Meet the Artist: The Messy Middle (Garage Days + Work/Life Balance Reality)

Let me take you back to the garage days.

My husband and I had no business background. Zero. We just had determination and a willingness to do whatever it took to make things work. So we set up shop in our garage and bedroom.

We printed products ourselves – bought blank items, invested in printing machines, and ran everything from home. When something sold, we'd print a new one. It kept costs low, but it meant constant labour. And when you're working and living in the same space, there's no such thing as work-life balance. You're just constantly working.

The stock would overflow. We'd trip over boxes. Daisy would weave between piles of products. My husband and I would get cranky with each other because there was no escape, no separation between "work" and "home." They were the same place, the same stress, the same never-ending to-do list.

People romanticise working from home, and I get it. But when your home IS your work, it's suffocating.

The advantage of starting with the pop-up at South Melbourne Market was that we got to test everything in real time. We learned what customers wanted. We discovered what worked and what absolutely didn't. We could pivot quickly because we were making things ourselves, even if the margins were slim.

It was during that first year that my homeware dream officially died.

I watched as my drawings attracted mums and grandmas buying for kids. I paid attention to what was actually selling versus what I wished was selling. And I realised that if we were going to survive, we needed to follow the market, not my fantasy.

So we pivoted to kids products. It wasn't what I'd planned, but it kept us alive – especially during COVID when people were still buying birthday presents and gifts for different occasions.

These days, I've learned to let go. Ten years ago, I wanted to control everything. I wanted everything done to my exact standard. But unless you clone yourself ten times over, nothing gets done exactly your way. And that's okay.

The messy middle taught me that perfection is the enemy of progress. Sometimes you just need to print the thing, ship the order, and move on to the next challenge.

The garage days weren't glamorous, but they were necessary. They taught us resilience, adaptability, and the value of just getting started – even when you have no idea what you're doing.