Beeswax and Bullocks

The Arts and Crafts movement, spanning from 1880 to 1920, saw many women broaden their creative repertoire from traditional home and sewing-based crafts to woodcarving, ceramics, and painting. As women became more visible, country shows offered a way to exhibit, be noted and awarded for their work. One unusual craft done by women, seemingly only […]

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Anonymous Australiana

Four wooden napkin rings with gumnuts and black bands burned into them

In the early twentieth century, an amateur Australian artist picked up a nail, knitting needle, or knife, heated it in the fireplace and burnt the designs of Eucalyptus leaves and nuts into these wooden napkin rings. At the time, creative Australians loved the art of pokerwork, also known as pyrography, and burned designs into any […]

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A Fancy Frame

Born and raised at Kangaroo Valley near Nowra, Elsie Campbell (1883-1962) was twenty-seven when she set her mind and hands to making this picture frame in 1910. She crafted it using a technique known as ornamental leather work, also considered a type of ‘fancy work’. Unlike her three older sisters who preferred to embroider floral […]

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