Get ready for an unforgettable chat with the amazing Katelyn Aslett - a woman of many talents and a flair for philanthropy. You'll be amazed as we unravel her remarkable journey embracing diverse careers in travel, textile, and costume design, her adventures in self-sustaining living and bait-to-plate dining, and her philanthropic endeavours that are making waves in the world.
We kick things off with a toast to Katelyn's passionate involvement in the fundraising initiative Dancing CEOs, a cause that supports the Women's Legal Service. You’ll hear all about Katelyn’s humble beginnings in Townsville, where she discovered her entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for cooking. We also bond over our shared experiences as ambassadors for Women's Legal Service and the immense success of the Dancing CEOs campaign. What's more, Katelyn has some fascinating tales of her daring adventures in Africa and her mastery of felting in a sheep district in New South Wales - you won't want to miss them!
Our conversation wouldn't be complete without discussing Katelyn's fashion design journey, including a runway parade between the twin towers in Kuala Lumpur and her ingenious idea, The Giving Table. The Giving Table is a platform that allows people to host dinner parties and donate the proceeds to a charity of their choice – an idea that’s as creative as it is generous. Katelyn's life is an extraordinary tale of adventure, creativity, and generosity. Hit play now – you won't regret it!
Register your My Giving Table Dancing CEO Event now for your chance to win a free Bait to Plate dinner.
See ‘Drop and Go’ locations to re-home your second hand designer items here.
Have any questions for us? Send them through to podcast@hanworthhouse.com.au
If you enjoy the podcast please subscribe so you don't miss out on any new episodes, submit a rating and review to tell us how we are going and connect with us on other platforms to see what else is happing at Hanworth House and with Marisa Vecchio.
Intagram: @hanworthhouse
Youtube: @hanworthhouse2947
Website: hanworthhouse.com.au
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Bubbles and Benevolence, the podcast
where we pop the bubbles tosuccess and dive deep into the
benevolent hearts of those whohave achieved it.
In this podcast, we'll sit downwith successful business
leaders, philanthropists,non-profit workers and more to
discuss their journeys, thelessons they've learned along
the way, and how they're usingtheir success to make a positive
(00:20):
impact on the world.
So grab a glass of bubbles andjoin us as we explore the
intersection of business andbenevolence and discover what it
truly means to be successful.
Welcome to another surprisingepisode of Bubbles and
Benevolence as we welcome a truepowerhouse, the one and only
(00:41):
Caitlin Aslet, prepared to beblown away as we delve into the
story of her extraordinaryjourney that will leave you in
awe.
From dynamic careers in thetravel industry, textile and
costume designs to her ventureinto the world of
self-sustaining living and theconcept of bait-to-plate dining,
you'll wonder how she's managedto do it all and, on top of it
(01:02):
all, introducing my Giving Table.
This incredible not-for-profitendeavor is the heart and soul
of Caitlin's philanthropicvision.
It grants everyone theremarkable opportunity to host
fundraising events right in thecomfort of their own homes, by
passing those hefty venue andcatering fees.
Get ready to feel inspired asCaitlin's passion for giving
(01:23):
back shines through in everyword.
We hope you enjoy thisheartwarming interview with
Marisa and Caitlin.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Caitlin, it's so lovely to have you here today.
Thanks for making the time topop in and particularly as
you're this woman bearing awonderful gift and a wonderful
bottle of bubbles.
So tell us a bit about what youchose today and why.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Well, marisa.
Thank you, number one forhaving me.
I'm so excited to be here.
I picked Bollinger todaybecause I was feeling it's a
lovely special day.
It's a lovely time of theafternoon and I think Bollinger
has a beautiful butteriness thatjust feels lovely in a more
relaxed setting.
So I thought that we deserved aglass of Bollinger.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh, that sounds wonderful, and I'm surprised
these days how many people justlove champagne, and in fact I
think Australia is one of thebiggest champagne drinkers per
capita in the world.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I know we're having another lovely person.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
No, I'm sure I've done my fair share as well.
It's actually my daughter andmy husband's favorite champagne,
so you've done very well tobring that in today.
Well, thank you for sharingthat with us.
It's a special day You're herewith us, and it's a very special
drink to toast that.
So cheers to the podcast,cheers, cheers, looking forward
to a conversation Now.
Caitlin, we met each other.
(02:43):
I can't quite remember how manyyears ago it was, but I think
it's probably got something todo with the Dancing CEOs.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Would that be correct ?
That would be correct, I thinkit would have been 2017.
That, I think, that year of theDancing CEOs.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And we just recently had the finals for this year, so
I don't think we've talkedabout the Dancing CEOs on the
podcast, so can you tell us alittle bit about what it is and
basically why you did it?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
So the Dancing CEOs is it must be, I think, the
highlight of the Brisbanecalendar for giving and
philanthropy.
It's a beautiful cause raisingfunds for Women's Legal Service,
who offer incredible help andsupport, and very practical,
real and meaningful support towomen and families going through
(03:32):
domestic violence.
I think the Dancing CEOs it'snumber nine year, I think, so
we're number 10 coming up, whichis a big one, and I think it
was a very clever brainchildbecause it brings in a whole lot
of wonderful people that areincredibly giving and also
successful CEOs and businessprofessionals For charities.
(03:54):
You need to keep expanding thepeople who know about you and
your reach and your I guess,your footprint, and so whoever
came up with the CEOs concept,it was a pretty smart one.
Basically, we end up with agroup of amazing giving people
who dedicate their time to learnto dance and get up on the
(04:15):
stage and, in some cases,embarrass ourselves dreadfully,
but all for a good cause and, asa united whole, what that
achieves is phenomenal andincredible.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And I mean I did it in 2017, I think was that the
same year that you did it.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
We did it the same year, or were?
Speaker 3 (04:32):
you 16?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I can't quite remember now.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
But I mean the.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Thing the point I want to make is that once was so
enough for me, and but no, noyou.
You decided to do it twice, andI want to know what on earth
possessed you to have to go anddo.
It is a phenomenal experience,but it is very, very nerve
wracking.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
It is nerve wracking.
I guess I tend to have alwayshad a call that I just have a
thick brain, that I don't oftenthink of how much work or how
much effort something will be.
I just think, oh, I've beenasked to do something, I'll say
yes, and I then dig myself outof holes afterwards and but no,
(05:15):
I've never regret being involvedin the CEOs.
And the second time is lovelybecause it wasn't a solo
performance.
I think when you carry it thefirst time and it's a solo
performance, everything's right.
And I had no idea, and in factthe year that I said yes, it was
because someone else haddropped out.
So I was asked very late in thepiece I think I was asked in in
(05:36):
February or month.
Like it was really ridiculoushow little time I had to
fundraise and also how littletime I had to learn to dance.
So it was quite.
You know, I guess it was allover before I had time to think
about it.
And when they asked if I wouldlike to be involved in a little
alumni group, I just thought,well, that'll be more fun
because it's not me carrying allthe load and we had more time
(05:57):
to do it.
So it was.
It was wonderful.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So I have two questions before I leave the
Dancing CEOs and delve into yourdeep, dark past.
The first is what were youdoing at the time that allowed
you to be asked to be DancingCEO?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
So I was working at the time for Adagode Aviation, a
, you know, a premium privatejet charter company doing a lot
of work in the in the defenceand government space as well as
in the private charter, bothwithin Australia and
internationally.
I was their market or newbusiness development manager and
(06:34):
was working internationallyquite a bit and in developing
new markets and new business forthem, and so I was seen as I
wasn't actually the CEO of thecompany but I was seen as a I
guess you know, a seniorcorporate role, and I think it
was because they were.
They were scrapping the barrel,someone had left and they just
(06:55):
needed someone silly enough tosay, oh, I'll do that.
Why?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
not Right place right time, or maybe wrong place
right time.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, I don't say no very often If it's something
that seems fun and adventurous.
My first is, oh yeah, let'sjust do it.
And then it's like what do Ihave to do?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I love that.
My second question was what wasyour winning dance move?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Oh, gee, it was, it was.
It was like one of a bit of aJohn Travolta one thing, because
I did a little bit of a discoand I did a couple of flips.
So I think that actually theflip I can't.
I can't do that again now.
But there was a flip that Iparticularly liked as well.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well, I do remember that you were very generous to
support both at not once buttwice.
So I know that Women's LegalServices a cause, a deity to
both of our hearts.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
So we might we're both ambassadors Correct and
that is a privilege to be askedto be an ambassador for a
charity that is so, so wellrespected.
I guess you know they.
They do things very carefullyand correctly and I really
appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
It's absolutely correct and I did speak recently
at the Dancing CEOs evening andwith the amount that we raised
quite recently, I think theDancing CEOs campaign has now
raised over $3 million forWomen's Legal Service in nine
years.
And so that is an incredibleeffort of not a whole lot of
individuals who embarked on afundraising strategy.
(08:20):
And not only that, putthemselves out there with great
backup dancers from Madd DanceHouse to actually perform in
front of hundreds of people atBrisbane City Hall.
It's an incredible campaign.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, and it's, it's.
It's gruelling and roots andfundraising is difficult, fun,
you know you've got to go to thesame people and friends and get
support, you know, and it canbe.
It can be a real challenge andyeah, it's, it is incredible
Over $3 million is justremarkable.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
It is incredible.
But we were both very happy todo that and I'm sure Dancing
CEOs to come will be equallyinterested to to see how they
can further such a great cause.
So that is how we bond it.
I think that's how you cameinto the trajectory of Hanworth
House and very happy that youdid.
But I think that you've got anincredibly rich and diverse past
(09:10):
and that started in Townsville,I think.
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I yep.
I was a little girl born in thelate 60s in Townsville to very
loving parents and a beautiful,wonderful extended family up
there.
My parents were small businessowners.
My mum was an incrediblyentrepreneurial.
(09:34):
I think before you know, beforethe word was really used mum
was a really, I guess a realshining beacon of of just how
you just get on and do thingsand and she had a beautiful
kitchenware shop.
So at the time David Joneswasn't in town, so mum had all
beautiful you know Maccasa, fine, you know dinner sets and
(09:55):
beautiful glasses.
So I grew up in this beautifulenvironment of all these
wonderful knives and plates anddinner.
You know lovely things likethat.
And my grandmother was anincredible cook and my mother
was.
They're just stylish, beautiful, giving people I think, yeah,
so a world surrounded by theadventures of the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Were you a good cook?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I was always into everything, so I did love
cooking, particularly achocolate cake.
I can remember being, you know,five or six and I knew I had a
chocolate cake recipe.
So anytime I was I neededsomething to eat, I would make a
chocolate cake.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Did that recipe come through the family or it was my
grandmother's, my?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
grandmother had very good basic, you know.
She taught me those principlesof proportion, of you need this
many eggs to this much flour andsugar, and really, then you can
just go for it and do anything.
So then, since then we don'treally follow recipes, we just
use that, and so you grew up inTownsville.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yep grew up in.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Townsville.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And do you think this kind of being surrounded by the
creative energy of your mom andyour grandmother did that sort
of send you on this pathway,Because I think you were
destined for a career that kindof led you through a creative
streak in terms of art anddesign?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, I guess I'd.
Always I was very different tothe rest of my family, everyone.
They were all quite.
They were quite moreconservative and shy.
And I came along as the lastchild of both my parents were
the last children, so I was sortof the youngest cousin and the
youngest and I was the bounciest, noisiest, most adventurous,
(11:30):
was always getting into allsorts of things and no one could
ever repress my thirst foradventure in life, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
You ignored his, just well.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
No, I wasn't.
I wasn't naughty because I justdidn't follow anyone else's
rules.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
That's a different issue of naughty.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
You know, I always figured if someone was imposing
their ideas and values on me, Ihad the right to veto them and
just do as I thought was rightfor me.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Sounds like a very relaxed North Queensland
upbringing.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Yes, I think my mother once chased me with a
wooden spoon, but that was theclosest I came to any sort of
major punishment.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
She would be a package and sell it back in the
shop, probably.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
I think she probably did.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So I think you must have got this love for
creativity and art fromsomewhere.
Were you good at art at school?
Speaker 3 (12:29):
No, I think I failed art.
You know, I don't think I canremember doing some art
assignments.
I was always creating.
I guess I was one of thosechildren that was always making,
building, constructing, playing, doing I don't know where my
creative, I don't really knowwhere that.
I just was always a doer and Iloved.
(12:51):
I just loved making and doingthings.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
So what did you pursue?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
after school.
Where did you go from there?
So after school I had a verystrong.
Right through school I had anurge to see the world I had.
I grew up actually, so there'sa I could backtrack a little bit
.
It's a bit of a strange storyand I don't know where exactly,
but it was a pivotal story.
(13:19):
So, being such an adventurousyoung you know, toddler I guess
as I was, I'd explored mygrandparents' fish pond very
early and pretty much came closeto drowning, and I've put in
the future a lot of the majorthings I've done in my life.
(13:40):
It's made sense when Iunderstood that I had this
experience of being 18 monthsold, being so curious that I've
jumped into the little fish pond.
Everyone else was asleep, butthe sun's only just coming up
and I've pitted, padded out andI'm exploring the fish and I'm
down in the water and I wouldn'thave come up except my uncle
(14:03):
pulled me out.
And I still kind of rememberthat sense of I mean, I was
unconscious and I neededreviving.
So I was obviously very closeto no longer being here and I
think at that point I had thissense of number one everything's
okay, You're not that importantanyway, so just live by your
(14:27):
own spirit, if that makes sense.
So when I've looked back and atthe time I thought everyone was
unencumbered in a certain way,that they just were able to live
with pure sense of wonder andjoy.
Because I really my wholechildhood, I would
(14:48):
overwhelmingly say I just havehad that wonder and joy.
And as an older person I've gonethrough different trials in
life and faced different pointswhen you could go one way or the
other, or different pointswhere you could have self-doubt,
or different points when youisolate yourself from people,
probably for good reason, andyou have to be strong enough to
(15:11):
stand in your own presence andspace.
I just have always come back tothat sense of it's not about
anybody else, we're actually,we're here for a short time,
nothing's a given, there's noguarantee that you've even got
the next day.
That taught my spirit to nottake anything for granted.
(15:32):
I've never wasted time onjealousy or coveting what other
people have.
I've never thought, oh, Ideserve this or I should have
that.
I've sort of not.
I just haven't and I thoughtthat that was normal.
And it's not till I've gotten alot older that I realise a lot
of people have these voices ofjealousy and jealousy holds you
(15:53):
back, or of regret and regretholds you back.
Or of fear and fear holds youback.
And I luckily had, and I thinkit was because that early close
to death moment taught me thatthere's nothing to fear I might
not have tomorrow, so live withintegrity and honesty and joy
today, and that that means notliving by what anyone else wants
(16:19):
you to do.
Yeah, on reflection, I thinkthat was one of those moments in
my life where I was veryblessed and fortunate to learn a
lesson of don't take things tooseriously, live with abundance
and love, and that's helped mein pretty good stead, I think.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
So, caitlin, I'm just thinking, but do you remember
that moment when you were 18months old?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I don't know whether the memory is what I've created
of the memory, but I do.
I have, I do have a sense of it, just this free flow and the
overwhelming essence I have isjust no fear of that moment.
You know, it's a yeah, so it'sa str-.
It's a strange thing, did yousay, was it?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
your grandparents' property.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Was that my grandparents' property?
So how did?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
they feel after the incident.
Um, Was it always talked about?
It was not.
No, it wasn't really.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
It wasn't really ever .
It was sort of just as I said,I was the youngest and I was you
know.
I think it was.
I don't really remember it muchbeing talked about after then.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Isn't it amazing how something when you were so young
can still have a profoundinfluence on your perception of
things in your life?
You know, I remember being leftat the City Hall Child Care
Centre by my mother because shewas going up to Channel 10 to do
a cooking show.
And no one believes I canremember that day, I couldn't
(17:42):
remember that feeling.
I was born, so I would have beenover 12 months, but not much
over, maybe about 16 to 18months old, and I remember
screaming and crying and mymother was asked to come back to
collect me.
Now and I don't think peoplehave talked about it that much,
but I don't remember a whole lotof stuff after that day, but I
(18:04):
do remember that day and what itlooked like and the fact that
I'd probably never been leftbefore, and so I was just
hopping back to my recollectionof that when you were talking
about an incident, probablyabout the same age that I was,
when I can remember thatincident.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
And memories are really.
It's incredible what memoriesdo.
They can be a trick and theycan.
I think you know that soundsgenuinely like for you.
That was a moment where it wasyour first consciousness of your
mother.
Has gone and that connectionand you're like, and so it is a
strong memory, which is it'sreally powerful.
(18:42):
It is.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
It's really funny because I could never, ever,
sleep over at a slumber party,for, like even when I was at
school, I had to be collected,and I think I'm going to blame
it now on the City Hall incident.
Really, I should remember thatone.
You're an abandonment.
Oh, it was the only slumberparty participant that had to be
collected before midnight.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
And school camp.
I couldn't go to school camp.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
That means I had to stay overnight.
Such a wuss I am honestly.
And so where did you?
So you were saying that thiswas our delving back into your
past to come up with your littleadventure.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
I think this might have been an adventure that took
you off overseas, so basicallyI was quite, I guess, socially
engaged and aware, orpolitically, socially, you know.
I kind of had a wanting tounderstand the world more
because I knew I was from little, old, safe, old North
Queensland and I guess I alwaysfelt bigger than just home.
(19:36):
A lot of people are quite happywhen they're in a home and they
feel safe.
I always wanted adventure.
So during my school years I allI knew is I wanted to travel,
but I wasn't someone who wantedto travel frivolously or just as
an observer.
So I learnt that there was anoperation rally it was called.
(19:57):
It was a set up where youngpeople from all over the world
could raise money and then go toall sorts of different parts of
the world.
I picked Africa because therewas an expedition coming up.
I left Townsville and came downto Brisbane and worked for a
year and saved money so that Icould pay my way to go.
(20:17):
And so when I was 18, I had mypassport and I left Australia
and I can remember sort of myneck was craning as I saw
Western Australia, thinking oh,I'm really, I'm out on my own
now, like nobody knows where Iam.
And I landed at four o'clock inthe morning in Zimbabwe and
(20:37):
again, no one was there to meetme.
I had to find my way throughbecause I was actually meeting
everybody in Kenya.
So I had to spend a couple ofdays in Zimbabwe and there was
men with guns and I was in a busand there was, you know, bikes
and chickens.
And I can just remember.
I can remember sitting therejust laughing, thinking, oh,
you've got yourself on a realbit of fun here, and I just it
(21:02):
was, yeah, it was amazing.
And I think when I look at mychildren and I think I wouldn't
really want them to bedisappearing off into deepest,
darkest Africa.
We had to write letters.
You couldn't just phone, so Iwould write letters home and it
would take weeks for a letter tocome back to me so I wouldn't
know what was going on andnobody would know what was going
on over there.
But it satisfied all of thatsense in me that I didn't know
(21:29):
the world and that I wanted toknow the world and I knew that I
had privilege by being in abeautiful, you know, middle
class family with safety andsecurity and food and flushing
toilets, and I wanted to putmyself where I would understand
what it was like not to havethat.
I guess I just always had that.
Yeah, I've always had that urgeto understand what other
(21:52):
people's lived experience is,because we only know our own
lived experience.
And Africa was just incredible.
We built schools anddispensaries and we did a rhino
rescue station and there'd bechildren that just had school
under a tree, you know.
They literally had a littlerock they were sitting on and
before school they would comeand help us carry all the
(22:13):
different materials becausewe're making it all on site and
it was, all you know, veryrustic and very raw.
We certainly weren't under theway they built things in
Australia and the kids were sokeen to get a school that they
were sheltered from the weatherit was 40 degrees and not a
blade of grass or a chair or youknow and they're just in these
(22:36):
little huts.
It was just lovely to see andthey were so keen to help
because they valued everythingthat was done for them.
And again, it was that thing ofthinking, would you?
So often in the West we've gotto go to school.
We forget how lucky we are tohave what we have, and I guess
(22:59):
that was, yes, I loved it.
The Africa was incredible.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Was that a year that you spent there?
About six months.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, it was only about six months.
I was just thinking about yourpoor parents.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
I mean, this is, I mean, it's just the kind of era
I grew up.
I mean, not only were you goingoverseas and no mobile phone,
but you were going to Africa.
I mean that would have beenalmost terrifying to arrive in
that country.
Obviously, you regarded as anadventure, but I would have
thought, you know, even knowinghow to get from one place to
another, when you were young andwithout the benefits we have
(23:32):
these days of the internet andmobile phone, you wonder how you
did these things, don't?
Speaker 3 (23:36):
you in retrospect.
Yeah, I look back and I think,wow, gee, and I kind of think
the part of it is that I've justalways had a bit of a thick
enough brain that I don't worryabout things, and it's probably
more from Stupidity, really.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Ignorance is what they say, this will be fine.
So how do you think did thatimpact on what you chose to do
next when you returned?
I guess you were there for acertain finite period of time.
You knew you had to come homeat that stage.
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Well no, I travelled then to about 30 other countries
before I came home.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Oh okay, just a short detour before you got back home
.
I just kind of wanted to tick afew more.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
So I just I travelled through Europe and worked for a
while in the UK and in Walesand then travelled across and
spent time in America as well.
So I sort of because this theexpedition we were on, there
were so many nationals from allover the world and I thought,
well, I don't want to go home ina hurry, I might as well.
(24:40):
So I extended as long as Icould, working a little bit,
travelling and just visiting asmany of the people that I'd been
in Africa with.
I ended up in Prague beforePrague was opened, before the
wall had come down.
We crossed.
I had my American friend.
His mother was a psychologistand had somebody who was the
(25:00):
advisor to I think his name wasHoffman, the Prime Minister or
the President of Czechoslovakiaat the time, and so it was still
behind the iron curtain, but wehad this contact so we were
able to get dropped off in.
I think I've dropped off in EastBerlin.
We walked like in the JamesBond movies, where you walk
across this no man's land in themiddle of the night and you
(25:22):
stamp your passport in one andthen you've got to walk through
because they didn't talk to eachother.
So it wasn't like a simplepassport exchange.
So we're sort of walking, andthen we went through and got our
passport stamped in the sort ofCzechoslovakian side, and then
we had to walk because ourfriend wasn't allowed to pick us
up near the passport becausethen he'd be almost like
(25:43):
earmarked as having.
You know, there was all this,it was all covert.
So we had to then walk anothercouple of kilometres to find his
car in the forest where heflashed his lights and we got it
and so we spent four days inPrague.
You know it was all.
There was no McDonald's therethen there was no.
It was six months or so laterthat that Prague opened up.
(26:05):
And now it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
What a great adventure to have.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I had all these things like that that happened,
and actually the TiananmenSquare happened when I was there
.
So I was watching TiananmenSquare happen on Russian
television.
So we're thinking what is goingon?
We've got no idea, because itwas all Russian and we were
seeing the propaganda from the,from the.
(26:28):
So, yeah, so I had a great timeof adventures and exploring the
world and, yeah, I was veryfortunate, really.
So what brought you home?
Well, I guess I just finallythought I thought coming home
would be a good idea and then itwas time for that journey to
end.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
So you're right back in Townsville.
I'm guessing your parents wouldhave been wanting to see you.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Yeah, I arrived back in Townsville and then I ended
up down in New South Wales wherewe set up an organic flower
farm because I was quite keen onbeing on the land and
experiencing, I guess, that kindof really rustic, authentic
lifestyle, and that was when Igot the opportunity to play with
wall.
So it was a beautiful sheepdistrict and so when my children
(27:14):
were young and I was in thisbeautiful wall region and people
would give me bags of wall andwe were living in this beautiful
mud brick cottage with solarpower and growing our own food
and it was very very good lifefor a few, yeah, it was a little
bit and again, that was thatwas that sense of my spirit
wanted to.
I liked to really immerse myselfin things so that I live it as
(27:37):
much as I can and have a livedexperience in that.
I don't like to be, I guess, apassive watcher of the world.
So, yeah, so we did this whole.
It was had its own challengesbecause we were really creating.
We were cooking our own food,you know, creating and growing
and and trying to make thisorganic flower farm, you know,
successful.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
I'm having a little moment because we're going to
come back to it later.
The bait to plate, but it kindof is a similar concept, wasn't
it really?
In terms of the way, theself-generation of the food.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
And I've just always loved that, because I love the
flavours when you've grownsomething yourself.
So there is very much thatsense of you know if you grow
the tomatoes and the pumpkins,and even when you grow your own
meat, it's you know it's beentreated well and it tastes
better because you know.
You do so in my spare timebecause we didn't really, you
know, we didn't have TV and wedidn't have shops nearby.
(28:28):
We were an hour and a half ortwo from town, like we were
quite, so people would give mebags of wool and I started
playing around with it and Ilearned how to felt in my spare
time and one thing led toanother and my felting business
became more lucrative than thefarming business.
So I would go down, I wouldregularly drive down to Sydney
(28:49):
and I would deliver flowers, andthen I would also drive down
with some of my felt things andgradually the shops were wanting
more of my felt things than theflowers.
So I just kept making more ofwhat they wanted and before I
knew it I was on this wholedifferent career that I had no
idea that I was even expectingor wanting.
It was just one of those godown a journey and discover I
(29:13):
found it suited me very wellbecause it was I don't know if
you know much about felting-Well, I was actually going to
ask you how on earth is feltmade?
So real wool felt basically evenour hair or any natural fibers
have little claws if you look atthem under a microscope, and
felting is really just theprocess of binding the hairs
(29:33):
together.
Now you know you've had abeautiful jump up that you've
probably washed incorrectly andit shrunk.
So that's really how felthappens.
So the wool fibers you get themcomfortable and it's a little
bit like making a good.
You know you stake, you've gotto do it, have at the right
temperature and if you, you knowyou can shock it and that sort
of thing.
So any living organism caneither be shocked or comforted
(29:57):
easily into where it wants to be.
So when we're felting, you'relaying the fibers of wool
together and you're using shocktactics to shrink them and once
they go in they can't come out.
It was a beautiful process forme because it was physical, so
it kept some of my bouncyhyperactivity under control,
because when you're makingsomething you're using your
(30:18):
whole body.
But it was also a beautifulcreative process because you're
playing with dyes and the colorand you know.
So I would spend my day dying.
You know I would look at, I'dlook at something and think, oh,
that pink, I just want to getthat pink, so I would play
around and and make a batch ofwool or silk in that color and
then I would hand createsomething with it.
(30:39):
So it was kind of I I reallydon't even know how it happened.
I had not thought of making ithappen, but I ended up in a
career for 20 something yearsbeing a full-time felt artist
and became I did well over my10,000 hours so I definitely
became an expert in it and got alot of recognition in different
(31:01):
places for what I created.
I just loved it because it was.
I was in the flow, in the stateof being a joyful, happy,
indulgent child, just livingwithout anybody else's pressure
or expectation.
I was just able to play.
We were at an event recentlywhere you know I think it was
(31:23):
Kate Miller Hyde who was talkingabout flow and as an artist, it
is the most privileged stateanyone can get to, because in
that moment you are so connectedwith your sense of joy and
spirit and wonder that no onecan.
No one can take it or it's,like you know, transcendental
(31:45):
law.
It's just if I could wish oneverybody to experience that at
some point, that would be mygreatest wish, because there is
nothing like the freedom andliberation that comes from just
being that happy.
And I was so fortunate thatliterally for 20 years I was in
that state regularly every weekwhere I would just get lost in
(32:08):
making and I had orders that Ineeded to fulfill and they kept
coming and I knew if I keptmaking and I could just be in
that play state.
It was like a privilege and ablessing.
I can't believe it.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Fascinating, tell me about some of the things you
made.
I mean, I felt artists.
You are the only felt artist.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
I have ever met in my life.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I'm just going to put you in a little like a platform
and a statue of your own,because that's incredible.
But what kinds of things didpeople ask you to make?
I'm guessing it was commissionbased, was it?
Speaker 3 (32:37):
So I would get.
Well, I had shops that wouldbuy regular, so I had a standard
sort of a silken wool shawlthat I'd managed to sort of
create that if I'd made one ofthem I made 20,000.
So that was my bread and butter.
So I knew if I made one ofthose I could, I'd get paid so
much and I had shops around theworld that would buy them and so
(32:59):
I would just make those andthat would cover my bills and my
expenses and then from that Iwould get commissions for things
I made for a performance ofcats.
I made a whole series of thecat headpieces, which was a
beautiful commission I made.
I had an American woman thatgot me I'd started selling into
her store and she thencommissioned me to make these
(33:21):
huge drapes for her Lake Tahoehome that were like 20 meters of
continual fabric that she usedas these beautiful ras wudra.
So I had to hand dye and matchthem all in so that it was.
It was just a beautiful.
Yeah, it worked as one amazingbig piece.
I had the chamber, the chambermusic festival.
(33:42):
I made a series of beautifulunder like reef lights.
They had a beautiful chambermusic festival in Townsville and
they were having an event wherethey wanted, basically we put
what what you would think of isa reef scene made as lights
suspended from the big, big toptent.
So there was all of these hugelight installations that were
(34:06):
all in all the colors of thereef, and maybe I wouldn't mind
reliving that again now that I'mback in that.
And then also, one of myfavorite commissions was at the
Townsville brewery.
They were doing that.
The brewery up it was the oldgeneral post office of
Townsville.
So it goes back a long time andmy family has been in
Townsville forever.
(34:26):
My grandparents store wasnearby, my mother's store was
nearby, but they commissioned meto make a series of beautiful
chandeliers and that wasprobably the biggest project I
had.
It was a six month, six monthsof work, and it was yeah, it was
delightful, and it's stillthere 12, 13, 14 years later.
They're actually all still.
(34:47):
The wool is still holding asthese beautiful natural fibers,
I guess natural fibers.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
You can't get past they, they're beautiful and we
were sharing with the a coupleof photographs of these great
lampshades that you were doingand which look incredible, and
I'm very privileged, thank youso much.
You've gifted me recently abeautiful tea cozy and for my
(35:12):
birthday, thank you so much forthat, caitlin.
It was very much precious andwill be very much accommodated
in the Hanworth house office fora long time.
But it was very special yourartistic streak, but also your
sense of genuine empathy interms of thinking that you know
doing something like that forHanworth was just so special.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
They, the tea cosies, pick themselves, you see.
So I didn't explain that when Iwhen, when I gave that to you,
but really when you use naturalfibers, and I guess they all
have these little personalities,so they do tend to pick who
they want to live with.
So it was kind of like it, itjust jumped out and said it
(35:50):
needed to be with Marissa, sowell, tilly is forever grateful.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Tilly is the Hanworth teapot, which we've never
talked about in the podcast, butwe should actually talk about
Tilly the teapot one day needsto be and um, and I think from
Tilly to Townsville might be agreat opportunity if I just have
a little break and a little sipof champagne and come back and
talk about your current amazingstuff that you're doing in North
Queensland wonderful, so seeyou in there.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
As we take a quick break, I'd like to take this
opportunity to let you know thatwe have a drop and go date
coming this Saturday, the 29thof July.
We will be accepting designerdonations for labels on the lawn
, which is coming up on the 7thof October 2023.
If you have any designerclothing or accessories you used
to love but no longer wear,drop them off at one of our
(36:39):
amazing partners and we willfind your items a new loving
home.
To find your closest location,head to handworthhousecomau
forward slash L-O-T-L.
Now back to our conversationwith Marissa and Caitlin.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
It's been a fascinating discussion so far.
I knew nothing about felt,except I used to play those
little felt boards as a kid.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
you know that's truly the only direct contact I've
had, but they're more littlesynthetting felt.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Of course I know they wouldn't be made with the
Marina Wool from any game Goodbusiness idea for the future
perhaps so I think two childrenlater.
You returned to Queensland andto Brisbane, I think and started
delving a bit more into textileand design.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
So yeah, what happened with, because you know
the felting just graduallymerged into I guess you know
other textiles and and other.
I guess I was trying to make ita more profitable.
Being an artist is is not veryprofitable and having two
teenage children that you'retrying to put through school and
(37:47):
and survive as a single motheris not that easy.
So I was trying to diversifyand I was one of the first
designers to get into digitalprint.
So I think I had the firstcollection of original digital
prints in Australia at FashionWeek.
I think it was at Sydney ormight have even been at one of
the early Brisbane no, I thinkit was in Sydney.
(38:09):
I still would create theoriginal design and photograph
it and print it on the silk.
So it was a reallyrevolutionary thing when I saw
that that was possible.
So I've still got fabrics thatwere made from beautiful felt
artworks that when you look atthe fabric you see your picture,
you can see the fibres, you cansee the wool fibre or the silk
fibre in it, and so it gives adepth and an even stronger
(38:34):
artistic integrity to the, tothe look of the of the fabric,
even if it's on silk orsynthetic.
So but at that.
At that time I started designingso I'd get prints done and I
would have, you know, simpledresses or tops and all sorts of
things.
And I was doing parades.
You know, I think I did thelargest parade between the twin
(38:57):
towers in Kuala Lumpur.
We did a runway parade thereand a lot of that was still hand
.
I would make designs out ofwool as well and mix them with
some prints.
Some, you know, people likelovely Sarah Hudson still has
one of my cardigans that youknow I used to make these
beautiful structured jackets andcardigans that were all hand
(39:19):
felted and then mix them withthe the print.
Yeah, it's quite a bizarrereally, looking back at it,
because I've been out of that.
I did, I burnt out eventuallyand I left that for a long time.
So it's quite interesting totalk about it now because, yeah,
it was quite a quite a journeyand I've got.
(39:40):
I showed my designs at Gide,usa twice in a row.
They asked me back, met allsorts of famous people.
You know I did Hong Kongfashion week, I did Singapore
fashion week.
I had designs go to Berlinfashion week, paris fashion week
.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
It's an incredible, incredible journey.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
I can't even think and at the time I didn't really
look at it as I didn't reallyfeel like I'll look at me, go on
, I great, because I've neverreally had much of an ego, so I
didn't really realize how luckyand privileged I was to actually
have all of that.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Just happen, but you must have also had a very unique
product that people wererecognizing it and inviting you
to do these really interestingthings.
And I love, I love this podcastin so many ways because it
actually, whilst we try to putHamworth at the center of it,
just during our conversation wehave covered or ticked off on
(40:36):
like four people that I have metthrough Hanworth that you knew
independently.
So one is obviously SarahHudson at SFH design in Newfarm.
She's one of our wonderfulcollaborators with our biggest
fundraiser labels on the lawn.
Two, which we'll talk about ina second, the beautiful Will
Valor and Sasha Drake, I thinkhad been people that have
(40:56):
crossed your path, so we'd loveto hear about how, how that
happened, both, again, wonderfulsupporters of our labels on the
lawn and wonderful supportersof fashion in Brisbane.
But, coincidentally, ourgorgeous mutual friend Laura Lee
Cunningham and her daughterSteph, who had the happiness
place at Paddington you said itwas across the road from your
studio.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
So when I first moved back to Brisbane, I had a
lovely little studio under theHamptons which was directly
across from happiness place, andLaura Lee was one of my you
know first beautiful customersthat would come in and and buy
my hand dyed silk and beadeddresses and different things.
So isn't?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
the world just so small when you can think about
that.
So how did you go from thesedesigns to doing some work with
Will and Sasha?
Speaker 3 (41:44):
so well I'd.
So Mark and I are both NorthQueenslanders, so I'd met Mark
many, many years earlier.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
We'd been asked to that's Mark Ferguson who owns.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Will.
Valor yes, so we, we metjudging, I think, the Ingham
fashion festival or something,we can't remember exactly what
it's called, but Ingham has abeautiful you know a beautiful
pedigree of wonderfulseamstresses and people that
(42:12):
make incredible designs and youknow that real lovely,
old-fashioned, good stitchingand and good craftsmanship.
And so Mark and I met judging afashion event up there and have
been absolute wonderful friendssince, and, of course, with Emma
, mark's beautiful wife yes soas Mark, mark and I sort of had
(42:33):
always mentored each other indifferent parts of the business,
because at different periods,when I was selling into America
and he was keen to know more, orat different times, I, you know
, he was very good at havingmentorship in business and I was
lacking, you know.
So we would get togetherregularly and just share and
brainstorm and and we understoodeach other's journey.
And so several times Markapproached me and said, right, I
(42:58):
need a special jacket, like forDamien Rossi.
So we did a beautiful I lovethat, that print.
And I did a.
I had created an originalartwork that was, you know, a
couple of meters that I wasplanning to digitally print, and
so I made some gorgeous skirtsand things and you know, and
that same thing where the fibersand the, the textile is so
(43:21):
alive in it.
And Mark had said, right, I'vegot to do this amazing jacket
for this incredible person, itcan't just be ordinary.
And we worked out that whiteand blue and pink you know this
it was an amazing floral topthat Damien still pulls out
sometimes for various differentevents and I'll give you a kick
when he does that every time Isee it.
Look at still, you know, becauseyou feel, I think as an artist
(43:44):
you feel so very.
They're like you're, you lovethem like your children.
You know you put it, it's likethe love you feel for hand with
you put so much into creating aspace and a and a value to
something that it supersedesanything you know.
It supersedes money, itsupersedes ownership.
It's just it's because it'sjust such a heart thing.
(44:07):
Anything that you do whereyou're, where you're creating
and and hand worth is a goodexample of that too oh, I think
I can absolutely empathize withthe passion that goes into the
creatives process.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
The good talking about that, but the Brisbane
festival recently too, about howa life without art is a life
half-lived, because it's that is.
That is that depth ofunderstanding and enjoyment,
that is seeing something buttextile design etc.
Would be something I've neverreally thought about.
How your art lives on someoneelse in a very different way to
(44:42):
an artist or a sculptor, but thesame kind of principle, isn't
it?
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (44:45):
yeah, now and it is, and it's remarkable like I still
sometimes today will see people.
They'll send me a photo ofwearing something that I made
years and years ago that I'veforgotten about, even a Margot
um, margot Parker.
I dressed her several times andrecently she did a post and
there was all of these differentdresses that I'd hand designed
for Margot for different galaevents and it was like, oh, look
(45:08):
at that, you just forget howwonderful, but they're beautiful
to see alive again.
And the same with Sasha.
Sasha was wanting to bring insome different textiles and and
had seen my work at throughBrisbane festival uh, through
Brisbane fashion festival theearly days, and um had just
asked if I could, you know, comeup with some designs that would
(45:29):
go on her prints.
And again, it was quite adifferent application because it
wasn't doing the hand felting,it was more about just just
coming up with color and and andtextures.
So, but wonderful processes andwonderful to see how other
people I admire Sasha so muchbecause she has such an
(45:49):
incredible business grounding inall her choices and decisions,
and that was something that whenI was in full-on creative mode
I was.
I was definitely not in that, Iwas in art space.
I was in just free, and that'sa different and it's a real
challenge, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (46:06):
it's like the charity space in terms of making money.
It's almost like it's a realgift to be able to combine the
artistic nuances with the, the,the sense that it makes a
business practical solution.
Um, we have a lovely storyabout Sasha as well, because we
are great partners with thegirls from Love Me Again markets
, and that one of theirPaddington centers they were
(46:27):
they used to do their marketshappened to, coincidentally, be
across the road from where SashaDrake lives, and so I was
having this tremendous troubletrying to find a place to park
and I heard this voice sayinghey, just go up there in the
kindergarten, because I wascollecting the cast of
storeholders fabrics and dressesand stuff to take to
(46:51):
labels on the lawn and wonderfulstoreholders were generous
enough to say, yes, we boughtthem here.
We didn't sell them, we'll giftthem to women's service.
And, of course, me and my bigcar would front up and have to
pile everything in the back.
Lo and behold, I didn't knowSasha and it after Woods.
I went and said thank you somuch for telling me where to
park.
Oh, no problem, anytime, I'mSasha Drake.
(47:13):
And I said oh, sasha, I buyyour stuff.
Oh, my god, I love you.
And now that I think about it,her stuff so colorful and so it
lives, it's so great for theQueensland climate.
But and she's become awonderful supporter and in fact,
this morning we've opened a newwarehouse to stock, to store
our stock for labels on the lawn2023, and I must have unwrapped
(47:35):
a dozen Sasha dresses thismorning.
And so, again, it's socoincidental we're having this
like conversation today and thismorning I would have the label
I saw most of this morning wasSasha Drake it must have been
from her wonderfully generousdonations that I was putting
them all up ready for sale thisyear so the world is so tiny.
In Brisbane and Queensland youcannot do anything wrong because
(47:58):
two people away from you knowall about everything.
So I want to talk a little bitabout North Queensland.
Returning to North Queensland,because I think you met Kev.
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (48:09):
yes, I did meet Kev, the love of my life.
We met because of the my roleat Addigold.
In that in the corporate worldI did several junkets over to
China and I was over there on aQueensland tourism Brisbane
airport, brisbane, marketing allthe various regional tourist
(48:30):
boards from from up and down,you know, from cans and Port
Douglas down.
Kev was there representingErleigh Beach and I was there
representing Addigold.
And we were thrown into thissituation where where we were
going from space after space,where we were going anyway,
promoting Queensland, and thefirst day of course there's
(48:50):
always a nice breaker and so wewe were being taken to the Great
Wall of China and Kev is alwaysfirst on a bus and I'm
generally juggling two or threephones and and emails and I'm
usually last on the bus.
And when I got on the bus Ialways like to sit up the front
because I just feel like I cansee everything and I'm not sort
of hiding up the back.
And Kev was sitting up thefront.
(49:11):
There was no one next to him.
So I immediately thought great,I'm sitting next to Kev because
he's wearing a cowboy scarf,which was synthetic, and the
cowboys beanie, which wassynthetic, and it was snowing on
the Great Wall of China and Ithought, oh poor little North
Queensland lad are you luckythat you met me today he did not
(49:34):
have the right gear on for thatday and we just, yeah, we
straight away.
Just I guess we, we straightaway knew we were kind of peas
in a pot to some extent.
And yes, so now I am more, moreliving in North Queensland than
I am in Brisbane, but we keep alittle footprint here.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
But yes, very fortunate, but you're doing some
wonderful things.
I had the great privilege ofattending, you know, white on
White Haven a couple of yearsago and and I think you offer a
range of corporate and and alsothat big event that happens in
September every year, yep themain, white on White.
What an incredible experienceto dress in white and be, uh,
(50:17):
chaperoned to the most gloriousbeach in the world.
It would have to be it was justvoted.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Number three in the world in it.
Well, it should be number onein my estimation, but uh.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
And to enjoy champagne on the beach and Kev's
wonderful and your wonderfulhospitality, which is second to
none, seafood and the best ofwhat Queensland has to offer,
and I remember it being one ofmost remarkable days of my life
being out on that glorious sea.
And then one of the highlightsfor me is the boat trip, you
know, from Ailey Beach to WhiteHaven.
It is just spectacular and it'snever the same twice.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
It's never the same.
It it is a magic place.
And Kev well, I've been sort ofthrowing myself all over the
world and and sort ofexperiencing all sorts of things
.
Kev moved to the Whitsundays 40something years ago as a young
um, young chef and ended upmanaging several of the resorts
and things up there and he's hejust knew it was home, so he's
(51:12):
just stayed.
So it's almost like when I leftTownsville as a young one, he
was already entrenched there.
It's like I had to travelaround the world, meet him in
China to come back and live back, just a stone's throw from
where I used to fish with myuncles and my dad.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
So amazing and kind of special.
The corollary to that story isthat, um, I think we were going
to one of your giving tablethings, which we'll talk about
in a second, and my husband,philip, said oh, there's the
best rumba in the world in Ailey.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Beach and lo and behold it was situated in fish
divine, which is rumba, no lessthan your Kev.
It's Kev's rumba, yes, I mean.
Who would have known?
No, he's um.
You know, he's got a pretty bigfootprint there in in the
Whitsundays and everybody loveshim because and I think the
reason we resonate and knowwe're two peas in a pot is that
(52:04):
I've witnessed him.
He does without even thinking,he does for community and he
does for other people and I justalways have two.
So I see him do things, not bydesign or by calculation,
because sometimes people do goodthings for others, but you know
, it's an agenda or acalculation, whereas I think we
both just genuinely serving isin our DNA and we both just love
(52:28):
to do things for others.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
And so, yeah, we're, we're pretty happy up there so
it's little wonder, then, thatmy giving table has sprouted out
of both your creative energyand your sense of uh wanting to
give back, and I want to alsoacknowledge, um, the wonderful
Adagold.
You know Jet Raffle.
Uh, I think one of the thingsabout dancing CEOs is that CEOs
(52:54):
want to look at ways in whichthey can continue to support
women's single service, andeveryone has a very unique
position in relation to how theywant to do that.
Your unique position is runningthis incredible jet raffle,
with flights to do it Sundaysand going to Whitehaven and
(53:15):
staying somewhere amazing, andwhich you've done now for quite
a few years, caitlin.
Speaker 3 (53:20):
We're up to number six, I think.
So the first one I did wasbecause I was dancing and it was
just, you know, a little onethat I thought, oh gee, this
might be my only chance offundraising.
This is something I can puttogether.
And I asked some fabuloussuppliers and it just came
together.
And then every year, becausewe've gotten, you know, better
(53:41):
at sharing the story and it'sit's had better reach, so
there's, you know, I think sooften in the charity space,
people get asked to give things,but they, if you're a business,
you can't afford just to alwaysgive.
You need to be making sure thatyou're.
You know you're either gettingpublicity or or goodwill, or you
know you've got to getsomething from it, and I've
always looked at it from thathat of you know.
(54:03):
I know what it's like to be astarving creative.
I know what it's like to be abusiness person, and so you've
got to.
In philanthropy you have tomarry all of those competing and
and needing requirements, Iguess.
And so every time I approachpeople about the Jet Raffle, I
always every year it gets betterand people's willingness to
(54:25):
donate.
We've had some incredible, youknow, like Paul Darazette from
Coral Sea Marina and Resort hedonated an incredible amount
last year and the beautiful newYangaro lodge that's only
recently been built.
They just strayed away and andI always go in expecting that I
might have to pay something.
You know, and particularly with, with Addigol, whether, whether
(54:49):
there's something we're payingto get you know a discounted
rate and early on that was youknow we really needed to do that
to prove it whereas now peopleare so generous that they say,
no, we'll give you this as afull donation.
You know, make the most of it.
And which really leverages thepower when people purchase a
(55:10):
ticket.
So much of it then is actuallygoing where you want it to go.
Because at the end of the day,if, if raising the funds costs
you almost as much as you make,then you haven't really raised
much.
But if you're able to havepeople don't like with, with
labels on the lawn, people areso incredible to donate
(55:32):
something they've loved and handit over for it to be re-loved,
and that, you know, just from anethical, from an environmental,
just from a giving and akindness space, it makes it so
much more powerful.
So every dollar works so muchmore in that situation and and I
love and it's the same with the, with the Jet Raffle.
(55:53):
We, you know, we will hopefullycontinue to keep doing it
because, addigol, even thoughI'm no longer there, they really
they love supporting dancingCEOs.
They're wonderful, they reallydo and they're happy because
they know I do all the heavylifting.
They just have to provide theaircraft and get all the you
know, the contracts and thingsbehind the scenes done.
I can just go and say, right,who, who can we pull together?
(56:16):
Sometimes we pulled superyachts in, sometimes we pull,
you know, differentaccommodation helicopters,
whatever it is.
But but it's amazing, so wefinally, I think, I think we've
raised about 300,000 through theJet Raffle.
Speaker 2 (56:29):
So, of that sort of three million dollars.
300,000 comes from the JetRaffle, that's like 10 percent.
That's pretty good.
I know it's an amazinginitiative and testament to your
relationship, I guess.
But you know I loved the wayyou said um, and some people
often ask us.
You know, we take great pride,as you do, in terms of having
high caliber prices andsometimes you do have to
(56:51):
actually give a bit to get thoseprices and I think a lot of
people when they go concoctingeven a small raffle, think
differently about.
You've got to use what peopledonate, but sometimes you don't
just use that as a startingpoint to.
Then maybe you have to go andbuy something else, but you'll
get five times that back if theprice is good.
And so I think you know you'veyour what your philosophy around
(57:15):
getting people to maybe evencontribute a bit to get a whole
lot more is a really clever anda good makes good business sense
and I think it does come backto you know, because we're also,
you know, we're very clearlybusiness women and business
minded.
Speaker 3 (57:31):
And if you, if you, if it doesn't make good business
sense, then people can't keepsupporting, and we lean so
heavily on small business to doa lot of the heavy lifting.
So what I see is we complainabout government's not doing
enough, but we don't want to paymore taxes, and then we also
lean so heavily on smallbusiness, but we also kind of
don't necessarily support them.
(57:52):
I think they need to get anyhelp, and so for me, it's got to
be a situation where it's gotto be a win-win, because if it's
not working equitably andfairly, the community misses out
.
We all have an obligation.
If we've got the ability to domore, we should, and we can't
keep blaming the government fornot picking up the slack.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
There's only so much they can do absolutely, and it's
a bit of a win-win, as you say.
So how I'm guessing this is alovely entree into your newest
fundraising initiative my givingtable so tell us about that,
because I have a feeling thathas a lot to do with your
wonderfully creative background.
I think it's got something todo with your business around uh
(58:33):
out of gold and around yourtextile and design foray, and
also what you're doing in NorthQueensland.
Tell us about my giving table.
Speaker 3 (58:40):
It's a wonderful initiative so my giving table
began and it did begin before Imet Kev, when I was I was
working in out of gold and ityou know it was, it was a very
corporate role and I hadn'treally done any.
Yes, I'd used my creativeskills, I guess, in terms of the
marketing and blogs and thingsthat I wrote for out of gold,
but I was needing to haveanother project and I was
(59:03):
feeling quite, you know, I wasquite stable and secure because,
you know, I was in a good roleand the part of my brain that
needed to come up with somethingneeded to be triggered and
entertained.
So, and I wanted to, I have,over the years, done, had dinner
parties, so I've hosted dinnerparties and I've asked people to
put money in the hat and raisefunds.
(59:26):
For example, I had severalfriends lost homes in the towns
for floods, so I had, you know,20 or 30 people come over.
We cooked a big banquet, peoplethrough whatever money they
wanted to, and I then was ableto help several of the of the
friends and family that had losteverything in the floods and
that was really the initiationof it.
(59:46):
I thought, well, okay, it'svery hard to be number one, you
need to have it, I guess,transparent.
You can't just have cash thatgets thrown at somebody that you
then hope it goes to the rightplace, because I might have
shown up with a lovely handbagthe next week and someone might
have thought, well, gee, didthat actually go where it was
meant to go, or did it go intomy lovely handbag?
Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
I did notice the handbag today I know I got that
from.
Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
I love my red handbag , a beautiful handbag, yes.
So I guess I've been honing mybusiness and entrepreneurial
skills all my life as well asindulging my creative skills, so
I've got kind of a I'm a prettylucky balance of both and I
understand that things need topay their own way.
(01:00:35):
But I wanted to create a way,and it was actually pre-covid,
but then, as COVID developed, itall really came together even
more because I thought, well,gee, if you can't be going out
to, to big events etc, it's,it's a simple concept, so I
should get back to the stopwaffling and get back to nitty
(01:00:56):
gritty.
It's a concept where Marissamight host a dinner party.
You'll use my giving table asyour little event platform,
where.
So I'll set up a page and anduse the, the terminology that
you're wanting, and you pick aticket price and you send that
link out to your friends.
They book and register and pay.
Then they show up and have abeautiful dinner with you and
(01:01:19):
the funds that then taken from,I've sort of got a, a quarantine
bank account that the fundsthen go directly to the charity
of choice.
So it's all trackable,traceable, auditable.
There was a lot of compliance.
I think when I was settingenough, I got up to about 45 000
in legal and financial costs toget my contracting right, to
(01:01:42):
get my compliance, to know thatit was was just correct and
sound, so that nobody could turnaround and say, well, where did
that money go?
How did that work.
So the long-term goal?
Because at the time when I setit up I was still a single woman
, a single, you know, businesswoman, and I was quite aware
that really I didn't have a lotof financial security.
(01:02:02):
I had a great job, but I maywell be in one of those risk
categories of the 50 year oldplus women that get to a point
that they don't have housingsecurity.
And so when I was, I waslooking at my giving table when
I set it up and I wanted it tobe something that would.
So it's a social enterprise andnot for profit, so all I need
for it to do is to pay its way.
(01:02:23):
But I thought if it grew wellenough and I could accumulate
money and buy land, I couldpotentially start to build
equitable housing, whether I doit with other people.
So my long-term vision is to setup small, really well designed,
beautiful living spaces forpeople that are at risk of being
(01:02:47):
homeless.
So you know, not just a housingcommission where you don't
really feel like you know youlove and support, somewhere
where there's a shared gardenand there's a shared quiet space
and there's you know you canhave.
You can live with a very smallhome.
But what also need, if you'vegot a small home and you've got
a community of people that careabout you and are checking on
(01:03:08):
you, that's pretty much all weneed.
It's not that difficult.
It's not like we need a mansion, it's not like we need super,
super, duper cars.
It's pretty simple at the endof the day, and so that's the
vision that I'm hoping one daywill be realized out of what I
started with my giving table,but it's initially at its core
(01:03:29):
is just dinner parties, thatthat give money to a charity and
it cuts out again.
I was aware of the number oftimes we go to a gala event
where we might pay $150 and 130of it goes into paying to be at
the venue because the venueshave.
Oh, I can't believe how manypeople think that the venue can
just, they can't just give theirstaff and their venue for
(01:03:53):
nothing.
But if you come to my home andI've cleaned the toilet and I've
set the table and I'm gladyou're going to clean the toilet
before.
I get there excellent, but butall of those costs aren't coming
off the ticket price, if youknow what I mean that's, it's
expensive to have events.
Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
I mean, even when we have events, we actually model
on the fact that you, we don'tmake any money on the ticket
price because once you've paidfor staffing and food and drinks
and everything else, there isno money to be made.
So I think this is a great wayof cutting out the middle man
and the middle woman or themiddle venue and still enjoying.
I've had the privilege of beingto three, I think, my giving
(01:04:33):
tables so far.
I think we're going to anotherone this week as well, which I
think I'm cooking a course forthe one that I'm coming to.
Well, I've put myself down fora very special bruschetta that
everyone knows is my signaturedish, but it's wonderful.
I mean, how much fun is it tobe to cook that?
Contribute it for free to abeautiful table of people that I
(01:04:53):
know all their hearts are inthe right place and I know, I
think, that we're benefitingfrom a new disease this week, so
it's an easy.
Speaker 3 (01:05:01):
Yes, it is easy and I think that's the trick.
It is about choosing your ownadventure, because you can.
You know the host can either.
You know, at times we do getchefs in and I care about a lot
Kev and I will quite often dothe cooking and we get asked all
the time for that to be moreand, as a consequence, I'm
trying to find more chefs thatwill say, yes, I'll, I can
(01:05:24):
donate my time.
We can cover the costs of thefood if a chef comes in.
But so there's some of thedinners will have a private chef
come in and they're in yourhome and that's fabulous and you
can charge a higher ticketprice.
Or it can be as simple as eachperson bring a different, a
different you know part of thedinner and maybe bring your own
(01:05:44):
wine, but you're still comingtogether and having that, that
united sense of caring about aparticular topic and being
interested in caring about theperson you're raising money for.
So it creates a differentconversation and it is a
different giving to just havinga normal dinner party.
Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
I agree.
Yeah, it's a great initiativeand I remember, I think, talking
to you when you were juststarting to think about it.
So it's lovely to see that it'sgerminated and it's actually
now in operation and, as I said,this will be the fourth one I'm
going to.
Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
I think I'm a alumni, or something.
Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
I know.
Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
I might get my 10th dinner for free or something.
I'm not quite sure.
I think it's very clear,Caitlin.
We always like to end on acouple of questions what do you
want to be when you grow up?
Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
I just want to be a four-year-old.
So, to be honest, yeah, I'mquite happy to never grow up Any
time I get serious enough thatI feel like I'm growing up.
To me, growing up would bebeing in that state of play and
joyfulness that four-year-oldsare in, because they're not
carrying all that burden ofcriticism and judgment.
(01:06:54):
They're just in that.
So, yes, I'm going to grow up,I'm going to be four.
Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
I love the fact you still play with felt, because
that actually could actually setyou on the right path for doing
that when you're all grown up,and I think I've seen so many
examples in our conversationtoday about true happiness in
your life.
But if you had to picksomething, if I had to say
Caitlin Aslet, what is it thatbrings you happiness?
(01:07:20):
What would your answer be?
Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
Oh true.
Well, there's, of course, thehappiness of being with my
children, which you can't getpast, but true, selfish,
indulgent happiness is lyingunder the stars out at sea
somewhere, hopefully on the topof our boat, and looking up and
(01:07:43):
realizing just how insignificantwe are.
That, to me, is awe-inspiringand wonderful and true,
contented happiness, becausethere's no ego and no judgment,
they're just in awe.
I think that would probably bemy happiest place.
Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
I can certainly empathize with that and I think,
on that note, I love the factthat we can have these
conversations and even thoughwe've talked about so much that
you've achieved and so muchthat's inspired you and so much
creativity and ingenuity thatyou've brought to the equation,
whether it be through charitablepurpose or dancing CEOs or my
(01:08:26):
giving table at the end of theday you say, looking at the
stars and realizing howinsignificant you are is really
a tribute to your absolutehumble nature and it was so
great to have this conversationwith you.
And thanks for being in thebeautiful champagne from Madame
Bollinger's house, anotherreally great woman, who was
quite a force to be reckonedwith, as I'm sure you are too.
Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
Caitlin, and it's been fabulous to have you around
today.
Thank you for coming in.
Thank you very much, Melissa.
It's been a joy.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Such an interesting story and what an incredible
adventure around the world atsuch a young age.
As many of you know, or youshould know by now, marisa will
be once again dancing in DancingCEOs, this time alongside
Lorelie Cunningham, in the 2024Dancing CEOs All Stars event
(01:09:18):
benefiting Women's Legal Service.
Queensland and Caitlin has anincredibly generous offer for
the first person to register amy giving table event benefiting
the Dancing CEO for 2024.
If you are the first toregister, you will receive a
free bake-to-plate dinner cookedby Caitlin and Kev in your own
(01:09:41):
home for up to 10 people.
So head to the my Giving Tablewebsite now or go through the
link in the episode descriptionto register your my Giving Table
party now, as usual.
If you have any questions, youcan send them through to
podcasthandmarkhousecomau.
That's H-A-N-W-O-R-T-H.
(01:10:06):
If you liked today's episode,please rate, review and
subscribe so you never miss anepisode.
We will be back soon withanother special guest.
Cheers, cheers.
Welcome to Bubbles and Benevolence, the podcast
where we pop the bubbles tosuccess and dive deep into the
benevolent hearts of those whohave achieved it.
In this podcast, we'll sit downwith successful business
leaders, philanthropists,non-profit workers and more to
discuss their journeys, thelessons they've learned along
the way, and how they're usingtheir success to make a positive
(00:20):
impact on the world.
So grab a glass of bubbles andjoin us as we explore the
intersection of business andbenevolence and discover what it
truly means to be successful.
Welcome to another surprisingepisode of Bubbles and
Benevolence as we welcome a truepowerhouse, the one and only
(00:41):
Caitlin Aslet, prepared to beblown away as we delve into the
story of her extraordinaryjourney that will leave you in
awe.
From dynamic careers in thetravel industry, textile and
costume designs to her ventureinto the world of
self-sustaining living and theconcept of bait-to-plate dining,
you'll wonder how she's managedto do it all and, on top of it
(01:02):
all, introducing my Giving Table.
This incredible not-for-profitendeavor is the heart and soul
of Caitlin's philanthropicvision.
It grants everyone theremarkable opportunity to host
fundraising events right in thecomfort of their own homes, by
passing those hefty venue andcatering fees.
Get ready to feel inspired asCaitlin's passion for giving
(01:23):
back shines through in everyword.
We hope you enjoy thisheartwarming interview with
Marisa and Caitlin.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Caitlin, it's so lovely to have you here today.
Thanks for making the time topop in and particularly as
you're this woman bearing awonderful gift and a wonderful
bottle of bubbles.
So tell us a bit about what youchose today and why.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Well, marisa.
Thank you, number one forhaving me.
I'm so excited to be here.
I picked Bollinger todaybecause I was feeling it's a
lovely special day.
It's a lovely time of theafternoon and I think Bollinger
has a beautiful butteriness thatjust feels lovely in a more
relaxed setting.
So I thought that we deserved aglass of Bollinger.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh, that sounds wonderful, and I'm surprised
these days how many people justlove champagne, and in fact I
think Australia is one of thebiggest champagne drinkers per
capita in the world.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I know we're having another lovely person.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
No, I'm sure I've done my fair share as well.
It's actually my daughter andmy husband's favorite champagne,
so you've done very well tobring that in today.
Well, thank you for sharingthat with us.
It's a special day You're herewith us, and it's a very special
drink to toast that.
So cheers to the podcast,cheers, cheers, looking forward
to a conversation Now.
Caitlin, we met each other.
(02:43):
I can't quite remember how manyyears ago it was, but I think
it's probably got something todo with the Dancing CEOs.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Would that be correct ?
That would be correct, I thinkit would have been 2017.
That, I think, that year of theDancing CEOs.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And we just recently had the finals for this year, so
I don't think we've talkedabout the Dancing CEOs on the
podcast, so can you tell us alittle bit about what it is and
basically why you did it?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
So the Dancing CEOs is it must be, I think, the
highlight of the Brisbanecalendar for giving and
philanthropy.
It's a beautiful cause raisingfunds for Women's Legal Service,
who offer incredible help andsupport, and very practical,
real and meaningful support towomen and families going through
(03:32):
domestic violence.
I think the Dancing CEOs it'snumber nine year, I think, so
we're number 10 coming up, whichis a big one, and I think it
was a very clever brainchildbecause it brings in a whole lot
of wonderful people that areincredibly giving and also
successful CEOs and businessprofessionals For charities.
(03:54):
You need to keep expanding thepeople who know about you and
your reach and your I guess,your footprint, and so whoever
came up with the CEOs concept,it was a pretty smart one.
Basically, we end up with agroup of amazing giving people
who dedicate their time to learnto dance and get up on the
(04:15):
stage and, in some cases,embarrass ourselves dreadfully,
but all for a good cause and, asa united whole, what that
achieves is phenomenal andincredible.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And I mean I did it in 2017, I think was that the
same year that you did it.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
We did it the same year, or were?
Speaker 3 (04:32):
you 16?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I can't quite remember now.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
But I mean the.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Thing the point I want to make is that once was so
enough for me, and but no, noyou.
You decided to do it twice, andI want to know what on earth
possessed you to have to go anddo.
It is a phenomenal experience,but it is very, very nerve
wracking.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
It is nerve wracking.
I guess I tend to have alwayshad a call that I just have a
thick brain, that I don't oftenthink of how much work or how
much effort something will be.
I just think, oh, I've beenasked to do something, I'll say
yes, and I then dig myself outof holes afterwards and but no,
(05:15):
I've never regret being involvedin the CEOs.
And the second time is lovelybecause it wasn't a solo
performance.
I think when you carry it thefirst time and it's a solo
performance, everything's right.
And I had no idea, and in factthe year that I said yes, it was
because someone else haddropped out.
So I was asked very late in thepiece I think I was asked in in
(05:36):
February or month.
Like it was really ridiculoushow little time I had to
fundraise and also how littletime I had to learn to dance.
So it was quite.
You know, I guess it was allover before I had time to think
about it.
And when they asked if I wouldlike to be involved in a little
alumni group, I just thought,well, that'll be more fun
because it's not me carrying allthe load and we had more time
(05:57):
to do it.
So it was.
It was wonderful.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So I have two questions before I leave the
Dancing CEOs and delve into yourdeep, dark past.
The first is what were youdoing at the time that allowed
you to be asked to be DancingCEO?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
So I was working at the time for Adagode Aviation, a
, you know, a premium privatejet charter company doing a lot
of work in the in the defenceand government space as well as
in the private charter, bothwithin Australia and
internationally.
I was their market or newbusiness development manager and
(06:34):
was working internationallyquite a bit and in developing
new markets and new business forthem, and so I was seen as I
wasn't actually the CEO of thecompany but I was seen as a I
guess you know, a seniorcorporate role, and I think it
was because they were.
They were scrapping the barrel,someone had left and they just
(06:55):
needed someone silly enough tosay, oh, I'll do that.
Why?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
not Right place right time, or maybe wrong place
right time.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, I don't say no very often If it's something
that seems fun and adventurous.
My first is, oh yeah, let'sjust do it.
And then it's like what do Ihave to do?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I love that.
My second question was what wasyour winning dance move?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Oh, gee, it was, it was.
It was like one of a bit of aJohn Travolta one thing, because
I did a little bit of a discoand I did a couple of flips.
So I think that actually theflip I can't.
I can't do that again now.
But there was a flip that Iparticularly liked as well.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well, I do remember that you were very generous to
support both at not once buttwice.
So I know that Women's LegalServices a cause, a deity to
both of our hearts.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
So we might we're both ambassadors Correct and
that is a privilege to be askedto be an ambassador for a
charity that is so, so wellrespected.
I guess you know they.
They do things very carefullyand correctly and I really
appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
It's absolutely correct and I did speak recently
at the Dancing CEOs evening andwith the amount that we raised
quite recently, I think theDancing CEOs campaign has now
raised over $3 million forWomen's Legal Service in nine
years.
And so that is an incredibleeffort of not a whole lot of
individuals who embarked on afundraising strategy.
(08:20):
And not only that, putthemselves out there with great
backup dancers from Madd DanceHouse to actually perform in
front of hundreds of people atBrisbane City Hall.
It's an incredible campaign.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, and it's, it's.
It's gruelling and roots andfundraising is difficult, fun,
you know you've got to go to thesame people and friends and get
support, you know, and it canbe.
It can be a real challenge andyeah, it's, it is incredible
Over $3 million is justremarkable.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
It is incredible.
But we were both very happy todo that and I'm sure Dancing
CEOs to come will be equallyinterested to to see how they
can further such a great cause.
So that is how we bond it.
I think that's how you cameinto the trajectory of Hanworth
House and very happy that youdid.
But I think that you've got anincredibly rich and diverse past
(09:10):
and that started in Townsville,I think.
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I yep.
I was a little girl born in thelate 60s in Townsville to very
loving parents and a beautiful,wonderful extended family up
there.
My parents were small businessowners.
My mum was an incrediblyentrepreneurial.
(09:34):
I think before you know, beforethe word was really used mum
was a really, I guess a realshining beacon of of just how
you just get on and do thingsand and she had a beautiful
kitchenware shop.
So at the time David Joneswasn't in town, so mum had all
beautiful you know Maccasa, fine, you know dinner sets and
(09:55):
beautiful glasses.
So I grew up in this beautifulenvironment of all these
wonderful knives and plates anddinner.
You know lovely things likethat.
And my grandmother was anincredible cook and my mother
was.
They're just stylish, beautiful, giving people I think, yeah,
so a world surrounded by theadventures of the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Were you a good cook?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I was always into everything, so I did love
cooking, particularly achocolate cake.
I can remember being, you know,five or six and I knew I had a
chocolate cake recipe.
So anytime I was I neededsomething to eat, I would make a
chocolate cake.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Did that recipe come through the family or it was my
grandmother's, my?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
grandmother had very good basic, you know.
She taught me those principlesof proportion, of you need this
many eggs to this much flour andsugar, and really, then you can
just go for it and do anything.
So then, since then we don'treally follow recipes, we just
use that, and so you grew up inTownsville.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yep grew up in.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Townsville.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And do you think this kind of being surrounded by the
creative energy of your mom andyour grandmother did that sort
of send you on this pathway,Because I think you were
destined for a career that kindof led you through a creative
streak in terms of art anddesign?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, I guess I'd.
Always I was very different tothe rest of my family, everyone.
They were all quite.
They were quite moreconservative and shy.
And I came along as the lastchild of both my parents were
the last children, so I was sortof the youngest cousin and the
youngest and I was the bounciest, noisiest, most adventurous,
(11:30):
was always getting into allsorts of things and no one could
ever repress my thirst foradventure in life, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
You ignored his, just well.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
No, I wasn't.
I wasn't naughty because I justdidn't follow anyone else's
rules.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
That's a different issue of naughty.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
You know, I always figured if someone was imposing
their ideas and values on me, Ihad the right to veto them and
just do as I thought was rightfor me.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Sounds like a very relaxed North Queensland
upbringing.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Yes, I think my mother once chased me with a
wooden spoon, but that was theclosest I came to any sort of
major punishment.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
She would be a package and sell it back in the
shop, probably.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
I think she probably did.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So I think you must have got this love for
creativity and art fromsomewhere.
Were you good at art at school?
Speaker 3 (12:29):
No, I think I failed art.
You know, I don't think I canremember doing some art
assignments.
I was always creating.
I guess I was one of thosechildren that was always making,
building, constructing, playing, doing I don't know where my
creative, I don't really knowwhere that.
I just was always a doer and Iloved.
(12:51):
I just loved making and doingthings.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
So what did you pursue?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
after school.
Where did you go from there?
So after school I had a verystrong.
Right through school I had anurge to see the world I had.
I grew up actually, so there'sa I could backtrack a little bit
.
It's a bit of a strange storyand I don't know where exactly,
but it was a pivotal story.
(13:19):
So, being such an adventurousyoung you know, toddler I guess
as I was, I'd explored mygrandparents' fish pond very
early and pretty much came closeto drowning, and I've put in
the future a lot of the majorthings I've done in my life.
(13:40):
It's made sense when Iunderstood that I had this
experience of being 18 monthsold, being so curious that I've
jumped into the little fish pond.
Everyone else was asleep, butthe sun's only just coming up
and I've pitted, padded out andI'm exploring the fish and I'm
down in the water and I wouldn'thave come up except my uncle
(14:03):
pulled me out.
And I still kind of rememberthat sense of I mean, I was
unconscious and I neededreviving.
So I was obviously very closeto no longer being here and I
think at that point I had thissense of number one everything's
okay, You're not that importantanyway, so just live by your
(14:27):
own spirit, if that makes sense.
So when I've looked back and atthe time I thought everyone was
unencumbered in a certain way,that they just were able to live
with pure sense of wonder andjoy.
Because I really my wholechildhood, I would
(14:48):
overwhelmingly say I just havehad that wonder and joy.
And as an older person I've gonethrough different trials in
life and faced different pointswhen you could go one way or the
other, or different pointswhere you could have self-doubt,
or different points when youisolate yourself from people,
probably for good reason, andyou have to be strong enough to
(15:11):
stand in your own presence andspace.
I just have always come back tothat sense of it's not about
anybody else, we're actually,we're here for a short time,
nothing's a given, there's noguarantee that you've even got
the next day.
That taught my spirit to nottake anything for granted.
(15:32):
I've never wasted time onjealousy or coveting what other
people have.
I've never thought, oh, Ideserve this or I should have
that.
I've sort of not.
I just haven't and I thoughtthat that was normal.
And it's not till I've gotten alot older that I realise a lot
of people have these voices ofjealousy and jealousy holds you
(15:53):
back, or of regret and regretholds you back.
Or of fear and fear holds youback.
And I luckily had, and I thinkit was because that early close
to death moment taught me thatthere's nothing to fear I might
not have tomorrow, so live withintegrity and honesty and joy
today, and that that means notliving by what anyone else wants
(16:19):
you to do.
Yeah, on reflection, I thinkthat was one of those moments in
my life where I was veryblessed and fortunate to learn a
lesson of don't take things tooseriously, live with abundance
and love, and that's helped mein pretty good stead, I think.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
So, caitlin, I'm just thinking, but do you remember
that moment when you were 18months old?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I don't know whether the memory is what I've created
of the memory, but I do.
I have, I do have a sense of it, just this free flow and the
overwhelming essence I have isjust no fear of that moment.
You know, it's a yeah, so it'sa str-.
It's a strange thing, did yousay, was it?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
your grandparents' property.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Was that my grandparents' property?
So how did?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
they feel after the incident.
Um, Was it always talked about?
It was not.
No, it wasn't really.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
It wasn't really ever .
It was sort of just as I said,I was the youngest and I was you
know.
I think it was.
I don't really remember it muchbeing talked about after then.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Isn't it amazing how something when you were so young
can still have a profoundinfluence on your perception of
things in your life?
You know, I remember being leftat the City Hall Child Care
Centre by my mother because shewas going up to Channel 10 to do
a cooking show.
And no one believes I canremember that day, I couldn't
(17:42):
remember that feeling.
I was born, so I would have beenover 12 months, but not much
over, maybe about 16 to 18months old, and I remember
screaming and crying and mymother was asked to come back to
collect me.
Now and I don't think peoplehave talked about it that much,
but I don't remember a whole lotof stuff after that day, but I
(18:04):
do remember that day and what itlooked like and the fact that
I'd probably never been leftbefore, and so I was just
hopping back to my recollectionof that when you were talking
about an incident, probablyabout the same age that I was,
when I can remember thatincident.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
And memories are really.
It's incredible what memoriesdo.
They can be a trick and theycan.
I think you know that soundsgenuinely like for you.
That was a moment where it wasyour first consciousness of your
mother.
Has gone and that connectionand you're like, and so it is a
strong memory, which is it'sreally powerful.
(18:42):
It is.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
It's really funny because I could never, ever,
sleep over at a slumber party,for, like even when I was at
school, I had to be collected,and I think I'm going to blame
it now on the City Hall incident.
Really, I should remember thatone.
You're an abandonment.
Oh, it was the only slumberparty participant that had to be
collected before midnight.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
And school camp.
I couldn't go to school camp.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
That means I had to stay overnight.
Such a wuss I am honestly.
And so where did you?
So you were saying that thiswas our delving back into your
past to come up with your littleadventure.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
I think this might have been an adventure that took
you off overseas, so basicallyI was quite, I guess, socially
engaged and aware, orpolitically, socially, you know.
I kind of had a wanting tounderstand the world more
because I knew I was from little, old, safe, old North
Queensland and I guess I alwaysfelt bigger than just home.
(19:36):
A lot of people are quite happywhen they're in a home and they
feel safe.
I always wanted adventure.
So during my school years I allI knew is I wanted to travel,
but I wasn't someone who wantedto travel frivolously or just as
an observer.
So I learnt that there was anoperation rally it was called.
(19:57):
It was a set up where youngpeople from all over the world
could raise money and then go toall sorts of different parts of
the world.
I picked Africa because therewas an expedition coming up.
I left Townsville and came downto Brisbane and worked for a
year and saved money so that Icould pay my way to go.
(20:17):
And so when I was 18, I had mypassport and I left Australia
and I can remember sort of myneck was craning as I saw
Western Australia, thinking oh,I'm really, I'm out on my own
now, like nobody knows where Iam.
And I landed at four o'clock inthe morning in Zimbabwe and
(20:37):
again, no one was there to meetme.
I had to find my way throughbecause I was actually meeting
everybody in Kenya.
So I had to spend a couple ofdays in Zimbabwe and there was
men with guns and I was in a busand there was, you know, bikes
and chickens.
And I can just remember.
I can remember sitting therejust laughing, thinking, oh,
you've got yourself on a realbit of fun here, and I just it
(21:02):
was, yeah, it was amazing.
And I think when I look at mychildren and I think I wouldn't
really want them to bedisappearing off into deepest,
darkest Africa.
We had to write letters.
You couldn't just phone, so Iwould write letters home and it
would take weeks for a letter tocome back to me so I wouldn't
know what was going on andnobody would know what was going
on over there.
But it satisfied all of thatsense in me that I didn't know
(21:29):
the world and that I wanted toknow the world and I knew that I
had privilege by being in abeautiful, you know, middle
class family with safety andsecurity and food and flushing
toilets, and I wanted to putmyself where I would understand
what it was like not to havethat.
I guess I just always had that.
Yeah, I've always had that urgeto understand what other
(21:52):
people's lived experience is,because we only know our own
lived experience.
And Africa was just incredible.
We built schools anddispensaries and we did a rhino
rescue station and there'd bechildren that just had school
under a tree, you know.
They literally had a littlerock they were sitting on and
before school they would comeand help us carry all the
(22:13):
different materials becausewe're making it all on site and
it was, all you know, veryrustic and very raw.
We certainly weren't under theway they built things in
Australia and the kids were sokeen to get a school that they
were sheltered from the weatherit was 40 degrees and not a
blade of grass or a chair or youknow and they're just in these
(22:36):
little huts.
It was just lovely to see andthey were so keen to help
because they valued everythingthat was done for them.
And again, it was that thing ofthinking, would you?
So often in the West we've gotto go to school.
We forget how lucky we are tohave what we have, and I guess
(22:59):
that was, yes, I loved it.
The Africa was incredible.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Was that a year that you spent there?
About six months.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, it was only about six months.
I was just thinking about yourpoor parents.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
I mean, this is, I mean, it's just the kind of era
I grew up.
I mean, not only were you goingoverseas and no mobile phone,
but you were going to Africa.
I mean that would have beenalmost terrifying to arrive in
that country.
Obviously, you regarded as anadventure, but I would have
thought, you know, even knowinghow to get from one place to
another, when you were young andwithout the benefits we have
(23:32):
these days of the internet andmobile phone, you wonder how you
did these things, don't?
Speaker 3 (23:36):
you in retrospect.
Yeah, I look back and I think,wow, gee, and I kind of think
the part of it is that I've justalways had a bit of a thick
enough brain that I don't worryabout things, and it's probably
more from Stupidity, really.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Ignorance is what they say, this will be fine.
So how do you think did thatimpact on what you chose to do
next when you returned?
I guess you were there for acertain finite period of time.
You knew you had to come homeat that stage.
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Well no, I travelled then to about 30 other countries
before I came home.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Oh okay, just a short detour before you got back home
.
I just kind of wanted to tick afew more.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
So I just I travelled through Europe and worked for a
while in the UK and in Walesand then travelled across and
spent time in America as well.
So I sort of because this theexpedition we were on, there
were so many nationals from allover the world and I thought,
well, I don't want to go home ina hurry, I might as well.
(24:40):
So I extended as long as Icould, working a little bit,
travelling and just visiting asmany of the people that I'd been
in Africa with.
I ended up in Prague beforePrague was opened, before the
wall had come down.
We crossed.
I had my American friend.
His mother was a psychologistand had somebody who was the
(25:00):
advisor to I think his name wasHoffman, the Prime Minister or
the President of Czechoslovakiaat the time, and so it was still
behind the iron curtain, but wehad this contact so we were
able to get dropped off in.
I think I've dropped off in EastBerlin.
We walked like in the JamesBond movies, where you walk
across this no man's land in themiddle of the night and you
(25:22):
stamp your passport in one andthen you've got to walk through
because they didn't talk to eachother.
So it wasn't like a simplepassport exchange.
So we're sort of walking, andthen we went through and got our
passport stamped in the sort ofCzechoslovakian side, and then
we had to walk because ourfriend wasn't allowed to pick us
up near the passport becausethen he'd be almost like
(25:43):
earmarked as having.
You know, there was all this,it was all covert.
So we had to then walk anothercouple of kilometres to find his
car in the forest where heflashed his lights and we got it
and so we spent four days inPrague.
You know it was all.
There was no McDonald's therethen there was no.
It was six months or so laterthat that Prague opened up.
(26:05):
And now it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
What a great adventure to have.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I had all these things like that that happened,
and actually the TiananmenSquare happened when I was there
.
So I was watching TiananmenSquare happen on Russian
television.
So we're thinking what is goingon?
We've got no idea, because itwas all Russian and we were
seeing the propaganda from the,from the.
(26:28):
So, yeah, so I had a great timeof adventures and exploring the
world and, yeah, I was veryfortunate, really.
So what brought you home?
Well, I guess I just finallythought I thought coming home
would be a good idea and then itwas time for that journey to
end.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
So you're right back in Townsville.
I'm guessing your parents wouldhave been wanting to see you.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Yeah, I arrived back in Townsville and then I ended
up down in New South Wales wherewe set up an organic flower
farm because I was quite keen onbeing on the land and
experiencing, I guess, that kindof really rustic, authentic
lifestyle, and that was when Igot the opportunity to play with
wall.
So it was a beautiful sheepdistrict and so when my children
(27:14):
were young and I was in thisbeautiful wall region and people
would give me bags of wall andwe were living in this beautiful
mud brick cottage with solarpower and growing our own food
and it was very very good lifefor a few, yeah, it was a little
bit and again, that was thatwas that sense of my spirit
wanted to.
I liked to really immerse myselfin things so that I live it as
(27:37):
much as I can and have a livedexperience in that.
I don't like to be, I guess, apassive watcher of the world.
So, yeah, so we did this whole.
It was had its own challengesbecause we were really creating.
We were cooking our own food,you know, creating and growing
and and trying to make thisorganic flower farm, you know,
successful.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
I'm having a little moment because we're going to
come back to it later.
The bait to plate, but it kindof is a similar concept, wasn't
it really?
In terms of the way, theself-generation of the food.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
And I've just always loved that, because I love the
flavours when you've grownsomething yourself.
So there is very much thatsense of you know if you grow
the tomatoes and the pumpkins,and even when you grow your own
meat, it's you know it's beentreated well and it tastes
better because you know.
You do so in my spare timebecause we didn't really, you
know, we didn't have TV and wedidn't have shops nearby.
(28:28):
We were an hour and a half ortwo from town, like we were
quite, so people would give mebags of wool and I started
playing around with it and Ilearned how to felt in my spare
time and one thing led toanother and my felting business
became more lucrative than thefarming business.
So I would go down, I wouldregularly drive down to Sydney
(28:49):
and I would deliver flowers, andthen I would also drive down
with some of my felt things andgradually the shops were wanting
more of my felt things than theflowers.
So I just kept making more ofwhat they wanted and before I
knew it I was on this wholedifferent career that I had no
idea that I was even expectingor wanting.
It was just one of those godown a journey and discover I
(29:13):
found it suited me very wellbecause it was I don't know if
you know much about felting-Well, I was actually going to
ask you how on earth is feltmade?
So real wool felt basically evenour hair or any natural fibers
have little claws if you look atthem under a microscope, and
felting is really just theprocess of binding the hairs
(29:33):
together.
Now you know you've had abeautiful jump up that you've
probably washed incorrectly andit shrunk.
So that's really how felthappens.
So the wool fibers you get themcomfortable and it's a little
bit like making a good.
You know you stake, you've gotto do it, have at the right
temperature and if you, you knowyou can shock it and that sort
of thing.
So any living organism caneither be shocked or comforted
(29:57):
easily into where it wants to be.
So when we're felting, you'relaying the fibers of wool
together and you're using shocktactics to shrink them and once
they go in they can't come out.
It was a beautiful process forme because it was physical, so
it kept some of my bouncyhyperactivity under control,
because when you're makingsomething you're using your
(30:18):
whole body.
But it was also a beautifulcreative process because you're
playing with dyes and the colorand you know.
So I would spend my day dying.
You know I would look at, I'dlook at something and think, oh,
that pink, I just want to getthat pink, so I would play
around and and make a batch ofwool or silk in that color and
then I would hand createsomething with it.
(30:39):
So it was kind of I I reallydon't even know how it happened.
I had not thought of making ithappen, but I ended up in a
career for 20 something yearsbeing a full-time felt artist
and became I did well over my10,000 hours so I definitely
became an expert in it and got alot of recognition in different
(31:01):
places for what I created.
I just loved it because it was.
I was in the flow, in the stateof being a joyful, happy,
indulgent child, just livingwithout anybody else's pressure
or expectation.
I was just able to play.
We were at an event recentlywhere you know I think it was
(31:23):
Kate Miller Hyde who was talkingabout flow and as an artist, it
is the most privileged stateanyone can get to, because in
that moment you are so connectedwith your sense of joy and
spirit and wonder that no onecan.
No one can take it or it's,like you know, transcendental
(31:45):
law.
It's just if I could wish oneverybody to experience that at
some point, that would be mygreatest wish, because there is
nothing like the freedom andliberation that comes from just
being that happy.
And I was so fortunate thatliterally for 20 years I was in
that state regularly every weekwhere I would just get lost in
(32:08):
making and I had orders that Ineeded to fulfill and they kept
coming and I knew if I keptmaking and I could just be in
that play state.
It was like a privilege and ablessing.
I can't believe it.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Fascinating, tell me about some of the things you
made.
I mean, I felt artists.
You are the only felt artist.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
I have ever met in my life.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I'm just going to put you in a little like a platform
and a statue of your own,because that's incredible.
But what kinds of things didpeople ask you to make?
I'm guessing it was commissionbased, was it?
Speaker 3 (32:37):
So I would get.
Well, I had shops that wouldbuy regular, so I had a standard
sort of a silken wool shawlthat I'd managed to sort of
create that if I'd made one ofthem I made 20,000.
So that was my bread and butter.
So I knew if I made one ofthose I could, I'd get paid so
much and I had shops around theworld that would buy them and so
(32:59):
I would just make those andthat would cover my bills and my
expenses and then from that Iwould get commissions for things
I made for a performance ofcats.
I made a whole series of thecat headpieces, which was a
beautiful commission I made.
I had an American woman thatgot me I'd started selling into
her store and she thencommissioned me to make these
(33:21):
huge drapes for her Lake Tahoehome that were like 20 meters of
continual fabric that she usedas these beautiful ras wudra.
So I had to hand dye and matchthem all in so that it was.
It was just a beautiful.
Yeah, it worked as one amazingbig piece.
I had the chamber, the chambermusic festival.
(33:42):
I made a series of beautifulunder like reef lights.
They had a beautiful chambermusic festival in Townsville and
they were having an event wherethey wanted, basically we put
what what you would think of isa reef scene made as lights
suspended from the big, big toptent.
So there was all of these hugelight installations that were
(34:06):
all in all the colors of thereef, and maybe I wouldn't mind
reliving that again now that I'mback in that.
And then also, one of myfavorite commissions was at the
Townsville brewery.
They were doing that.
The brewery up it was the oldgeneral post office of
Townsville.
So it goes back a long time andmy family has been in
Townsville forever.
(34:26):
My grandparents store wasnearby, my mother's store was
nearby, but they commissioned meto make a series of beautiful
chandeliers and that wasprobably the biggest project I
had.
It was a six month, six monthsof work, and it was yeah, it was
delightful, and it's stillthere 12, 13, 14 years later.
They're actually all still.
(34:47):
The wool is still holding asthese beautiful natural fibers,
I guess natural fibers.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
You can't get past they, they're beautiful and we
were sharing with the a coupleof photographs of these great
lampshades that you were doingand which look incredible, and
I'm very privileged, thank youso much.
You've gifted me recently abeautiful tea cozy and for my
(35:12):
birthday, thank you so much forthat, caitlin.
It was very much precious andwill be very much accommodated
in the Hanworth house office fora long time.
But it was very special yourartistic streak, but also your
sense of genuine empathy interms of thinking that you know
doing something like that forHanworth was just so special.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
They, the tea cosies, pick themselves, you see.
So I didn't explain that when Iwhen, when I gave that to you,
but really when you use naturalfibers, and I guess they all
have these little personalities,so they do tend to pick who
they want to live with.
So it was kind of like it, itjust jumped out and said it
(35:50):
needed to be with Marissa, sowell, tilly is forever grateful.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Tilly is the Hanworth teapot, which we've never
talked about in the podcast, butwe should actually talk about
Tilly the teapot one day needsto be and um, and I think from
Tilly to Townsville might be agreat opportunity if I just have
a little break and a little sipof champagne and come back and
talk about your current amazingstuff that you're doing in North
Queensland wonderful, so seeyou in there.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
As we take a quick break, I'd like to take this
opportunity to let you know thatwe have a drop and go date
coming this Saturday, the 29thof July.
We will be accepting designerdonations for labels on the lawn
, which is coming up on the 7thof October 2023.
If you have any designerclothing or accessories you used
to love but no longer wear,drop them off at one of our
(36:39):
amazing partners and we willfind your items a new loving
home.
To find your closest location,head to handworthhousecomau
forward slash L-O-T-L.
Now back to our conversationwith Marissa and Caitlin.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
It's been a fascinating discussion so far.
I knew nothing about felt,except I used to play those
little felt boards as a kid.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
you know that's truly the only direct contact I've
had, but they're more littlesynthetting felt.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Of course I know they wouldn't be made with the
Marina Wool from any game Goodbusiness idea for the future
perhaps so I think two childrenlater.
You returned to Queensland andto Brisbane, I think and started
delving a bit more into textileand design.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
So yeah, what happened with, because you know
the felting just graduallymerged into I guess you know
other textiles and and other.
I guess I was trying to make ita more profitable.
Being an artist is is not veryprofitable and having two
teenage children that you'retrying to put through school and
(37:47):
and survive as a single motheris not that easy.
So I was trying to diversifyand I was one of the first
designers to get into digitalprint.
So I think I had the firstcollection of original digital
prints in Australia at FashionWeek.
I think it was at Sydney ormight have even been at one of
the early Brisbane no, I thinkit was in Sydney.
(38:09):
I still would create theoriginal design and photograph
it and print it on the silk.
So it was a reallyrevolutionary thing when I saw
that that was possible.
So I've still got fabrics thatwere made from beautiful felt
artworks that when you look atthe fabric you see your picture,
you can see the fibres, you cansee the wool fibre or the silk
fibre in it, and so it gives adepth and an even stronger
(38:34):
artistic integrity to the, tothe look of the of the fabric,
even if it's on silk orsynthetic.
So but at that.
At that time I started designingso I'd get prints done and I
would have, you know, simpledresses or tops and all sorts of
things.
And I was doing parades.
You know, I think I did thelargest parade between the twin
(38:57):
towers in Kuala Lumpur.
We did a runway parade thereand a lot of that was still hand
.
I would make designs out ofwool as well and mix them with
some prints.
Some, you know, people likelovely Sarah Hudson still has
one of my cardigans that youknow I used to make these
beautiful structured jackets andcardigans that were all hand
(39:19):
felted and then mix them withthe the print.
Yeah, it's quite a bizarrereally, looking back at it,
because I've been out of that.
I did, I burnt out eventuallyand I left that for a long time.
So it's quite interesting totalk about it now because, yeah,
it was quite a quite a journeyand I've got.
(39:40):
I showed my designs at Gide,usa twice in a row.
They asked me back, met allsorts of famous people.
You know I did Hong Kongfashion week, I did Singapore
fashion week.
I had designs go to Berlinfashion week, paris fashion week
.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
It's an incredible, incredible journey.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
I can't even think and at the time I didn't really
look at it as I didn't reallyfeel like I'll look at me, go on
, I great, because I've neverreally had much of an ego, so I
didn't really realize how luckyand privileged I was to actually
have all of that.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Just happen, but you must have also had a very unique
product that people wererecognizing it and inviting you
to do these really interestingthings.
And I love, I love this podcastin so many ways because it
actually, whilst we try to putHamworth at the center of it,
just during our conversation wehave covered or ticked off on
(40:36):
like four people that I have metthrough Hanworth that you knew
independently.
So one is obviously SarahHudson at SFH design in Newfarm.
She's one of our wonderfulcollaborators with our biggest
fundraiser labels on the lawn.
Two, which we'll talk about ina second, the beautiful Will
Valor and Sasha Drake, I thinkhad been people that have
(40:56):
crossed your path, so we'd loveto hear about how, how that
happened, both, again, wonderfulsupporters of our labels on the
lawn and wonderful supportersof fashion in Brisbane.
But, coincidentally, ourgorgeous mutual friend Laura Lee
Cunningham and her daughterSteph, who had the happiness
place at Paddington you said itwas across the road from your
studio.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
So when I first moved back to Brisbane, I had a
lovely little studio under theHamptons which was directly
across from happiness place, andLaura Lee was one of my you
know first beautiful customersthat would come in and and buy
my hand dyed silk and beadeddresses and different things.
So isn't?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
the world just so small when you can think about
that.
So how did you go from thesedesigns to doing some work with
Will and Sasha?
Speaker 3 (41:44):
so well I'd.
So Mark and I are both NorthQueenslanders, so I'd met Mark
many, many years earlier.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
We'd been asked to that's Mark Ferguson who owns.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Will.
Valor yes, so we, we metjudging, I think, the Ingham
fashion festival or something,we can't remember exactly what
it's called, but Ingham has abeautiful you know a beautiful
pedigree of wonderfulseamstresses and people that
(42:12):
make incredible designs and youknow that real lovely,
old-fashioned, good stitchingand and good craftsmanship.
And so Mark and I met judging afashion event up there and have
been absolute wonderful friendssince, and, of course, with Emma
, mark's beautiful wife yes soas Mark, mark and I sort of had
(42:33):
always mentored each other indifferent parts of the business,
because at different periods,when I was selling into America
and he was keen to know more, orat different times, I, you know
, he was very good at havingmentorship in business and I was
lacking, you know.
So we would get togetherregularly and just share and
brainstorm and and we understoodeach other's journey.
And so several times Markapproached me and said, right, I
(42:58):
need a special jacket, like forDamien Rossi.
So we did a beautiful I lovethat, that print.
And I did a.
I had created an originalartwork that was, you know, a
couple of meters that I wasplanning to digitally print, and
so I made some gorgeous skirtsand things and you know, and
that same thing where the fibersand the, the textile is so
(43:21):
alive in it.
And Mark had said, right, I'vegot to do this amazing jacket
for this incredible person, itcan't just be ordinary.
And we worked out that whiteand blue and pink you know this
it was an amazing floral topthat Damien still pulls out
sometimes for various differentevents and I'll give you a kick
when he does that every time Isee it.
Look at still, you know, becauseyou feel, I think as an artist
(43:44):
you feel so very.
They're like you're, you lovethem like your children.
You know you put it, it's likethe love you feel for hand with
you put so much into creating aspace and a and a value to
something that it supersedesanything you know.
It supersedes money, itsupersedes ownership.
It's just it's because it'sjust such a heart thing.
(44:07):
Anything that you do whereyou're, where you're creating
and and hand worth is a goodexample of that too oh, I think
I can absolutely empathize withthe passion that goes into the
creatives process.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
The good talking about that, but the Brisbane
festival recently too, about howa life without art is a life
half-lived, because it's that is.
That is that depth ofunderstanding and enjoyment,
that is seeing something buttextile design etc.
Would be something I've neverreally thought about.
How your art lives on someoneelse in a very different way to
(44:42):
an artist or a sculptor, but thesame kind of principle, isn't
it?
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (44:45):
yeah, now and it is, and it's remarkable like I still
sometimes today will see people.
They'll send me a photo ofwearing something that I made
years and years ago that I'veforgotten about, even a Margot
um, margot Parker.
I dressed her several times andrecently she did a post and
there was all of these differentdresses that I'd hand designed
for Margot for different galaevents and it was like, oh, look
(45:08):
at that, you just forget howwonderful, but they're beautiful
to see alive again.
And the same with Sasha.
Sasha was wanting to bring insome different textiles and and
had seen my work at throughBrisbane festival uh, through
Brisbane fashion festival theearly days, and um had just
asked if I could, you know, comeup with some designs that would
(45:29):
go on her prints.
And again, it was quite adifferent application because it
wasn't doing the hand felting,it was more about just just
coming up with color and and andtextures.
So, but wonderful processes andwonderful to see how other
people I admire Sasha so muchbecause she has such an
(45:49):
incredible business grounding inall her choices and decisions,
and that was something that whenI was in full-on creative mode
I was.
I was definitely not in that, Iwas in art space.
I was in just free, and that'sa different and it's a real
challenge, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (46:06):
it's like the charity space in terms of making money.
It's almost like it's a realgift to be able to combine the
artistic nuances with the, the,the sense that it makes a
business practical solution.
Um, we have a lovely storyabout Sasha as well, because we
are great partners with thegirls from Love Me Again markets
, and that one of theirPaddington centers they were
(46:27):
they used to do their marketshappened to, coincidentally, be
across the road from where SashaDrake lives, and so I was
having this tremendous troubletrying to find a place to park
and I heard this voice sayinghey, just go up there in the
kindergarten, because I wascollecting the cast of
storeholders fabrics and dressesand stuff to take to
(46:51):
labels on the lawn and wonderfulstoreholders were generous
enough to say, yes, we boughtthem here.
We didn't sell them, we'll giftthem to women's service.
And, of course, me and my bigcar would front up and have to
pile everything in the back.
Lo and behold, I didn't knowSasha and it after Woods.
I went and said thank you somuch for telling me where to
park.
Oh, no problem, anytime, I'mSasha Drake.
(47:13):
And I said oh, sasha, I buyyour stuff.
Oh, my god, I love you.
And now that I think about it,her stuff so colorful and so it
lives, it's so great for theQueensland climate.
But and she's become awonderful supporter and in fact,
this morning we've opened a newwarehouse to stock, to store
our stock for labels on the lawn2023, and I must have unwrapped
(47:35):
a dozen Sasha dresses thismorning.
And so, again, it's socoincidental we're having this
like conversation today and thismorning I would have the label
I saw most of this morning wasSasha Drake it must have been
from her wonderfully generousdonations that I was putting
them all up ready for sale thisyear so the world is so tiny.
In Brisbane and Queensland youcannot do anything wrong because
(47:58):
two people away from you knowall about everything.
So I want to talk a little bitabout North Queensland.
Returning to North Queensland,because I think you met Kev.
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (48:09):
yes, I did meet Kev, the love of my life.
We met because of the my roleat Addigold.
In that in the corporate worldI did several junkets over to
China and I was over there on aQueensland tourism Brisbane
airport, brisbane, marketing allthe various regional tourist
(48:30):
boards from from up and down,you know, from cans and Port
Douglas down.
Kev was there representingErleigh Beach and I was there
representing Addigold.
And we were thrown into thissituation where where we were
going from space after space,where we were going anyway,
promoting Queensland, and thefirst day of course there's
(48:50):
always a nice breaker and so wewe were being taken to the Great
Wall of China and Kev is alwaysfirst on a bus and I'm
generally juggling two or threephones and and emails and I'm
usually last on the bus.
And when I got on the bus Ialways like to sit up the front
because I just feel like I cansee everything and I'm not sort
of hiding up the back.
And Kev was sitting up thefront.
(49:11):
There was no one next to him.
So I immediately thought great,I'm sitting next to Kev because
he's wearing a cowboy scarf,which was synthetic, and the
cowboys beanie, which wassynthetic, and it was snowing on
the Great Wall of China and Ithought, oh poor little North
Queensland lad are you luckythat you met me today he did not
(49:34):
have the right gear on for thatday and we just, yeah, we
straight away.
Just I guess we, we straightaway knew we were kind of peas
in a pot to some extent.
And yes, so now I am more, moreliving in North Queensland than
I am in Brisbane, but we keep alittle footprint here.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
But yes, very fortunate, but you're doing some
wonderful things.
I had the great privilege ofattending, you know, white on
White Haven a couple of yearsago and and I think you offer a
range of corporate and and alsothat big event that happens in
September every year, yep themain, white on White.
What an incredible experienceto dress in white and be, uh,
(50:17):
chaperoned to the most gloriousbeach in the world.
It would have to be it was justvoted.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Number three in the world in it.
Well, it should be number onein my estimation, but uh.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
And to enjoy champagne on the beach and Kev's
wonderful and your wonderfulhospitality, which is second to
none, seafood and the best ofwhat Queensland has to offer,
and I remember it being one ofmost remarkable days of my life
being out on that glorious sea.
And then one of the highlightsfor me is the boat trip, you
know, from Ailey Beach to WhiteHaven.
It is just spectacular and it'snever the same twice.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
It's never the same.
It it is a magic place.
And Kev well, I've been sort ofthrowing myself all over the
world and and sort ofexperiencing all sorts of things
.
Kev moved to the Whitsundays 40something years ago as a young
um, young chef and ended upmanaging several of the resorts
and things up there and he's hejust knew it was home, so he's
(51:12):
just stayed.
So it's almost like when I leftTownsville as a young one, he
was already entrenched there.
It's like I had to travelaround the world, meet him in
China to come back and live back, just a stone's throw from
where I used to fish with myuncles and my dad.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
So amazing and kind of special.
The corollary to that story isthat, um, I think we were going
to one of your giving tablethings, which we'll talk about
in a second, and my husband,philip, said oh, there's the
best rumba in the world in Ailey.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Beach and lo and behold it was situated in fish
divine, which is rumba, no lessthan your Kev.
It's Kev's rumba, yes, I mean.
Who would have known?
No, he's um.
You know, he's got a pretty bigfootprint there in in the
Whitsundays and everybody loveshim because and I think the
reason we resonate and knowwe're two peas in a pot is that
(52:04):
I've witnessed him.
He does without even thinking,he does for community and he
does for other people and I justalways have two.
So I see him do things, not bydesign or by calculation,
because sometimes people do goodthings for others, but you know
, it's an agenda or acalculation, whereas I think we
both just genuinely serving isin our DNA and we both just love
(52:28):
to do things for others.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
And so, yeah, we're, we're pretty happy up there so
it's little wonder, then, thatmy giving table has sprouted out
of both your creative energyand your sense of uh wanting to
give back, and I want to alsoacknowledge, um, the wonderful
Adagold.
You know Jet Raffle.
Uh, I think one of the thingsabout dancing CEOs is that CEOs
(52:54):
want to look at ways in whichthey can continue to support
women's single service, andeveryone has a very unique
position in relation to how theywant to do that.
Your unique position is runningthis incredible jet raffle,
with flights to do it Sundaysand going to Whitehaven and
(53:15):
staying somewhere amazing, andwhich you've done now for quite
a few years, caitlin.
Speaker 3 (53:20):
We're up to number six, I think.
So the first one I did wasbecause I was dancing and it was
just, you know, a little onethat I thought, oh gee, this
might be my only chance offundraising.
This is something I can puttogether.
And I asked some fabuloussuppliers and it just came
together.
And then every year, becausewe've gotten, you know, better
(53:41):
at sharing the story and it'sit's had better reach, so
there's, you know, I think sooften in the charity space,
people get asked to give things,but they, if you're a business,
you can't afford just to alwaysgive.
You need to be making sure thatyou're.
You know you're either gettingpublicity or or goodwill, or you
know you've got to getsomething from it, and I've
always looked at it from thathat of you know.
(54:03):
I know what it's like to be astarving creative.
I know what it's like to be abusiness person, and so you've
got to.
In philanthropy you have tomarry all of those competing and
and needing requirements, Iguess.
And so every time I approachpeople about the Jet Raffle, I
always every year it gets betterand people's willingness to
(54:25):
donate.
We've had some incredible, youknow, like Paul Darazette from
Coral Sea Marina and Resort hedonated an incredible amount
last year and the beautiful newYangaro lodge that's only
recently been built.
They just strayed away and andI always go in expecting that I
might have to pay something.
You know, and particularly with, with Addigol, whether, whether
(54:49):
there's something we're payingto get you know a discounted
rate and early on that was youknow we really needed to do that
to prove it whereas now peopleare so generous that they say,
no, we'll give you this as afull donation.
You know, make the most of it.
And which really leverages thepower when people purchase a
(55:10):
ticket.
So much of it then is actuallygoing where you want it to go.
Because at the end of the day,if, if raising the funds costs
you almost as much as you make,then you haven't really raised
much.
But if you're able to havepeople don't like with, with
labels on the lawn, people areso incredible to donate
(55:32):
something they've loved and handit over for it to be re-loved,
and that, you know, just from anethical, from an environmental,
just from a giving and akindness space, it makes it so
much more powerful.
So every dollar works so muchmore in that situation and and I
love and it's the same with the, with the Jet Raffle.
(55:53):
We, you know, we will hopefullycontinue to keep doing it
because, addigol, even thoughI'm no longer there, they really
they love supporting dancingCEOs.
They're wonderful, they reallydo and they're happy because
they know I do all the heavylifting.
They just have to provide theaircraft and get all the you
know, the contracts and thingsbehind the scenes done.
I can just go and say, right,who, who can we pull together?
(56:16):
Sometimes we pulled superyachts in, sometimes we pull,
you know, differentaccommodation helicopters,
whatever it is.
But but it's amazing, so wefinally, I think, I think we've
raised about 300,000 through theJet Raffle.
Speaker 2 (56:29):
So, of that sort of three million dollars.
300,000 comes from the JetRaffle, that's like 10 percent.
That's pretty good.
I know it's an amazinginitiative and testament to your
relationship, I guess.
But you know I loved the wayyou said um, and some people
often ask us.
You know, we take great pride,as you do, in terms of having
high caliber prices andsometimes you do have to
(56:51):
actually give a bit to get thoseprices and I think a lot of
people when they go concoctingeven a small raffle, think
differently about.
You've got to use what peopledonate, but sometimes you don't
just use that as a startingpoint to.
Then maybe you have to go andbuy something else, but you'll
get five times that back if theprice is good.
And so I think you know you'veyour what your philosophy around
(57:15):
getting people to maybe evencontribute a bit to get a whole
lot more is a really clever anda good makes good business sense
and I think it does come backto you know, because we're also,
you know, we're very clearlybusiness women and business
minded.
Speaker 3 (57:31):
And if you, if you, if it doesn't make good business
sense, then people can't keepsupporting, and we lean so
heavily on small business to doa lot of the heavy lifting.
So what I see is we complainabout government's not doing
enough, but we don't want to paymore taxes, and then we also
lean so heavily on smallbusiness, but we also kind of
don't necessarily support them.
(57:52):
I think they need to get anyhelp, and so for me, it's got to
be a situation where it's gotto be a win-win, because if it's
not working equitably andfairly, the community misses out
.
We all have an obligation.
If we've got the ability to domore, we should, and we can't
keep blaming the government fornot picking up the slack.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
There's only so much they can do absolutely, and it's
a bit of a win-win, as you say.
So how I'm guessing this is alovely entree into your newest
fundraising initiative my givingtable so tell us about that,
because I have a feeling thathas a lot to do with your
wonderfully creative background.
I think it's got something todo with your business around uh
(58:33):
out of gold and around yourtextile and design foray, and
also what you're doing in NorthQueensland.
Tell us about my giving table.
Speaker 3 (58:40):
It's a wonderful initiative so my giving table
began and it did begin before Imet Kev, when I was I was
working in out of gold and ityou know it was, it was a very
corporate role and I hadn'treally done any.
Yes, I'd used my creativeskills, I guess, in terms of the
marketing and blogs and thingsthat I wrote for out of gold,
but I was needing to haveanother project and I was
(59:03):
feeling quite, you know, I wasquite stable and secure because,
you know, I was in a good roleand the part of my brain that
needed to come up with somethingneeded to be triggered and
entertained.
So, and I wanted to, I have,over the years, done, had dinner
parties, so I've hosted dinnerparties and I've asked people to
put money in the hat and raisefunds.
(59:26):
For example, I had severalfriends lost homes in the towns
for floods, so I had, you know,20 or 30 people come over.
We cooked a big banquet, peoplethrough whatever money they
wanted to, and I then was ableto help several of the of the
friends and family that had losteverything in the floods and
that was really the initiationof it.
(59:46):
I thought, well, okay, it'svery hard to be number one, you
need to have it, I guess,transparent.
You can't just have cash thatgets thrown at somebody that you
then hope it goes to the rightplace, because I might have
shown up with a lovely handbagthe next week and someone might
have thought, well, gee, didthat actually go where it was
meant to go, or did it go intomy lovely handbag?
Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
I did notice the handbag today I know I got that
from.
Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
I love my red handbag , a beautiful handbag, yes.
So I guess I've been honing mybusiness and entrepreneurial
skills all my life as well asindulging my creative skills, so
I've got kind of a I'm a prettylucky balance of both and I
understand that things need topay their own way.
(01:00:35):
But I wanted to create a way,and it was actually pre-covid,
but then, as COVID developed, itall really came together even
more because I thought, well,gee, if you can't be going out
to, to big events etc, it's,it's a simple concept, so I
should get back to the stopwaffling and get back to nitty
(01:00:56):
gritty.
It's a concept where Marissamight host a dinner party.
You'll use my giving table asyour little event platform,
where.
So I'll set up a page and anduse the, the terminology that
you're wanting, and you pick aticket price and you send that
link out to your friends.
They book and register and pay.
Then they show up and have abeautiful dinner with you and
(01:01:19):
the funds that then taken from,I've sort of got a, a quarantine
bank account that the fundsthen go directly to the charity
of choice.
So it's all trackable,traceable, auditable.
There was a lot of compliance.
I think when I was settingenough, I got up to about 45 000
in legal and financial costs toget my contracting right, to
(01:01:42):
get my compliance, to know thatit was was just correct and
sound, so that nobody could turnaround and say, well, where did
that money go?
How did that work.
So the long-term goal?
Because at the time when I setit up I was still a single woman
, a single, you know, businesswoman, and I was quite aware
that really I didn't have a lotof financial security.
(01:02:02):
I had a great job, but I maywell be in one of those risk
categories of the 50 year oldplus women that get to a point
that they don't have housingsecurity.
And so when I was, I waslooking at my giving table when
I set it up and I wanted it tobe something that would.
So it's a social enterprise andnot for profit, so all I need
for it to do is to pay its way.
(01:02:23):
But I thought if it grew wellenough and I could accumulate
money and buy land, I couldpotentially start to build
equitable housing, whether I doit with other people.
So my long-term vision is to setup small, really well designed,
beautiful living spaces forpeople that are at risk of being
(01:02:47):
homeless.
So you know, not just a housingcommission where you don't
really feel like you know youlove and support, somewhere
where there's a shared gardenand there's a shared quiet space
and there's you know you canhave.
You can live with a very smallhome.
But what also need, if you'vegot a small home and you've got
a community of people that careabout you and are checking on
(01:03:08):
you, that's pretty much all weneed.
It's not that difficult.
It's not like we need a mansion, it's not like we need super,
super, duper cars.
It's pretty simple at the endof the day, and so that's the
vision that I'm hoping one daywill be realized out of what I
started with my giving table,but it's initially at its core
(01:03:29):
is just dinner parties, thatthat give money to a charity and
it cuts out again.
I was aware of the number oftimes we go to a gala event
where we might pay $150 and 130of it goes into paying to be at
the venue because the venueshave.
Oh, I can't believe how manypeople think that the venue can
just, they can't just give theirstaff and their venue for
(01:03:53):
nothing.
But if you come to my home andI've cleaned the toilet and I've
set the table and I'm gladyou're going to clean the toilet
before.
I get there excellent, but butall of those costs aren't coming
off the ticket price, if youknow what I mean that's, it's
expensive to have events.
Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
I mean, even when we have events, we actually model
on the fact that you, we don'tmake any money on the ticket
price because once you've paidfor staffing and food and drinks
and everything else, there isno money to be made.
So I think this is a great wayof cutting out the middle man
and the middle woman or themiddle venue and still enjoying.
I've had the privilege of beingto three, I think, my giving
(01:04:33):
tables so far.
I think we're going to anotherone this week as well, which I
think I'm cooking a course forthe one that I'm coming to.
Well, I've put myself down fora very special bruschetta that
everyone knows is my signaturedish, but it's wonderful.
I mean, how much fun is it tobe to cook that?
Contribute it for free to abeautiful table of people that I
(01:04:53):
know all their hearts are inthe right place and I know, I
think, that we're benefitingfrom a new disease this week, so
it's an easy.
Speaker 3 (01:05:01):
Yes, it is easy and I think that's the trick.
It is about choosing your ownadventure, because you can.
You know the host can either.
You know, at times we do getchefs in and I care about a lot
Kev and I will quite often dothe cooking and we get asked all
the time for that to be moreand, as a consequence, I'm
trying to find more chefs thatwill say, yes, I'll, I can
(01:05:24):
donate my time.
We can cover the costs of thefood if a chef comes in.
But so there's some of thedinners will have a private chef
come in and they're in yourhome and that's fabulous and you
can charge a higher ticketprice.
Or it can be as simple as eachperson bring a different, a
different you know part of thedinner and maybe bring your own
(01:05:44):
wine, but you're still comingtogether and having that, that
united sense of caring about aparticular topic and being
interested in caring about theperson you're raising money for.
So it creates a differentconversation and it is a
different giving to just havinga normal dinner party.
Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
I agree.
Yeah, it's a great initiativeand I remember, I think, talking
to you when you were juststarting to think about it.
So it's lovely to see that it'sgerminated and it's actually
now in operation and, as I said,this will be the fourth one I'm
going to.
Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
I think I'm a alumni, or something.
Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
I know.
Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
I might get my 10th dinner for free or something.
I'm not quite sure.
I think it's very clear,Caitlin.
We always like to end on acouple of questions what do you
want to be when you grow up?
Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
I just want to be a four-year-old.
So, to be honest, yeah, I'mquite happy to never grow up Any
time I get serious enough thatI feel like I'm growing up.
To me, growing up would bebeing in that state of play and
joyfulness that four-year-oldsare in, because they're not
carrying all that burden ofcriticism and judgment.
(01:06:54):
They're just in that.
So, yes, I'm going to grow up,I'm going to be four.
Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
I love the fact you still play with felt, because
that actually could actually setyou on the right path for doing
that when you're all grown up,and I think I've seen so many
examples in our conversationtoday about true happiness in
your life.
But if you had to picksomething, if I had to say
Caitlin Aslet, what is it thatbrings you happiness?
(01:07:20):
What would your answer be?
Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
Oh true.
Well, there's, of course, thehappiness of being with my
children, which you can't getpast, but true, selfish,
indulgent happiness is lyingunder the stars out at sea
somewhere, hopefully on the topof our boat, and looking up and
(01:07:43):
realizing just how insignificantwe are.
That, to me, is awe-inspiringand wonderful and true,
contented happiness, becausethere's no ego and no judgment,
they're just in awe.
I think that would probably bemy happiest place.
Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
I can certainly empathize with that and I think,
on that note, I love the factthat we can have these
conversations and even thoughwe've talked about so much that
you've achieved and so muchthat's inspired you and so much
creativity and ingenuity thatyou've brought to the equation,
whether it be through charitablepurpose or dancing CEOs or my
(01:08:26):
giving table at the end of theday you say, looking at the
stars and realizing howinsignificant you are is really
a tribute to your absolutehumble nature and it was so
great to have this conversationwith you.
And thanks for being in thebeautiful champagne from Madame
Bollinger's house, anotherreally great woman, who was
quite a force to be reckonedwith, as I'm sure you are too.
Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
Caitlin, and it's been fabulous to have you around
today.
Thank you for coming in.
Thank you very much, Melissa.
It's been a joy.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Such an interesting story and what an incredible
adventure around the world atsuch a young age.
As many of you know, or youshould know by now, marisa will
be once again dancing in DancingCEOs, this time alongside
Lorelie Cunningham, in the 2024Dancing CEOs All Stars event
(01:09:18):
benefiting Women's Legal Service.
Queensland and Caitlin has anincredibly generous offer for
the first person to register amy giving table event benefiting
the Dancing CEO for 2024.
If you are the first toregister, you will receive a
free bake-to-plate dinner cookedby Caitlin and Kev in your own
(01:09:41):
home for up to 10 people.
So head to the my Giving Tablewebsite now or go through the
link in the episode descriptionto register your my Giving Table
party now, as usual.
If you have any questions, youcan send them through to
podcasthandmarkhousecomau.
That's H-A-N-W-O-R-T-H.
(01:10:06):
If you liked today's episode,please rate, review and
subscribe so you never miss anepisode.
We will be back soon withanother special guest.
Cheers, cheers.
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