these paintings,
so I send my paintings framed. They're framed, ready to
hang out of the box. But not a lot of
(37:32):
artists are able to do that. And so what I
hope that collectors or enthusiasts, art lovers, people that are
just trying to bring something beautiful and meaningful into their homes. Yeah.
What they do is they choose the cushions based on
the art as opposed to the opposite way around. So
being intentional about creating a room that reflects the art
as opposed to fitting an art into a room, an
(37:55):
art piece into a room. So you can change, obviously,
the frame to match the artwork. And there's many different
frames that will work for an artwork, whether it's something
more decorative, more modern, more minimalist. But choosing a frame
to match the hardware of the painting is doesn't always
work for the painting. And there's a lot of effort
(38:16):
that goes into the creation of an artwork that can
be almost detracted from by a frame that doesn't match.
Because if you see the frame first, then the whole
point is lost for the painting. And choosing a painting
that fits a specific sized wall can often be a
(38:37):
little bit deterring for people as well because the weight
or the visual weight of a painting doesn't necessarily have
anything to do with the size. The actual image itself
has weight in a room. The size has a significant
influence in this as well. But, for example, a really intense,
(39:01):
detailed painting high contrast, beautiful color with a lot of content,
something that tells a really big story. If it's like
a standard size painting, like maybe a meter square, it
doesn't really compete with a huge plain neutral abstract painting
because the weight of that image is heavier, like visually
(39:26):
heavier than a huge piece that would fill a space.
yeah like dimensionally better sense but the visual weight of
a painting can actually contribute quite a lot to a
room that you can add to by adding like a
wall decoration around it like an extra beveled edge trim
onto the wall around that you can do so much
(39:48):
more with the space. So I hope that people don't
get caught up on the size of the painting for
the room if they see, oh, I love this painting
but it's not the perfect dimension for the wall.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
I love a small painting on a big wall.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Small paintings are great.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Because I think it draws you when you think what
is that and it makes people come up close to
have a look.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
So it's like why is that getting such a big wall?
What makes it like that? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
No, art is such an individual pursuit as well. And,
you know, I didn't realize that there is an academy
for collectors in New York.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Is there?
Speaker 1 (40:24):
There is a school for collectors where people can go
and learn to be a collector.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Really? Yeah. It was amazing. I wonder what that curriculum
looks like. Have you done any research? I met a
collector that was in New York. So she came into
Sotheby's to look at the art at my exhibit that
I was part of. And I asked her a bit
more of what she was doing in New York. She's like,
I'm at the Academy for Collectors in New York.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
And I was like, wow. Wow.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
That is cool.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
So it is, apparently, it is a really big, there
is so much involved.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Yeah. Who knew? Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Carla, we have a listener dilemma.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
And- I think you're just the person to workshop this
one with me. So let's find out Jess in Bendigo.
She has a sinking feeling. So Jess writes in, I
(41:26):
do a lot of cooking and prep and my current
sink is basically useless for it. I have no bench space,
nowhere for a chopping board. The sink is too big.
I want a new sink in my new kitchen that
actually works for how I cook. I don't want it
to just look nice. Where do I start? So, okay,
(41:48):
she's designing a new kitchen.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
She's open to getting a new sink.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
And she wants a new sink. I understand this. When
I was designing my kitchen, my husband and I had
discussions about the sink how big do you go because
the bigger the sink the less bench space do you
do a double sink do you have one big one
yeah the farmhouse style the inset.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah what would you do uh when you don't have
a lot of counter space but you want the sink
because a lot of stuff goes into the sink yeah
uh i've let my kids bath in the sink when
they were babies the sink is multi-purpose So having something
that you can use for multi-purposes is really cool for
(42:33):
a kitchen. And because she's open to getting a new sink,
I mean, Caboodle has this farmhouse sink that you actually
can add attachments to. So you still get that big sink.
And then, for example, you can have a board. You
can insert this board and they've got all these different
attachments that make the sink multi-purpose. So you can have
(42:53):
it as your kid's bath or you can use it
as like this extra bit of counter space, chopping board,
and then the veggie wash little tray thing off to
the side as well. So there are solutions out there.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
I agree with you. So we would say we're going
for the big sink. Go as big as you can.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
If you like a big sink, go for it. You
don't have to compromise on the big sink.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
You need to buy a big sink with a board.
So it's all about the inserts, really.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
I think it's about what you can do with the
sink more than just the look of the sink. I'm very,
very passionate about a space that works with function as
opposed to just a pretty space. That's probably like the
key route to every design that I make is how
am I actually going to use this in real life?
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
If you don't have the counter space, a big sink's
really important. Yes. Like having one of those little ones,
they are really hard to wash big pots in.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Oh, it drives me nuts. I mean, that said, not
that I do the dishes, my husband does.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Oh, that's so good.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
So I'll say it drives him nuts.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
And my problem. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
I'm the cook. Yes.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Oh, that's so good.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Small sinks can be really hard if you're trying to
get that counter space. But honestly, you still won't have
enough counter space in a small kitchen. So having something
that you can just completely change and use in multiple
different ways, tick.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Carla, I have one more question that I have to ask.
I ask everyone. To you, what makes a home beautiful?
Speaker 1 (44:33):
I think it's personality. Yes. Allowing yourself to make a
home of yours, regardless of what trends are, what other
people's opinions might be. And this is something I'm finding
very hard to do myself because my husband and I
have very different tastes.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
How do you blend? How are you navigating this?
Speaker 1 (44:52):
There's no blending. He's away for two weeks, so I'm
doing the bedrooms.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
I like your tactics.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
But it's very important. To allow yourself to express who
you are in your home. Yeah. Whether it's choosing the
art you like, choosing the paint. If you want to
color drench your room, color drench your room.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
It's going to be a pain to paint it if
you change your mind. But if you love it. Go
for it. Go for it. Things like that. Like if
you love pretty cornices, if you love old vintage furniture
and it's not the sleek modern stuff that your in-laws like,
doesn't matter. That's okay. You have the freedom to. And
the power to make those decisions yourself. And you're the
(45:32):
one that looks at it every day. So choose something
that really resonates with who you are. And if you
love those silly little iconic things from your travels, then
get those and put it on display. Like New York
snow globe. Why not? On my little mantle.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
It tells the story of who you are. People will
make assumptions about you based on your home.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
And so.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
your home is going to be true to who you
are then let it I think not holding back based
on other people's opinions is really important.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
That's so true and Carla thank you for sharing a
bit more about who you.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Are thank you it's been so nice.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Getting to know you and I can't wait to to
follow your artistic journey worldwide.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Thank you so much thank you for having me it
was lovely to talk to you pleasure.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I can't believe you can now study to be an
art collector. And for the rest of us, Carla's advice
is just perfect. Buy what resonates emotionally and whatever you do,
choose the frame to suit the artwork, not your decor.
Thanks for listening to The Edit. If you loved this episode,
follow The Edit wherever you listen to your podcasts and
(46:52):
subscribe on YouTube. I'm Elle Lovelock. See you next time.
This episode is brought to you in partnership with a
brand I truly love and live with, Caboodle Kitchen.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
This is an R Media podcast.
This is an R Media podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This episode is brought to you in partnership with a
brand I truly love and live with, Caboodle Kitchen.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
We had elephants coming through our yard.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
At home?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
At home, yes, in Kariva. And we lived on the lake.
And so during the day crocodiles would be sunning themselves
on our lawn. And at night we weren't allowed to
go outside and play in the yard because hippos were
eating our grass.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I'm Elle Lovelock, editor-in-chief of Home Beautiful. Welcome to The Edit,
where we bring you into beautiful homes with the people
who create them. Today, I'm sitting down with Carla Grace,
a wildlife artist who has just landed back from New
York after having a piece go under the hammer at Sotheby's.
Born in South Africa and raised in Zimbabwe, Carla grew
(01:01):
up surrounded by the wildlife that now defines her work.
After moving to Australia 12 years ago, she built an
art business from the ground up and now paints from
her home studio on 15 acres in South Australia. In
this chat, Carla takes us through her studio build and
having rhinos walk through her garden, why she prefers the
(01:24):
term rustic to imperfect when it comes to the home. Carla,
welcome to the edit. We have been having a right
giggle already, so I feel like... We just couldn't get
the cameras going quick enough. No.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
This is good.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
But it's so nice to meet you.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
An absolute pleasure. And you flew in this morning from Adelaide.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I was a bit confused. I thought you had flown
in from New York. I was thinking, you look very fresh.
But that was a month ago.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yes, New York was last month.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And I know why you were there. But share for
our listeners what took you to New York because... It's major.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yes. New York was a very big event for me.
It started, I'd have to say, three years ago. I
flew to South Africa for a collaboration with the Kevin
Richardson Foundation to work on a significant legacy painting of
his iconic lions. So he does a lot of conservation work,
(02:27):
educational program for the canned lion industry and wildlife conservation
as a whole in Africa. And he's a pretty iconic...
figure in wildlife conservation. So I teamed up with him
and spent three months creating this painting and then proceeded
to spend the next two years trying to get it
into basically the world stage to not only for my branding,
(02:52):
but for his message and for what we were achieving
as a collaborative force. How do you do that? A
lot of entering it into competitions, meeting, networking, promoting it.
A lot of it is just getting it out there,
so really making my media reach the audiences that connected
(03:12):
with the painting. And I entered this painting into a
competition with the ARC, which is an organization that is
driven to bring skill-based, realistic artwork back onto modern art stage.
So making the skills and the aesthetic quality, the message
(03:34):
behind the artwork, something that is significant again in modern art.
And so my painting won an award and the award
winners from this competition were exhibiting at Sotheby's in New York.
So that is how I got the painting into New York,
being on the world stage there. And then it sold
at auction and the proceeds were were donated to the
(03:58):
Kevin Richardson Foundation. A grand total of $ 40, 000 Australian dollars
was raised by the.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Sale of this painting, which was amazing. Gosh, that is incredible.
How would you explain to people what Sotheby's is?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Imagine the highest... platform for an artist to get their
artwork into like an establishment. So I think Christie's and
Sotheby's is a auction house for art that sells and
operates at the highest level for artists. So typically there's
(04:35):
about 500 artists that maintain the highest level of prestige
in the world.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Really?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
At any one point in time. This is not talking
like the history of art. This is like current body
of artists.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Wow, I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It's very, very small amount of artists compared to how
many artists are practicing right now.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
And so, I mean, you're talking the thinnest sliver of
the 1% of artists get into this level of the platform.
Oh my God. So for the ARC to get these
artworks into Sotheby's is huge for every artist that was
part of the exhibit.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
The subject of this artwork, you have connections to this
part of the world, don't you? So why don't you
tell us about that?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Well, that's my history. So I was born in South Africa. Yeah.
and then spend the nineties in Zimbabwe, in Kariba. So
that was a particularly significant part of my life because
wildlife was just, it was everywhere. We had elephants coming
through our yard. At home? At home, yes, in Kariva.
(05:45):
And we lived on the lake. And so during the day,
crocodiles would be sunning themselves on our lawn. And at night,
we weren't allowed to go outside and play in the
yard because hippos were eating our grass. And hippos are
among the most dangerous wildlife in Africa. And I remember
we didn't listen, obviously, all the time. And we were
(06:06):
playing hide-and-seek tag in... the dark. And I remember running
out of the light from the patio into where it's
all pitch black because you're in the middle of Africa.
There's no, you don't have a lot of, there's no
real neighbors. So it was just pitch black. And I
turned around and did a big loop. And I remember
seeing this massive, I was like seven or eight at
(06:27):
the time. It was this huge belly in front of me.
And I remember skidding like down and just like doing
one of those classic flip over and like running back
to the house. I was like, there was a hippo
right there. And it just, it didn't see me. It
was like. But that's why. That is why.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
And never again did we play nighttime tag.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
And go outside at night again. And, I mean, that's just, like,
one of many stories. We had to leave overnight in
early 2000. Yeah. And we moved to New Zealand because
we had some family there. Yeah. And we got in, like–
just the smallest window where they were accepting expats from Zimbabwe.
(07:09):
And we stayed in New Zealand for six years. And
my dad or my mom and dad are just African,
just to their course. They always wanted to go back.
So when I was 14, we went to Zambia, moved
to Zambia. I finished high school in Zambia. And this
is where I sort of started painting and drawing more seriously.
Like I won a competition in New Zealand, but I
was more interested in friends and yeah cell phones were
(07:32):
coming out like you could get yourself and I decided
to focus on art because we moved into the middle
of nowhere we didn't have power didn't have like no
hot water that kind of thing so all I had
was pencil and paper and I started drawing birds out
of the bird book whatever I could see on the
farm I would draw And it just sort of grew
(07:55):
from there. I started drawing people's pets, people's kids. People
started paying me to draw their kids. And then their
friends started paying me to draw their kids. And then
it just sort of started growing. And by the age
of 16, I was doing portrait commissions for strangers. And
so I finished high school, moved back to New Zealand
because you just went to university out of high school.
(08:17):
I said, I don't want to go to university, but
I went to university. And then I dropped out. My
parents were like, you tried. and moved to Australia, and
that's where I started my art business.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
And that was 12 years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Is there one childhood home in particular that has stuck
with you? If you were to take us through the
home and tell us what it was like.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Which one do you think of? The most, I think,
it gives me, like, goosebumps thinking about it, our home
in Kariba in Zimbabwe. It was an old fishing warehouse.
And my dad, it was just, imagine bricks, just a
brick warehouse. And there were like some storerooms up the top.
(09:01):
And my dad built every piece of furniture for our house,
including the stairs that went to these bedrooms that he
put flooring in to be our bedrooms, obviously. And my mom,
very creative school teacher, she would make all the curtains.
My dad built this huge, I mean, it was huge
to me. It was probably just, you know, normal size.
And beautiful round wooden table. Like everything my dad did
(09:24):
was just carpentry level, beautiful. He made my mum her
beautiful dresser, like with the three mirrors, with the little
drawers and all of that. But we had to leave
all of that when we left. We took our photo
albums and some clothes. That's all we could do. So
I've packed my life down into 30 kilos numerous times.
So my attachment to things... isn't probably as significant as
(09:50):
what most people would have when you've grown up in
a home and you've got all these beautiful keepsakes. um
now I'm more now I'm starting that for my children
now I'm building the furniture now I'm building the studio
and painting the walls and you know holding on to
things that I love which is a really cool thing
(10:11):
to do as an adult absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
And what do you hope to teach your children? You
have a five year old and a seven year old.
What do you hope to teach them about things?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
You don't need to be good at everything, but just
be willing to be able to do things. You'll be
able to accomplish so much because you don't have to
buy everything new in order to have everything that you need.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
After the break, Carla takes us through her art studio build,
including the kitchen pantry she's fashioned into a sewing cupboard.
Where do you create?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
I work in my studio. So I have a studio
at home. It's one that I have built myself. Of course.
My husband and I, we saved up to build the
studio for 10 years. And we live on a rural
property in South Australia. We've got 15 acres. It's all
gum tree. It's been part of my husband's family for
(11:15):
the past 25 years. When he was a teenager, they
planted 3,000 gum trees on this property. So now that
we own this place, we have all these mature gum trees,
which is just stunning. So it's a beautiful spot. We
have mobs of kangaroos that live in our forest. No hippos.
Nothing that's going to trample me or eat me. Or
(11:36):
impale me, which is great.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
You can just relax.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
It's great. We hear a fox every now and again,
but that's about it. So it's a beautiful, restful place,
and we've built a studio, which is 9 by 12,
and then it's got a little additional lean-to, which is
the workshop bathroom. And we have designed this studio around
the functionalities of what it is to actually run an
(12:04):
artist's practice.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
So what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (12:06):
There are many different facets to being an artist, especially
what I do. So I'm not only just painting, which
is just your easel and you've got your nice table,
whatever you work from. I film tutorials. I package my
artwork myself. I do my framing myself. I do all
the building of the spaces and I use it for workshops.
(12:31):
I use it for presentations.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I use it for Wow, this is a really multi.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
It is a multi-purpose.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yes. So we designed the functionality and then made it beautiful.
So we created a space that served multiple purposes and
could be transitional. So we could move things around and.
That became sort of like the key identifying factor to
(12:58):
my space is that every time I show footage of it,
it's in a different spot or like things have moved around.
There's a corner now that I've set up for filming.
And the backdrop is a particular desk situation. And as
you walk into the studio, you see the easel with
the painting. But then I've got a wall easel behind
(13:20):
that where I hang artworks that are drying. It's a
great space.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
How do you even go about? building a space like
this it's I mean to build an island bench are
you you know lugging timber in how do you do that.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
I so this is probably the coolest part I've used
kitchen cabinets the caboodle kitchen cabinets and we I've created
a structural frame yeah as a base that holds the
two groups of 900 um cabinet drawers yeah together and
they each have the backing to it and the sides.
(13:57):
So they're a complete kitchen island that I've added extra
support on underneath, extra support to hold them together.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
So it looks beautiful.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
It's beautiful, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
What colors, finishes, worktops?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I went for very neutral. So the colors, the materials,
everything that is used in my studio is intentionally designed
to create a neutral palette because light reflects color and
color influences the.
Appearance of paint on the canvas. Even the reflection of grass.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Really?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
The amount of green light that comes in from grass
outside is, once you notice it, it's like, oh, my
painting looks green. So I control, everything in my studio
is very controlled. Lighting, color, intensity, and the neutral color palette. Okay,
so I've got gray, like a soft gray blue, very
(14:51):
similar to the background here, just a bit lighter.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And with white board and batten at the bottom so
we've got viscous clay and that means there's a lot
of movement so using plasterboard was never going to work
there's a lot of movement in the shed so everything
has a gap in it so which is why i
chose board and batten because you can cover the gaps
which is great vj panels up the top so it's
(15:15):
split into two textures so having that broken textures in
the backdrop yeah of footage and things like that creates
a lot of like more interesting yeah because I used
to do a lot of drapery yeah in my footage
and I just couldn't do the drapery anymore it's just
I just need a change I just needed the change
and the the two different textures in the walls was
(15:38):
a really nice way to break that up especially because
everything's so neutral like the first comment I got was
where's the color and I was like It's the paintings, actually. Yeah,
the colour.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
In the artworks.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
So timber flooring and stone back splashes around the cabinetry
that I've got around the walls.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
And I've got the timber look cabinet tops from Caboodle
because the paint doesn't stick to them. They flake off. Yes,
and they're very durable.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And I do a lot of construction, framing, building on
top of these beautiful counters. They serve a very, very
specific function and they look great while doing it.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
What do you keep inside them? Is it all art
supplies or have you got overflow from the house?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
It's all art related. That's good. It's amazingly all art related.
There's a surprisingly huge amount of it. Because we host functions,
I have obviously a wine counter. section where I've got champagne.
And then I have all my art supplies, framing supplies, paints, pigments.
And because I host international workshops, which I supply all
(16:53):
the materials for, because I want everyone to use the
best of the same across the board. I have all
of those. So I have just this abundance of stuff
and I converted, because I also sew dust bags for
each painting that goes out to my collectors.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Oh, you really are end to end.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So I have a pantry unit, a caboodle pantry unit
that I turned into a sewing, like an unfolding sewing cabinet.
So I put in a, using the soft close drawer sliders,
I created a bench top for that, which slides in
and out of the cabinet. cabinet I'm so gonna do
(17:39):
this and it's great and I obviously put a hole
in the back so you can plug it into the
wall yeah and so everything you just push the sewing
machine away and it's all it's all there the pantry
unit is great so steady and so it rolls out
and my dad came over he's like I have to
help with something yeah so he came over from Zambia
hadn't seen him in four years and he helped me
build this sewing adaptation thing and he was just like
(18:04):
I'm so proud of you oh my darling I'm so
So proud, so cool.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
What do they think of your career now, given your
parents really wanted you to go to university? You tried it.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
How do they feel now?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
They're so proud of me. They said, we didn't think
it would last this long. But we are so proud
of you. They are my biggest supporters. Mom said if
they could, they would buy every single painting.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
That I make. She said, we just can't afford you anymore.
It's like, you've got all my freebies, like my art and, like,
the high school stuff. They've got, like, this timeline of
my work in their home, which is really cool.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Do your kids know what you do for a living?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Yeah, they do. They so take it for granted. Of course.
My daughter, they do show and share every week. And
my daughter was like, I want to show them your artwork.
And so I gave her my folder that I keep
all my tutorial paintings in. So every month I release
a new tutorial about how to paint the portrait of
(19:07):
a bear, portrait of a black cockatoo, in realism, realistic, detailed.
It's a beautiful portrait. I do them in a day.
And so I have this folder of all these portraits
of animals. And so I gave her this folder. It's worth, like, $ 50, 000.
(19:27):
And she just takes it to school, and she's, like,
handing these paintings out, and they're all– she loves it.
She's like, I'm going to be an artist like my mom.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
So casual about it.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
It's just going to happen. It makes– but it's so
great because you're creating a possibility where most people– like,
I get so many people messaging me being, like, my family.
would never let me paint they would never let me
pursue art as a career and like you're doing it
you're giving me so much inspiration to pursue my passion
how do you do it I've got kids how do
you manage your time like how do you do everything
(20:02):
that you do and because I do everything my husband
and I we do We do everything together. So we
both do the house. We both work on the business.
We both do the kids. And it's a lot to juggle,
but it's, yeah, there's so much possibility.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
What is it, do you think, that has meant you
are a successful or what is considered today a very
successful artist?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I think success is a very tricky label to give
something like, well, anything really, an art practice, a home practice, anything.
I think success would be more a mindset and the
ability to adapt because the last 12 years in the
art industry has changed so significantly. COVID and AI and
(20:54):
you've got, there's, The world is changing obviously around art
and specifically the design industry. And so being able to
adapt according to how the world is just like slamming
you is more successful than I would say a dollar
figure in your bank account.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
And the ability to just roll with the punches and
change what's not working. Yes. Having the willingness to change,
I think is one of the most important things.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Because you want to stick with what's been working because God,
it took so long to get to something that's working.
And then suddenly it's not working anymore. So how do
you change that? You go back to square one and
you reassess and you reanalyze. And I found that not
knowing how to do something is not an excuse anymore
because because you've got so much information at your fingertips.
(21:47):
You can even now jump on and be like, what
do I need to know about the art industry currently?
Even our marketing strategies have changed with social media. You
don't need your brick and mortar gallery anymore. You don't
need an agent, but you also need to be able
to create content. And so like, that's why I do
the filming because yes, I'm an artist, but I'm actually
(22:09):
a content curator or creator and that is an artist.
So it's like a double barreled kind of approach to
being an artist, being prepared to use what you do
as a way to market to your audience.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I think it's amazing how you blend the creative and
the passion with the business.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
It has to be. Yeah. Cause I mean, I get,
I get maybe five or six emails a day from
people be like, I can sell your art for you.
And I It'll just cost you this amount and they
make it sound so appealing. It would be nice to
just offload that. Yeah. But at the end of the day,
they don't actually care if they're selling your art.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
No.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
They're just getting your– anyway. So being able to do
it and I've explained to my daughter. She's like, you're
so good at– I said, it's not being good at something.
It's just being able to do something. I said, I'm
really good at art. Like I'm really good at art.
That's obviously my thing. Yeah. But I am able– to
do so many other things because I don't want to
(23:12):
ever get caught in a situation where I'm not able
to make progress because I didn't know how to do
that let's.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Talk more about your home yes what is your home
like so if we do a home tour and I
come over and I'm at the front door take me
through what's the first thing we see well when you
come in through the front door yeah You wouldn't get
very far because that's where my husband's office is. So
we live in a 80s home that was built by
(23:43):
a builder.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Who used offcuts, leftovers from his building projects. So our
home is this beautiful work in progress that has this
amazing potential. It is very durable. So we live on
a farm and... We don't use the front door anymore
because the coastal air has sealed it shut. It's an
(24:06):
old timber door, which I would love to redo because
it's solid timber and it's got the beautiful stained glass
window at the top. Yes. So we direct our visitors
to our back door. which now I dug out a
whole heap of grass and laid some pavers down. And
(24:27):
you come in through this beautiful, big timber, chunky fence
and you're greeted by our dogs, which gives you lots
of love. And you come in through this big sliding
door into our home. And we've got this open plan kitchen,
which has timber 80s cabinetry and The home was tenanted
for 15 years, so it needs a lot of love,
(24:50):
like a rip-out kind of new. But we love that
we don't have to treasure it so much with the
stage of where our kids are.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Absolutely, you can live hard.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
We are living hard, believe me. But we've started redoing
the home room by room, and I've started with our room.
So I love warmth and cozy farmhouse feel. My husband
and I call it rustic, which means not perfect yes
there are there is room for me like yeah there's
a gap there don't worry about that that's rustic yeah
(25:20):
it's rustic farmhouse rustic so we are slowly I just
built this window bench because we've got old bay windows
and apparently the dogs think I built it for them
because it gets the afternoon sun my husband's like don't
put cushions on there like it's gonna I was like
no no wait watch this and I just got our
(25:41):
outdoor seating and I covered our outdoor cushions with like
this blanket and straight away. Three dogs knocked out on
the bench all afternoon. It's their spot. They're there all
the time because they get up there and they watch
the kangaroos.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
And the sheep.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And it's just, so apparently I spent two weeks building
a seat for the dogs and we've done board and
batten again in the house because I love having the
two textures on the walls or having something on the
wall that breaks up all that space. And so now
(26:18):
I've just finished doing the kids' rooms where we've done
their wardrobes and board and batten. And I've repurposed an
old desk's top. to build like a bench for my son. Anyway,
repurposing old furniture.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Give them a new thing. It's just, I love doing
that as well.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Do your kids have a say in their bedrooms? Are
they interested? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, they are. Mostly they want unicorns and dinosaurs.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
And how do you feel about that?
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I guide their decision-making process very enthusiastically and drawing up
the designs so they can visually see it. They're more
interested in the toys that fill the space as opposed
to what happens on the walls.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
In a moment, Carla brings out her mystery drawer items
and they are absolutely stunning. So do you have any
house rules where you live with the kids and with,
you know, being an artist or perhaps.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Here we go.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
I'll ask you some questions and you can tell me.
So shoes on or off in your house?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
It depends on if it's been raining or not. We've
got very hard wearing tiles. You can wear shoes. I
wear shoes because I don't like feeling the grit because
we've got dogs that go in and out. Shoes off
on the furniture for sure.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Yeah, fair.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah. When we get new carpets and new flooring eventually,
those rules will change. Currently... The shoes can be on
or off. It depends on the day.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
And the grit. Yes. So how about tidiness and organization?
Are you really organized and everything has a place or
do you have piles of stuff all over the shop
but you know where stuff is?
Speaker 1 (28:15):
My husband and I are very efficient people. We are
very organized. And part of maintaining a home that– is organized, functional,
doesn't have that sense of chaos is really important to us.
It's not so important to a five-year-old. So we are
(28:36):
teaching them, this is the place for your shoes. When
you get home, you take your lunchbox out, you put
your bag away. So there are little habits that are
stepping in. But I mean, my husband and I, we
find it quite therapeutic to clean the house and we
enjoy doing it together. And it's just part of our
everyday life. It's not like a chore.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
What does your home sound like?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Oh, it's happy.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
There's a lot of joy in the home. Whether the
dogs are playing, you know, they do the playing zoomies
in and out. If the kids, it usually depends on
how the kids are, obviously. It's just an open home
that is inviting. I feel invited by it anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
What about scent? Do you scent your home?
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Does it have smells?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Candles. So you're a candle girl.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I love candles.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Are they on all the time or just for guests?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I leave them open a lot, which I know you're
not really meant to do.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Oh, I do it too.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
So nice. My studio, I have a diffuser. I love
the delicious smells.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Like what?
Speaker 1 (29:37):
What do you typically go for? coconut is one of
my favorites yeah i used to really go for like
the vanilla french pear but that as i'm growing older
it's a bit sweet it's quite a sweet smell yeah
so i'm looking for more like the fresh citrusy uh
delicious like smell like you want to eat something like
(29:57):
it's just that smell that makes you think oh i've
It smells yummy.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
What about something you have in your home that is
always fresh? Air.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Fresh air.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
That is the perfect answer. That's what you want.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Fresh air. I cannot tell you. Opening the windows and
getting that sea breeze coming through because we don't have
a lot of really close neighbours and we're about 1.8
kilometres from the beach. So it's not like that fishy
sea breeze smell. It's like fresh air. just that fresh
breeze smell. And that, that to me is a really
(30:36):
important feature.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Do you have a ritual about opening the windows each
day or is it just see a window, open it?
Usually that. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
My husband's always closing windows and doors behind me. And
so it's, I don't know. It's a really basic thing.
It's very simple. But like in winter, airing your house
out in winter, a lot of people don't do it.
It helps. Fresh air helps. Plants. I am the worst gardener.
(31:09):
I am going to put this out there. I do
not know anything about gardening and I have tried so hard.
I cannot keep an orchid alive. And so I get
fresh plants on rotation. If they survive past the six months,
I'm very, very proud of them. I give them to
my mother-in-law to continue on with their life. So I
(31:32):
try very hard with the gardening and I just, I
don't know what it is. I just, I'll build stuff.
I can build almost anything. I can paint anything. Plants?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Can't do. I know.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
But they are so important and I love them so much.
It's just I can't.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Oh, this stuff. We can't be good at everything. We
really can't.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
We can't. Singing and plants. I won't adjust to her.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
I would love to hear and see your voice. mystery
draw item today. What have you brought in?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So this one is a little bit, it's linked between
art and wildlife. What I have here are three little,
they look like prints. They are original rhino hide paintings.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Really?
Speaker 1 (32:21):
It's just a fancy way of saying. These are a
little artwork that I bought from an exhibit at a
zoo where they took the print of rhino skin from
a live rhino.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
While he was getting a lovely pat, they popped a
little bit of paint on his bum. And there we
have a little rhino print.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
That is amazing. They're really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
They're actually really cool to look at. He may have
had paint on his bum for a couple of weeks
after that. Oh, right. But the zoo is part of
the Sala art thing that Adelaide does.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And the zoo decided to let the animals do some art,
like penguins walking across the paper with paint on their feet,
stuff like that. Non-toxic, totally safe. And they decided to
do some abstracts with the rhinos and, yeah, captured the
texture of the rhino skin using just little prints.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
This is beautiful. So for anyone listening who can't see,
there are three circles about the size of a coaster.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Like a coaster, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
With just this gorgeous black inky print on... It looks
like a neutral.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
What I would say, you know, when you look through
an airplane window down at mountain ranges and they're especially
like snow-capped mountain ranges and they've got that broken sort
of rocky texture to the look of them. They look
like that. Like you're looking down at this geographical two-dimensional print.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So interesting to look at.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
How do you display these at home?
Speaker 1 (34:12):
They're just at the moment stuck in my studio just
above where my desk is because I find them so
nice to look at. You know those ink blots where
you look at them, they're folded in half and it's
the raw shot and you see something different every time.
They're like that to me. So I'll have often mental
overload with all the different projects that I've got going
(34:34):
on because I run international workshops and I do exhibits
and the tutorials and there's all these other background things
happening with... family life and the property and things like that.
And every now and again, my brain just does this
like short circuit. And I look at these prints and
I just find just like, there's just some zen about it.
(34:55):
And I just like, I liked it. And so that's
my little special thing that I keep in the studio
for myself.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
So we have had quite a few guests on the
edit now who have spoken about different ways to display
art or buy art or collect art. But I would
love to know from an actual artist, how do you
hope people display art? Whether it's yours or whether they're
(35:25):
buying something else, what does an artist feel when they
see a work go home to someone else's place?
Speaker 1 (35:33):
The world of collectors versus the world of artists, there
is a tiny overlap where The collectors really value the artist,
the career of the artist. They factor that into the
artwork that they collect. So especially with social media, collectors
are buying the work of artists that they like as
(35:56):
opposed to just going into a gallery, seeing a painting
that they like, not knowing anything about the artist and
then just choosing that for their home. Mm-hmm. The response
or what I would love people that are looking at
collecting art, whether it's just decor or if it's a
collectible value item, to not worry about whether or not
(36:19):
they understand the art. Like there's a lot of like
you don't have to understand an art.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
An art piece in order for it to connect with
you emotionally. Because each home, as has been mentioned before,
is like a biography of someone's life. It tells a
story about who you are. And it doesn't matter if
it's a $ 10 little trinket versus a family heirloom or
(36:47):
something you found at a little store in Bali or
whether you really took a lot of time to find
the significant piece. If it connects with you emotionally, that's
all you need in order to justify being able to
bring it into your home. And then once it's in
your home, I've had, because I used to work as
a gallery framer 12 years ago, a lot of people
(37:11):
would often destroy the artwork by picking a frame that
matched the cabinetry hardware or the throw cushions. And it
didn't match the painting. And so the biggest thing that
as an artist I'm hoping when people take these paintings,
so I send my paintings framed. They're framed, ready to
hang out of the box. But not a lot of
(37:32):
artists are able to do that. And so what I
hope that collectors or enthusiasts, art lovers, people that are
just trying to bring something beautiful and meaningful into their homes. Yeah.
What they do is they choose the cushions based on
the art as opposed to the opposite way around. So
being intentional about creating a room that reflects the art
as opposed to fitting an art into a room, an
(37:55):
art piece into a room. So you can change, obviously,
the frame to match the artwork. And there's many different
frames that will work for an artwork, whether it's something
more decorative, more modern, more minimalist. But choosing a frame
to match the hardware of the painting is doesn't always
work for the painting. And there's a lot of effort
(38:16):
that goes into the creation of an artwork that can
be almost detracted from by a frame that doesn't match.
Because if you see the frame first, then the whole
point is lost for the painting. And choosing a painting
that fits a specific sized wall can often be a
(38:37):
little bit deterring for people as well because the weight
or the visual weight of a painting doesn't necessarily have
anything to do with the size. The actual image itself
has weight in a room. The size has a significant
influence in this as well. But, for example, a really intense,
(39:01):
detailed painting high contrast, beautiful color with a lot of content,
something that tells a really big story. If it's like
a standard size painting, like maybe a meter square, it
doesn't really compete with a huge plain neutral abstract painting
because the weight of that image is heavier, like visually
(39:26):
heavier than a huge piece that would fill a space.
yeah like dimensionally better sense but the visual weight of
a painting can actually contribute quite a lot to a
room that you can add to by adding like a
wall decoration around it like an extra beveled edge trim
onto the wall around that you can do so much
(39:48):
more with the space. So I hope that people don't
get caught up on the size of the painting for
the room if they see, oh, I love this painting
but it's not the perfect dimension for the wall.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
I love a small painting on a big wall.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Small paintings are great.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Because I think it draws you when you think what
is that and it makes people come up close to
have a look.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
So it's like why is that getting such a big wall?
What makes it like that? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
No, art is such an individual pursuit as well. And,
you know, I didn't realize that there is an academy
for collectors in New York.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Is there?
Speaker 1 (40:24):
There is a school for collectors where people can go
and learn to be a collector.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Really? Yeah. It was amazing. I wonder what that curriculum
looks like. Have you done any research? I met a
collector that was in New York. So she came into
Sotheby's to look at the art at my exhibit that
I was part of. And I asked her a bit
more of what she was doing in New York. She's like,
I'm at the Academy for Collectors in New York.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
And I was like, wow. Wow.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
That is cool.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
So it is, apparently, it is a really big, there
is so much involved.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Yeah. Who knew? Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Carla, we have a listener dilemma.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
And- I think you're just the person to workshop this
one with me. So let's find out Jess in Bendigo.
She has a sinking feeling. So Jess writes in, I
(41:26):
do a lot of cooking and prep and my current
sink is basically useless for it. I have no bench space,
nowhere for a chopping board. The sink is too big.
I want a new sink in my new kitchen that
actually works for how I cook. I don't want it
to just look nice. Where do I start? So, okay,
(41:48):
she's designing a new kitchen.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
She's open to getting a new sink.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
And she wants a new sink. I understand this. When
I was designing my kitchen, my husband and I had
discussions about the sink how big do you go because
the bigger the sink the less bench space do you
do a double sink do you have one big one
yeah the farmhouse style the inset.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah what would you do uh when you don't have
a lot of counter space but you want the sink
because a lot of stuff goes into the sink yeah
uh i've let my kids bath in the sink when
they were babies the sink is multi-purpose So having something
that you can use for multi-purposes is really cool for
(42:33):
a kitchen. And because she's open to getting a new sink,
I mean, Caboodle has this farmhouse sink that you actually
can add attachments to. So you still get that big sink.
And then, for example, you can have a board. You
can insert this board and they've got all these different
attachments that make the sink multi-purpose. So you can have
(42:53):
it as your kid's bath or you can use it
as like this extra bit of counter space, chopping board,
and then the veggie wash little tray thing off to
the side as well. So there are solutions out there.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
I agree with you. So we would say we're going
for the big sink. Go as big as you can.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
If you like a big sink, go for it. You
don't have to compromise on the big sink.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
You need to buy a big sink with a board.
So it's all about the inserts, really.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
I think it's about what you can do with the
sink more than just the look of the sink. I'm very,
very passionate about a space that works with function as
opposed to just a pretty space. That's probably like the
key route to every design that I make is how
am I actually going to use this in real life?
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
If you don't have the counter space, a big sink's
really important. Yes. Like having one of those little ones,
they are really hard to wash big pots in.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Oh, it drives me nuts. I mean, that said, not
that I do the dishes, my husband does.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Oh, that's so good.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
So I'll say it drives him nuts.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
And my problem. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
I'm the cook. Yes.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Oh, that's so good.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Small sinks can be really hard if you're trying to
get that counter space. But honestly, you still won't have
enough counter space in a small kitchen. So having something
that you can just completely change and use in multiple
different ways, tick.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Carla, I have one more question that I have to ask.
I ask everyone. To you, what makes a home beautiful?
Speaker 1 (44:33):
I think it's personality. Yes. Allowing yourself to make a
home of yours, regardless of what trends are, what other
people's opinions might be. And this is something I'm finding
very hard to do myself because my husband and I
have very different tastes.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
How do you blend? How are you navigating this?
Speaker 1 (44:52):
There's no blending. He's away for two weeks, so I'm
doing the bedrooms.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
I like your tactics.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
But it's very important. To allow yourself to express who
you are in your home. Yeah. Whether it's choosing the
art you like, choosing the paint. If you want to
color drench your room, color drench your room.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
It's going to be a pain to paint it if
you change your mind. But if you love it. Go
for it. Go for it. Things like that. Like if
you love pretty cornices, if you love old vintage furniture
and it's not the sleek modern stuff that your in-laws like,
doesn't matter. That's okay. You have the freedom to. And
the power to make those decisions yourself. And you're the
(45:32):
one that looks at it every day. So choose something
that really resonates with who you are. And if you
love those silly little iconic things from your travels, then
get those and put it on display. Like New York
snow globe. Why not? On my little mantle.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
It tells the story of who you are. People will
make assumptions about you based on your home.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
And so.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
your home is going to be true to who you
are then let it I think not holding back based
on other people's opinions is really important.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
That's so true and Carla thank you for sharing a
bit more about who you.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Are thank you it's been so nice.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Getting to know you and I can't wait to to
follow your artistic journey worldwide.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Thank you so much thank you for having me it
was lovely to talk to you pleasure.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I can't believe you can now study to be an
art collector. And for the rest of us, Carla's advice
is just perfect. Buy what resonates emotionally and whatever you do,
choose the frame to suit the artwork, not your decor.
Thanks for listening to The Edit. If you loved this episode,
follow The Edit wherever you listen to your podcasts and
(46:52):
subscribe on YouTube. I'm Elle Lovelock. See you next time.
This episode is brought to you in partnership with a
brand I truly love and live with, Caboodle Kitchen.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
This is an R Media podcast.
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