The Side Project

Tell us a bit about your collective and how you all met?

The Side Project was formed in 2010 by crafty friends as a way to cultivate all our odd side projects that didn’t quite fit anywhere else under one obvious heading ‘The Side Project.’ We are an amorphous group of people that float in and out. The current main five contributors include illustrator and craftsperson JeffMcCann, graphic designer Missy Dempsy, and jewellers Mark Vaarwerk and myself NinaBaker. Since initiation we have been doing lots of markets, pop up shops and had our first exhibition earlier this year.

We mostly met at uni in 2007, CSU WaggaWagga, theatre designers and jewellers share walls so there were lots of cups of tea and procrastination chit chat. Then there was the other side of uni life where we all lived on campus in shared cottages and drunk a lot of goon together. Mark we met later on through the jewellery world in Sydney.

 

Can you give us a quick run-down on each of your individual labels?

The Side Project is our collectives name and is also the branding we use for a range of affordable handmade  jewellery. The range includes photographic printed aluminium with pictures of unexpected Australian scenes, jewellery made from street sweeper bristle and some contemporary beaded necklaces.

Each member of the collective is an individual practicing artist and brands their work simply under their own name. Missy Dempsys is a professional graphic designer and specialises in type and awesome lettering. Jeff McCann is the man, armed with cardboard and posca pens he makes wall pieces, bags and art pieces with wildly imaginative and brightly coloured illustrations drawing from his childhood.  Mark Vaarwerk is the recycled plastics guru and can turn old shopping bags and discarded shampoo bottles into precious jewellery pieces. Nina Baker is also a jeweller and much of her work involves found street sweeper bristles, old house paint and mixes ancient and contemporary themes to create lively off beat pieces.

 

 

 

As a collective, how do your designs incorporate sustainable practices?

This is something we think about a lot as individuals, it is probably a key factor as well as aesthetic that brings our work together as a whole. Sustainability is more than environmentally conscious practices, there is also economic sustainability and a making things to last.
 

We include a lot of recycled materials in our work such as plastics, cardboard, street sweeper bristles as well as in our display and packaging. We consider our designs so that our work will last and not be abandoned when the next trend rocks around. Other practices we consider to be sustainable are purchasing our new materials from local businesses and to have outsourcing such as printing and casting done by small businesses that participate in a local economy and also avoid lengthy unnecessary transportation and shipping.

What can market folk expect to find at our spring event?

At the Spring 2014 Hustle&Scout Market The Side Project will be bringing a most excellent selection of jewellery. The focus of our stall will be the launch of a brand new collection of Jewellery by Nina Baker titled ‘Bangarang’ an imaginative mishmash world of silver gold, gems with dancing patterns and ancient themes.

What is it about Hustle&Scout that made you want to be a stallholder?

I visited Hustle&Scout Markets about a year ago, it was such good fun, really good vibes with the live music,  lots of people enjoying themselves, and of course a rocking selection of stall holders!