How I loved my original studio / home / shop ‘tinkadoodle ragdolls’ in Newtown, Wellington, where I created & hand made bright, colourful, one of a kind ragdolls - Deedee, Dougie, & the Kiwikids!
The shop / studio was bundled together in the front room of a 5 bedroom flat, in a commercial building on Adelaide Road, where myself (Vicky Walford), my two daughters & two flatmates also lived. We’d moved to the shop from Nelson, where I’d spent 6 years developing the ragdolls, selling them at the weekly Nelson Market, at craft & trade shows, & to retail outlets. What had started out as something I made for my daughter's joyful playtimes, had evolved into a small, possibly financially viable enterprise, & I was ready to grow things to the next level by opening my own retail / studio / shop.
I loved sewing the ragdolls in the small (& messy!) studio side of the shop, beside the retail space that showed them off on display stands I had designed, built, & painted myself. When people came in, they got to meet the maker, see how the ragdolls were made, & have access to buying one of a kind, childplay safe, machine washable ragdolls, clothing & accessories! It was a wonderful way of life - making & selling from ‘home’, meeting people, & always being at home for my daughters.
At the time (2007) I was a financially struggling solo parent, hoping to achieve financial independence! All I had was a love of what I handmade, a strong belief in their value to childhood play, & determination that there had to be some way I could ‘make it’ financially, all while raising a family at the same time. But I struggled with the business side of things. My unique handmade ragdolls weren't a good fit with commercial business, & it was difficult to adapt my big round ‘tinkadoodle’ creative way of life, to their small square commercial ‘success’ model.
For the first 18 months there was a lot of stumbling, falling down, & picking myself up again moments. Sigh. Some financial mistakes were made, slowing progress, but in July 2008 I did find success, on my own terms, with the help of a $10,000 enterprise grant, allowing me to access professional branding, create a new website, grow my sales, & steadily build a solid financial foundation. Woohoo!!! I was finally ‘making it’. I was so happy!!!
But my success was short-lived. An economic recession created a massive drop in sales in Oct / Nov 2010, & I was financially forced to make the decision to close the shop in December, & walk away from something I’d grown to deeply love. It was painful, telling my daughters we had to move, packing up stock & materials, giving away the shop displays, & anything else I could, to the op shops.
I became an ‘employee’ for a wool scour in Hawkes Bay, & that move did negatively affect my teenage daughters at the time. I didn’t do much creatively for awhile, taking time out to try to help my daughters settle into Hawkes Bay life, plus adjust myself into employee mode again, while also grieving, mourning the loss of my shop, & the wonderful ‘tinkadoodle’ (make everything up as we go along) creative “good life’’ I’d lived.
Two years later my love of making things could stand it no more - it wanted things to MAKE! I’d been a fabric addict for years, but I didn’t want to sew things anymore. I realised what I loved most about sewing the ragdolls was playing with all the colourful quilt fabrics - so what about focusing on making bright, colourful art? (YES please!)
I enrolled in The Learning Connection (honors) diploma programme for Art & Creativity, & stumbled along making art at home part time for 2 years, leading me into creating patterns. I discovered I have a ‘thing’ for paper collage, for using my own photography & doodles to make large size patterns / montages. Slowly I started falling ‘in love’ with my tinkadoodle creativity again, but I kept it to myself, as a personal hobby. Until my mum died of cancer, in Nov 2016.
Growing up in the 60’s & 70’s my mum was always knitting jerseys, sewing clothes, or making things for the home. She often bought me craft kitsets, so I naturally just assumed everyone made things themselves! We had time to reflect upon all the creative things she’d made over the length of her 79 years - & she took the opportunity to point out that we don’t know how long we have to live our lives - so please make sure I’m spending mine doing what really matters to me. Ouch! I was promptly reminded of the fulltime creative life my heart still yearned for.
After mum’s funeral, I asked myself the scary question - “If I was diagnosed with a terminal illness today, what would I regret NOT doing?” Two things immediately came to mind. Walking the Camino de Santiago french route in Spain (to throw myself completely out of my comfort zone), & making creativity the priority of my life again.
16 months later, I’d saved some extra money, & from March to May 2018 I walked 1000 kilometres of the Camino de Santiago over 7 weeks, successfully kicking my ass to restart my life, & make creativity the priority!
I didn’t return to paid employment when I got home. I enrolled for the Learning Connexion Advanced Diploma in Art & Creativity, & spent a year creating full time at home, intentionally anchoring myself into a very personal creative groove. After my solo exhibition & artist portfolio website were completed in June 2019, I was promptly stalked by the question “what now?” Sigh. I knew what it was, but HOW was a massive obstacle! I mean - HOW can my creativity become my whole life again?
While mulling over possibilities, I put together an album of the tinkadoodle ragdoll shop, & began to fully appreciate what was so great about that experience for me - the making, the sharing, the ‘tinkadoodle’ way of life I had invented for myself - I really missed it.
The big obstacle buster came in March 2020, when I invested big bucks learning from Emily Jeffords how to ‘Make Art Work’. FINALLY, I was able to fully reconnect to the art I love to make, & figure out that my ‘HOW’ was to build a second version of tinkadoodle, upon the loss of my original one. After almost 10 years, I’m returning to what I love doing, the ‘thing’ that makes me experience feeling fully ALIVE - tinkadoodling!
I’m bringing the love & creative spirit of making ragdolls, to my new art & pattern making enterprise folks! Woohoo! Finally! I’m ‘home’ again, happy, & content, as a pig in mud, to be full time ‘doing my own thing, in my own way’ once again :o)
I’ve always wanted to ‘tinkadoodle’ again, but not as a product maker - or as a commercial business. No, no, no! tinkadoodle, I realise now, was always a very personal thing, so this time it’s ALL personal, as Vicky Walford the crafter/ artist working with paper, hand making art & pattern from my photographs, collages & doodles.
It’s now Sept 2020, & I’m so excited to be pulling all the threads of this new ‘tinkadoodle’ enterprise together - & making this new website to show & share the art I actually LOVE TO MAKE, & openly share ‘the ANTICS’ I’m committed to ‘spending’ the rest of my life DOING!
Welcome to my personal version of a creative “good life’’ :o)
Wow. It’s now March 2022. How massively different my creative ‘good life’ has become in the short space of 18 months! There’s no way I could have possibly imagined, back in Sept 2020, how much better my creative life was about to become!
Here's the update;
In Nov 2020 I exhibited my first exploration of photo collage - titled ‘Maggie's garden’ - which was a collage series based on photos of my mothers garden, taken by me after she died, & presented as 9 photo collages, some abstract, some montage.
I really enjoyed making the photo collages, & the response to my work was so positive, I decided to dive deeper & focus more on just the abstract photo collages, exploring image repetition more deeply, which is what I really love to play with!
In Nov 2021, I held another exhibition, titled ‘Louder than words’ of 18 abstract photo collage artworks that were a deeper exploration of repetition using my personal images.
To see them all on the gallery walls, & to wander around them all over the two weeks I personally exhibited them, greatly helped me to appreciate that this is what I want to ‘spend’ the rest of my life making!
After all these years, I’ve finally found my creative sweet spot - Abstract Antics - & hand assembling abstract photo collages from my personal photos!
(Who knew? Not me!!)
Vicky xxx
