Collaborating With Culture

Last year I set up a stall selling our towels at a few different festivals, the feedback I got from them was really positive but one question I was asked several times was “do we sell towels with indigenous designs”. I was so inspired by this that it motivated me to look further into doing something with an indigenous artist. Little did I know that a friend of mine from many years ago was married to a fabulous and very talented artist Tyrone Taylor, who also happened to be a descendant of the Yalanji People (Daintree Rainforest).

Thanks to social media I’d kept in contact with my friend and had seen Tyrone’s work on Facebook. I loved his art and asked her if he would be interested in connecting and discussing my idea of putting some indigenous paintings onto towels. Tyrone was stoked, he loved the idea and so began our project.

Tyrone got to work on his first painting and in less than 2 months he had 3 incredible paintings with stories to go along with them. Our next step was to get them put into a digital format for printing. You’d think this would be a relatively easy task but thanks to Covid, it was far from easy. Both Tyrone and his wife live in a small coastal town in NSW, the closest digital formatting place is almost 2 hours from them, and at the time couriers were restricted on where they could go and what they could pick up and deliver (who would have thought!!!) Anyway, after a month of juggling we got it done. They were then sent off to our supplier to begin printing.

A big part of our project is giving back to the people. I wanted to give 10% of each sale to select charities chosen by Tyrone. Tyrone chose 2 charities: Shoalhaven Suicide Prevention & Awareness Network and Cullunghutti Aboriginal Child and Family Centre. Both organisations do so much for their community, and we felt privileged to be able to give back to them. Click the links below to find information on these 2 organisations.

https://www.sspan.org.au/

http://www.cullunghutti.org.au/familycentre/programs/

In November 2021 our towels (in 3 different story designs) were complete. We were over the moon, and they turned out better than expected.

Each towel has a small, zipped pocket to keep your belongings safe, they all come in a reusable bag and included with each towel is the story behind the painting and a short bio of Tyrone.

We are proud to play a part in keeping Tyrone’s culture alive through our fantastic, recycled products.