Nicola Cerini

Velvet Banksia Tote & Dragonfly Tee LR.jpg

What is your connection to Ballarat?

My family moved to Ballarat when I was 16 so I finished the last two years of high school here then left to study in Melbourne. My parents have been in Ballarat ever since but I've lived mostly in Melbourne where I established my business and then on the surf coast. My bags were made in Ballarat for about 10 years and half of my business was based here to manage the manufacture and distribution. We employed some wonderful local people whom I'm still in contact with and who continue to be a fabulous support to my business in various ways. Over 50% of my current bag collection is made in Ballarat along with several other products, so we still have a strong local manufacturing focus and do as much as we can locally.

How did your journey begin as an artist/maker?

I grew up surrounded by creative people. My mother studied fine art and majored in printmaking, my great aunt was a painter and textile designer and sold her designs to furnishing fabric companies in Flinders Lane in the heart of Melbourne's rag trade. Another aunt was a textiles teacher and my grandfather made beautiful furniture using old piano's and recycled wood. I guess it was inevitable with all this going on in the background that I would head down a creative path. I arrived at Ballarat High School in Year 11 having moved from Warrnambool and found it a difficult transition emotionally. I bombed out in subjects I was previously good at and very quickly needed to find what gave me pleasure and what I was good at. Art was it! I had two great art and textile teachers, Stephen Grant and Rowan Jones. My VCE folio was all about printed fabric and after reading the description of BA in textile design at RMIT in the tertiary prospectus it became very clear what I wanted to do. I applied, and to my huge surprise got in. I'm still doing what I set out to do in Year 12 and I have to say I love my creative work.

How would you describe your practice?

My creative work almost always leads to a practical end. I'm very much a designer/maker. I enjoy the different layers of the design process when making a functional object. In my case there's the two dimensional element of the surface design and the application of this to the three dimensional object, designing the object itself and of course creating it, making it come to life. I've always been inspired and fascinated with the Arts and Crafts Movement's philosophy which "called for an end to the division of labor and advanced the designer as craftsman" I move between these positions, sometimes making the whole product myself but often employing the expertise of other skilled small scale makers to help realise my idea. William Morris perfectly sums up my philosophy and what drives me to be a designer and maker 'Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.'

What are you working on right now?

Apart from finishing setting up my new shop/showroom, I'm working in the shop 6 days a week at the moment leading up to Christmas, filling online orders and screen printing some new T-shirts for summer. Behind the scenes I'm working towards a group show in 2021 looking at the Mangroves at Barwon Heads. The work will no doubt find its way into my product ranges and hopefully help to raise awareness about this incredible and fragile ecosystem. I've also been asked to design some hand towels for an Asian body care company that will be produced under licence. Over summer I'll be working on a collection of furnishing fabrics to be launched in March/April along with some new floor rug designs. It's busy!

How would you describe the creative community in Ballarat?

When I first moved to Ballarat in the 80's I discovered a thriving underground arts community, it definitely wasn't mainstream and it was alive! I wasn't here for long but my experience in Ballarat was formative, it enabled me to seriously consider a creative life. I'm slowly finding out about the creative community here now and I see many layers, from the well established Ballarat artists and makers to young creative entrepreneurs bringing their brand of creativity to the city, from tattoo artists to restaurateurs and crafters, the list goes on. 2020 has been a strange year for us all but I think the pandemic has made many of us reassess our lives. I think there'll be an explosion of new creative enterprises and practices as people reevaluate, reinvent and relocate from the city. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of it.