Charlene O’Brien at work in the studio behind her Ravensthorpe shop front. Photo: Geoff Vivian.
Australia’s representative to an international fashion organisation occupies one of the shop fronts along Ravensthorpe’s main street.
Textile artist and recycled fashion designer Charlene O’Brien calls it the Ravy Gold Mine.
“The shop has evolved to being a space to put artisan works, a bit of vintage and retro thrown in,” she said.
“I call it a ‘transformative space’: objects come in and then they are made and something different is evolved out of it.
“So, it’s quite unique and one-of-a-kind, and I’m presenting other artists’ work so it’s supporting micro businesses.
“And Gold Mine, because this town was founded on gold and my dad was a gold miner in Africa.”
Beside her own artwork, O’Brien sells her own line of eco skin care and hair care products which supports the retail space.
“What I love about this place is that it gives me as the artist a space for retail as well as a place to create,” she said.
“So I’m not a shopkeeper in a shop, I’m actually a studio with the bonus of having a little shop at the front.”
The studio is the source of O’Brien’s more adventurous textile and ‘found objects’ works, such as Queen of the Fitz, a sculpture inspired by the Royal Hakea and Queen Victoria’s clothes.
“The Royal Hakea was named after Queen Victoria,” she said.
“It’s found in our National Park here and I studied it and kept trying to work out how it was going to evolve.
“Each leaf came through my research of her costumes of that era, a lot of antique lace hand stitching.
“Each leaf became a part of that era of her life.”
This includes a single black leaf at the base to signify the era when “everything became black in her life”.
Earth Angel began with a piece of bent wire O’Brien found on the roadside, later adding found objects with lots of hand stitching and weaving.
“I just let it evolve organically and she became this Earth angel as I had no idea it was going to become that,” she said.
O’Brien graduated from the London College of Fashion before coming to Australia, and now represents Australia on the board of Global Sustainable Fashion Week in Hungary.
“I’ve put on fashion shows in Budapest,” she said.
“Because of COVID I put on more teaching globally through their event so people could sign in and join up.
“At one stage I had about 25 international designers — we’re supporting each other.
“So it’s like a family, all inspired by doing our best in the fashion industry by putting our right foot forward, doing the right thing.”
Ravy Gold Mine is on Morgans Street opposite Ravensthorpe Visitor Centre.
