I think I’ve always been destined to “run away and join the circus.”

When I was little, I did however have the lofty dream of having a little stall in my driveway. 

The stall would be similar in shape to Lucy’s Psychiatric Booth from the Peanuts comic—a big ol’ rectangle, with decorated thick cardboard tubes attached, holding up a sign. 

My grand art/business plan? To sell pencils. 

I wanted to use a Stanley knife to carefully shave the coloured outside of the pencils away, and then draw patterns and colours of my own onto the pencils. 

With my markers.

In case you weren’t aware, by the way,  I’m not currently a thriving Pencil Salesperson.

I threw my creative talents instead into community theatre (the first production I was in was The Wizard of Oz, in which I took my role as “munchkin” very seriously), decorating objects with nail polish, and hot glue gunning anything to everything else. 

My youth in the arty little world of theatre in a regional town primed me for artistic fun and creativity and my best friend enabled my craftiness by enacting Crafternoons, where we tried a variety of different practices, including making candy-flavoured vodka while making collages from 80’s porn magazines. 

I made my crafty messes all over my loungeroom floors until I got a dog, and then moved up to using tables. I put some of the things I made around my own house, but I didn’t like to share them because I didn’t view myself as “An Artist” etc etc.

Insert a fairly hefty montage of a lot more stumbles than stable steps, soundtracked by Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Joel, and numerous repeats of the Rocky Horror soundtrack, and I kept finding myself not only making art but finding such incredible joy doing it.

I accumulate art and craft supplies like a paint-splattered Katamari, trailing glitter and ribbons behind me.

And now I get to do it with a bunch o’ other little weirdos.

Katy Somerville