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On March’s theme of PERSPECTIVE, we were be joined by futurist Steph Clarke from 28 Thursdays to share how to look at Life and The Other Big Things from a collection of directions, think harder about what’s possible, and bring a creative view to more parts of your world

Every creative act is an attempt to share a unique perspective on some slice of the world. What you see — and how you see it — shapes your beliefs. So, what’s your point of view?

Remember, looking at a problem from multiple angles generates more possible solutions. So, change your perspective and you can change your world.

Thanks to our generous local sponsors BrightStar and Shayna Burns for supporting our speakers with presentation and SEO coaching, Diz Bravo for the video production, Offline Supply Co for the sweet notebooks, Creative Business Kitchen supporting Belafonte Coffee to provide the incredible handmade bagels and coffee, The Commons for hosting us, and Mark Lobo Photography for continuing to support our events every month.

What does it mean to be a creative native (or not)?

Marty Drill founded Luminary in 1999, a digital agency with offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Jakarta and Bali. Marty has worked with hundreds of companies on countless projects across most industries. Marty is passionate about the future of digital, agile ways of working and the effectiveness of distributed teams. He has started and been the Director of several companies and charities including an environmental foundation called Redux that focuses on reducing plastic that enters the ocean in Bali.

Thanks to our generous local sponsors BrightStar and Shayna Burns for supporting our speakers with presentation and SEO coaching, Diz Bravo for the video production, Offline Supply Co for the sweet notebooks, Creative Business Kitchen supporting Belafonte Coffee to provide the incredible handmade bagels and coffee, The Commons for hosting us, and Mark Lobo Photography for continuing to support our events every month.

JESWRI (pronounced Jess-Rye) is a multifaceted Gadigal artist of the Eora Nation, and is easily one of Australia’s best-kept secrets. His innovative fusion of street art, graffiti, and NFT art has garnered attention from major brands such as Apple, Netflix, Kia, Dell, Converse, Adidas, and Playstation. JESWRI’s most recent project, the NFT collection ‘Keyboard Warriors Internet Cafe’, sold out 8888 individual artworks in under 30 seconds, and continues to set a new standard for the Australian NFT market.

Before devoting his full-time career to art, JESWRI made a name for himself as a prominent graffiti writer, designer, and commercial art director. Today, he is the proud co-founder of Honey Bones Gallery, one of Melbourne’s most exciting new art galleries & Wall Lords, an artist-focused advertising agency that partners with and mentors emerging artists to install painted advertisements for big-name clients across three major cities: Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane.

JESWRI’s unique approach to storytelling is what sets him apart from his contemporaries. He effortlessly communicates meaningful messages through his style, a blend of contemporary and pop art that showcases his deep connection to his storytelling which is considerately designed and composed to engage with the audience/viewer. Currently supported by ‘Creative VIC’, JESWRI is working on his fourth gallery exhibition, entitled ‘Dancing in the Dark’, which is poised to solidify his place as one of Australia’s most sought-after artists.

Through his work, JESWRI opens a dialogue about mental health and aims to have meaningful conversations about taboo topics through his many creative practices, cementing his status as a visionary artist with a passion for creating work that resonates deeply with his audience.

Thanks to our generous local sponsors BrightStar and Shayna Burns for supporting our speakers with presentation and SEO coaching, Diz Bravo for the video production, Offline Supply Co for the sweet notebooks, Creative Business Kitchen supporting Belafonte Coffee to provide the incredible handmade bagels and coffee, The Commons for hosting us, and Mark Lobo Photography for continuing to support our events every month.

There are many types of rhythm. Rhythm in music and dance are the first that come to mind, but there are plenty of other rhythms that exist that may go unnoticed. The way a person walks, the way we communicate or speak, the human body is literally brimming with rhythmic processes like breathing, beating, and our sleep cycle.

So with all these constant patterns of process and expectation of consistency, how do you find rhythm in the more chaotic parts of life, especially as a freelancer or creative?

Jasmine Designs has spent the last 15 years exploring how to find her own rhythm and I’ve looked in plenty of places that turned out completely wrong for her. There have been days she’s caught the rhythm, others where she has completely lost it, plenty of times she’s had to redefine it, and a major plot twist this year that changed it’s impact on her life completely.Thanks to our generous local sponsors BrightStar and Shayna Burns for supporting our speakers with presentation and SEO coaching, Diz Bravo for the video production, Offline Supply Co for the sweet notebooks, Creative Business Kitchen supporting Belafonte Coffee to provide the incredible handmade bagels and coffee, The Commons for hosting us, and Mark Lobo Photography for continuing to support our events every month.

“What can a glass blower possibly know about “Endurance”?…
Well, if you have ever been a team member on a full-scale glass production team in 30 plus degree heat, quite a bit. Aside from the literal response to endurance, just the act of being a self-employed artist, with a career spanning two decades in glass, I think I know a little bit about the topic, and I am keen to share my thoughts with you.”

Amanda Dziedzic is a Melbourne based glass artist with a focus on both production glass blowing, and hot sculpted exhibition works. Best known for her Yumemiru production range and hot sculpted glass vegetables in glass, she also makes glass for the likes of Jardan, CocoFlip, Mecca and The Design Files. Amanda has travelled to Japan, American and Scotland in pursuit of glass blowing. She now co-runs, Melbourne’s newest hot glass studio, HotHaus, in Heidelberg West.

Amanda is an avid supporter of women in the arts and crafts fields. She is renowned for her use of colour; she also likes to take inspiration from her love of Japan and her much loved Yumemiru works are highly coveted as collectibles.Thanks to our generous local sponsors BrightStar and Shayna Burns for supporting our speakers with presentation and SEO coaching, Diz Bravo for the video production, Offline Supply Co for the sweet notebooks, Creative Business Kitchen supporting Belafonte Coffee to provide the incredible handmade bagels and coffee, The Commons for hosting us, and Mark Lobo Photography for continuing to support our events every month.

On September’s theme of SIMPLICITY, we were honoured to be joined by the incredible Bobby Clark - a multidisciplinary Scottish artist living and working in Melbourne, Australia. Through a purposeful application of colour, her work explores the intersect of art, beauty, and self expression drawing from her own personal experiences to more deeply dissect the influences of motherhood, human connection, culture and architecture.

Her minimalist geometric studies explore shape theory and through a nuanced lens her articulation of colour looks deeply at the emotional associations we find within certain shades and the residual effects their meaning can have on our personal experiences and the things we collect and admire.

Thanks to our generous local sponsors BrightStar and Shayna Burns for supporting our speakers with presentation and SEO coaching, Diz Bravo for the video production, Offline Supply Co for the sweet notebooks, Creative Business Kitchen supporting Belafonte Coffee to provide the incredible handmade bagels and coffee, The Commons for hosting us, and Mark Lobo Photography for continuing to support our events every month.

Pride is a word we attach to so many things. For Jasper it’s a flipping of the narrative about parts of themself that are politicised by the wider world. It isn’t always the feeling they strive for and that feeling isn’t necessarily a clear pathway to success. Are pride and shame two sides of the same coin? Is pride a buzz word with little meaning beyond ego? Do we embody pride to fit a prescribed display of the only perceived alternative to shame? Thanks to our generous local sponsors BrightStar and Shayna Burns for supporting our speakers with presentation and SEO coaching, Diz Bravo for the video production, Offline Supply Co for the sweet notebooks, Creative Business Kitchen supporting Belafonte Coffee to provide the incredible handmade bagels and coffee, The Commons for hosting us, and Mark Lobo Photography for continuing to support our events every month.

Jordan Fleming on TREASURE.

The concept of treasure has long been intertwined with the idea of value, symbolizing something personally significant, desirable, and highly sort after. Historically treasure hunts and discoveries, suggest an expedition of adventure to discover the coveted riches, which will provide a promising future.

When pondering on my understanding of “treasure,” my thoughts turned to childhood activities like digging, hunting, and searching.. Why did these actions emerge as my primary associations with treasure? Perhaps it is because I find the process and physical journey of exploring the unknown and our own imaginations more captivating than a physical valuable reward.

In Jordan’s talk, she will explore the idea that treasure is not solely a grand discovery achieved at the end of our endeavors. Rather, it consists of small, valuable moments we encounter along the way. These unintentional and intangible treasures can be found in the people we meet, the unexpected paths we traverse, and our own imaginative pursuits. No map is necessary.

We possess the ability to gather and carry these small treasures along us within our chests, sharing them with others as we travel and continually adding a few more to our collection.

Thanks to our generous local sponsors BrightStar and Shayna Burns for supporting our speakers with presentation and SEO coaching, Diz Bravo for the video production, Offline Supply Co for the sweet notebooks, Creative Business Kitchen supporting Belafonte Coffee to provide the incredible handmade bagels and coffee, The Commons for hosting us, and Mark Lobo Photography for continuing to support our events every month.

Over the past 12 years Dale Hardiman has been working in a way he describes as ‘professionally amateur’. On June’s theme of REVERIE, he shared a selection of projects whereby this is evident, from an installation made up of hacked broken iPhones, an exhibition that had a website ran entirely from a solar power panel in the front of the building (so when the sun went down, the website went down), to an international vase exhibition with 203 exhibitors from 12 countries that cost $50 to organise.Melbourne based designer Dale Hardiman is the co-founder of furniture and object brand Dowel Jones, collaborative project Friends & Associates, and produces work under his own name. In 2021, Hardiman was named 1 of the 100 worldwide game changers in design by Architectural Digest Italy. His work is held in public and private collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria and Art Gallery of South Australia.Thanks to our generous local sponsors BrightStar and Shayna Burns for supporting our speakers with presentation and SEO coaching, Diz Bravo for the video production, Offline Supply Co for the sweet notebooks, Creative Business Kitchen supporting Belafonte Coffee to provide the incredible handmade bagels and coffee, The Commons for hosting us, and Mark Lobo Photography for continuing to support our events every month.

ACCEPTANCE: Accept chaos. Accept compliments.Ellen Porteus is obsessed with our inner worlds, and is inspired to take intangible and hidden thoughts and feelings and make them into bold, vibrant, fun and energetic works of art. We can be so judgemental about our creative abilities. We always hear people say, “I can’t draw.” But being creative is about expressing yourself without judgement—essentially accepting yourself, as you are.Thanks to our generous local sponsors BrightStar and Shayna Burns for supporting our speakers with presentation and SEO coaching, Shadowhouse for the video production, Offline Supply Co for the sweet notebooks, Think in Colour supporting Belafonte Coffee to provide the incredible handmade bagels and coffee, The Commons for hosting us, and Mark Lobo Photography for continuing to support our events every month.