When Richard Moon and his husband Michael Burge opened The Makers Shed, a creative and educational open studio space in Glen Innes six years ago, they didn’t know if the gamble would work.
Turns out, this artisanal business surpassed their expectations.
On the back of their success, a community created, and lessons learned in the process of establishing The Makers Shed, the couple made a momentous decision to relocate.
Home to Deepwater
Later this spring, The Makers Shed will open in Deepwater, not far from their railway cottage, and in the heart the town they call home. They left Glen Innes with an abundance of good will for the community support they received, but it was time. Literally.
“Basically, the number one reason was to be closer to home, because of the commute, 40ks in and 40ks home four to five days a week, convenience, environmental reasons, we’re using less fuel, less wear and tear on the car,” Richard said.
The couple are currently renovating a former Deepwater butchery in the main street of Deepwater. The new space will again welcome the public to Richard’s silversmithing studio, gallery exhibiting artists of the New England, and the High Country bookseller and publisher.
The Makers Shed will continue to host the book and writers’ clubs Michael leads, and jewellery-making workshops Richard has long provided to the public and artisans who come from as far as Sydney, Lightning Ridge, and Brisbane.
Perhaps more significantly, they want to add their business as an asset to the community.
“We are really, really keen and proud to part of the Deepwater community, and add to its growth, its attraction, its character, because it’s a beautiful little town. We’re been here seven years, and love the community,” Richard said.
“We got roped into the theatre group at the hall two doors up,” he grinned.
“We’d been here a few months, and since then we’ve both been involved in all the productions. We’ve got invited into the tennis club. It’s really lovely. A mah-jong group got set up recently, for the brain, and it’s also social. So, there’s such wonderful connection and acceptance here.”
The business of art
Michael is a published author, artist, and journalist, and Richard is a working silversmith. Besides The Makers Shed, they are the creators of the High Country Writer’s Festival, of which The Makers Shed was a central location. The space has lent itself to every facet of the creative business they sought to create.
The two launched the artisanal concept in 2014 under canvas in Brisbane. Richard invested in a portable workbench to make pieces under the tent as evidence of his skill and artistry behind the items on sale. The years built up their business savvy.
With spare cash from a property sale, the couple bought the shed in Glen Innes as a rental property. Before long, Richard started thinking it might be a good place for his studio and a space for more workshops. The Makers Shed vision was born.
A native New Englander, growing up on a property not far from Bingara, Michael acknowledged the risk and uncertainties as they considered what an artisanal business in a country town would look like, and making it sustainable.
“So we’re artisans in business, That’s who we earn our money, that’s how we put food on the table. And it’s a different energy to a lot of other creatives, because there’s a drive there. It’s your income,” Michael said.
“You have to learn to be disciplined about the creation, and experiment a lot, do a lot of things that never see the light of day, until you work out your range that different marketplaces, like jewellery buyers, or art buyers, you meet the market, in essence.”
He said by the time they were ready to start the business in a high street building, they were match-fit for challenge. They both discovered real estate came with the promise of permanence, different to the transient energy of the market stall economy.
“It takes you to a different level. We had no idea how that would work, in terms of stock,” Michael said, explaining they had sunk almost everything into buying the building with a scant few dollars left for minimal renovations and not enough merchandise to fill the space.
“We forgot that when you open a shop that people tend to come in and want to buy things,” he laughed.
Richard said he felt the physical space also reinforced the fact he actually made the jewellery and cutlery on sale, which was frequently questioned by browsers at the markets where stalls are sometimes populated with stock bought online to sell as handmade.
“In the shop, my workbench is right there, and usually I’ll be making something when people come in. Or if not, if I’m talking to someone else, they see the workshop there, and sometimes they just know, and sometimes they ask, ‘Oh, do you make all this?’
Open and real
“I love the word ‘authenticity’, because what we do is authentic. And it fits in with a town like Deepwater. It’s an authentic place. People are real.”
In time, they grew connections with artists and artisans of every stripe across the New England and beyond, and had a mission to amplify the talent of local creatives in the gallery.
Michael observed the open studio model, with a working artist embedded in a gallery space was significant for their business.
“That’s the kind of paradigm we’ve always done. Whether we were trading under a marquee, or in The Makers Shed in Glen Innes, or here, the maker’s in the building, and we found it to be a very successful model,” he said, explaining even on their slow days, Richard is able to fulfill commissions for people across the country, with the doors still open to the public.
Richard countered with how Michael has grown The Makers Shed, with the writers’ workshops, book club, and other assets to diversify the creative outlets to make the business viable and visible. Some of the writers who have stuck with the workshops have gone on to publish their own books.
Michael said The Makers Shed joins the burgeoning roster of artisanal businesses in the region, like Make it Tenterfield, Seasons of New England, the Artshack at Wilgabah, and Dorrigo and Beyond.
“There is a network, and it’s only just growing and expanding but it’s got a very good energy behind it, and people understand it,” Michael said.
Outside the high arched windows in their new Deepwater location, traffic meanders by on the New England Highway. Cars and b-doubles pull into the bakery just up the road, and people stop to photograph the old Eclipse theatre one street down. They contemplated what trading would look like with the Shed right on a prime tourist route.
With home now just moments away, Richard said they plan to extend their opening hours.
“So instead of a travel time, I’m going to open an hour earlier, and close probably an hour later each day, plus we’re going to experiment with Sunday trading – just a half day.”
“It’s mainly because we’re on a major highway, whereas when we were in Glen Innes, we were on the main street, but we were one back from the highway, and over the years we’ve had the Makers Shed, the majority of our clientele was visitors to the region, so being on this route means it’s an acknowledgement of that,” Michael added.
From the blank canvas they bought as an investment, to the historical building they’re renovating in Deepwater’s high street, both Richard and Michael are optimistic about the future of their creation.
“It’s very, very abstract how and why it works, but the open studio with you there working is definitely one aspect of it,” Michael said.
“But also creating a micro-community of people that come from not only within that community but from beyond it, for regular creative stuff.”
“We bought it not to be in there at all,” Richard said, thinking back to their beginnings with the Glen Innes shed. “And it proved to be an amazing thing.”
Learn more about The Makers Shed and all their news at https://themakersshed.org/