Our Creatives
At Designer Dirt we are fortunate to have a number of local artisans that exhibit their work with us. We have an amazing and diverse collection of work available at affordable prices. There are so many talented people in our region!
Bronte Wilkes
Bronte is a mixed media artist living in Albany. Her love of paint and mixed media began in high school. She studied visual arts in Year eleven and twelve and found she always walked away with an abundance of enthusiasm for new projects at home. A few years down the track now and she’s living on a property surrounded by farms and bush reserve that constantly excites and inspires her to create.
Over the last few years, she has gained an understanding of a number of different mediums: including paint, marker, chalk, oil pastel and water colour. Her works today are a combination of these mediums and are designed to create vibrant pieces that evoke happiness and delight in those that view them. That is the essence of her practice, Bristle and Blue Gum.
Carol Duncan
Carol was a commercial photographer, but recently chose to return to number crunching and doing good deeds during the week. Now she can again enjoy escaping into the peace and quiet of creativity, whether out and about in our great region exploring and capturing the wide variety of environments or delighting in simple finds from her own backyard. Inspiration is always just around the corner, waiting to be seen and revealed.
Chrissie Gregory
Chrissie is an artist and designer living in Denmark, WA. She first began the Chrisea Designs label in 2001. (ChriSea is pronounced like “Chrissie” - the name is made up of her first name plus the word ‘Sea’ - reflecting her love of the ocean).After completing a BA of Visual Arts at Curtin University, Chrissie began working as a screen printer, where printing skills and an interest in graphic design developed. Many years of working in the arts followed.The wrap collection of unique designs is printed on either a cotton/silk blend, modal/cotton blend or a wool/silk blend of fabric. There is now a range of jewellery also!
Gemma Couldwell
Gemma captures the beauty of the Western Australian coastline from the land, sea and air. After arriving in Western Australia in 2009 as a backpacker, she fell in love with the sheer beauty that this State has to offer. Gemma’s photographic journey started in Albany in 2016 when she first started shooting landscapes. Since then, Gemma’s focus has moved towards capturing the beauty of the Southern and Indian Oceans from the sea and air. Gemma creates stunning landscape and fine art images which showcase the crystal-clear waters and unspoilt beaches that our coastline has to offer. You can find a selection of Gemma’s gift cards at Designer Dirt along with some new work she’s excitedly developing …
Geoff Bee
Geoff is a retired farmer from Jerramungup. He produces garden structures and rustic furniture from bush sticks and recycled material sourced from his bush block “Bilga” at Dunn Rock. He enjoys using natural materials to produce useful, practical and functional structures, which have aesthetic appeal and character. Geoff is always willing to create custom-built projects to suit specific needs.
Ian Michael
Ian grew up on farms and stations in the Northern Wheatbelt and the Gascoyne. He has always considered himself more inventive than artistic, something that's happened out of necessity, when fixing things with limited options, usually in the middle of nowhere. Since starting Designer Dirt he’s been able to have more fun with that creativity and really enjoys making metal sculptures out of scrap on hand.
Ian always tries to include recycled pieces in his work, to give meaning and relevance to each piece, especially if it's a commission. If he has access to a person's scrap pile it can help bring that piece closer to them. His commissioned work can be found from Denmark to Onslow.
Jack Bruning
Jack has been making our raised garden beds for over 4 years now, the type with timber frames that are either oiled or painted, then lined with corrugated iron in a choice of Colorbond colours. He’s now added mud kitchens, firewood boxes and a bank of compost bins to his range of products. Jack also does some home maintenance for people in town to help fill his time productively, now he has retired.The garden beds started out more as a hobby for him while working full time. He taught Design and Technology locally for about 30 years, teaching in Perth metro and Tasmania before that.
Jack and his wife have five children and sixteen grandchildren and they’re extremely thankful to be in touch with them nearly every day. They also enjoy the beach and often go free camping in their Toyota Coaster. They love to go fishing, walking and bodyboarding in their spare time.
Jane Michael
Jane grew up on a farm south of Kojonup. She always loved art and nature and thought about becoming a graphic designer when she finished school, but went down a different road, due to the lack of opportunities at the time. Now she’s at Designer Dirt, she’s really enjoying the opportunity to create art as an everyday part of her work, especially being able to mix gardening with art through the versatility of metal and recycled materials, loving how adaptable and durable they are. Ageing metal in the garden just looks like it belongs and using different metals - including Corten steel and tin, as well as special effects paints - gives her so many options to work with. She’s also had fun recently, expanding her range of Corten cut-outs - and enjoyed adding some more playful elements!
Jodie Edwards
Known as the "Giftware Goddess" at Designer Dirt, Jodie creates stunning displays of our merchandise inside our shed. She has an incredible knack for making a collection look not just inviting and beautiful, but also inspiring. So customers are tempted to create their own loveliness at home with practical touches showing how they can. Jodie loves to turn her hand to mixed media pieces in her time off. She has an art background with a Bachelor of Visual Art and a Diploma in Art Studies.Growing up in Albany she loves living by the ocean and has an affinity with marine life.
She’s always been drawn to creative projects and enjoys following an idea from conception, through the various stages of experimentation, to the final outcome. Using new materials - from paper to clay, water colour to metallic effects – and techniques are what keeps her enjoying her art!
Karen Harries
Over the years Karen Harries has explored many creative mediums but always knew jewellery design was where she wanted to be. She fell in love with silver in 2012 when she took classes with a much-admired Margaret River jeweller and hasn’t looked back since. Her preferred mediums are silver, copper, brass, enamel, timber and resin. She loves seeing how they react, if they can be combined and how they work together. The detail found in nature inspires her work.
Kerri Blades
Kerri’s images are inspired by family, home and her surroundings. She has always worked from home around her four children, easel set up in the corner of the living room, paints on the kitchen table, art mess everywhere. Due to the nature of her husband's work, her family has lived in many remote places all over the state, moving every two to three years. So, making a place feel like home has always been important to her, seeing the beauty in different surroundings, and bringing some of that beauty into her work, whether it be certain colours or images pertaining to the area.Her style is illustrative, colourful and whimsical – she tries to capture the magic in the everyday. Her work is created to encourage, inspire and make you smile.