If you need an invitation to slow down, gather with others, and tune into your creative instincts, Arts Muster Festival might have what you’re looking for. We explore the spirit of the upcoming festival via two of the workshop tutors, maiki-jane blakeney and Greer Taylor, returning to Huskisson from 27–30 August 2026. This is an edited transcript of the podcast, click here if you would prefer to listen to the interviews.
1. Finding the Dollmaker Within with maiki-jane blakeney
Multidisciplinary artist and well-being practitioner maiki-jane blakeney (founder of The Sage Caravan) shares the philosophy behind her two-day workshop, Intuitive Cloth Doll Making. Using simple hand-sewing, natural fabrics, personal symbolism, and storytelling, maiki-jane guides participants through a reflective process of crafting a unique cloth doll and reconnecting with the innate maker inside us all. Here is a lightly edited version of our conversation.
maiki-jane, your cloth dolls are more figurative sculpture than child’s toy, which I think is what might spring to mind for some people when you say the word ‘doll’. How do you describe these dolls?
I describe them more as like a familiar or a talismanic being. For me, the dolls have a presence and usually I have an intention when I’m creating them and so it’s like a vessel that I put all my intentions into and often they hold that for me, they’re very tactile and so it’s like a physical object that can be held for many different reasons. It can be to give you courage, it can be something to give you comfort, it can be for joy, for whatever it is that you’re needing at that time. The dolls actually embody the stories and your feelings and emotions and whatever it is that’s coming up for you as you’re creating them.
That’s an important distinction to make, I think, between what people will be making with you in their doll versus a work of art because this is not something that’s meant to be put on the shelf, is it?
You can put them on a shelf if you like, but they’re also something that can sit by your bed and hold your dreams. It can be something that can be held in your pocket when you’re needing a little bit of extra courage for the day, or it can be something that you treasure and you put away and then you bring out seasonally and it can represent your seasons. It depends what they’re being created for and, you know, ‘doll’ is a very loose term. For me, when people have made their dolls, they can be humanistic or they can be anamorphic like animals. Someone created a leaf one time. Another person, the doll created became a heart and had other things, like charms on it. It really is intuitive and all of those people came along to my workshop with one thing in mind, and they all walked away with something incredibly special and unique to them and that meant far more to them than what their intention was initially or what they thought they were gonna make initially.
Some of your beautiful dolls have animal heads. Some of them don’t have any facial features. They just have a sort of blank face. And all of them, they’re clothed in unique costumes. How did you get into doll making?
As a child, I would just grab anything, and I would see faces everywhere and in everything, like stones and bits of wood and all sorts of things would become my little friends. I had a very unusual childhood, we moved around a lot, and I had a very rich internal life and all the things around me. We didn’t always carry a lot with us as we moved a lot, and so I would create these little beings to hold what I would need them to hold, at any time. And then throughout my life at different times, I just seemed to return to it with kind of almost, not consciously, I would pick up things and just create them at different times. Then when I had my children, it really started to emerge quite strongly again. (For) each of them, I made them dolls with all my hopes and dreams and intentions and love for them, imbued into them. And then, from there I started creating for other family members and other people around me and it just continued on. And then over the last probably 10 or 15 years, it’s been a strong calling that’s come in a lot stronger. It’s a very major part of my practice now.
It’s helped me to get a real true sense of my belonging as we have always moved. I started creating ancestral dolls and calling in my ancestors who I felt very disconnected from. And from there it’s become a really big thing that I’ve started to share with other people now, my practice, with the hopes that people can find what it is for them.
I’m interested in what the participants in your workshop are going to get from the experience, that you’re gonna help them to find their own sense of why in making a doll.
It’s about finding their own voice, finding the creator. Every single one of us has an ancestor that at some point created a doll, like a grandmother or a mother that created a doll for their children or for a loved one, and created something that they put their love into and those ancestors live within our DNA. They light up when we remember these old practices.
A lot of people these days are like, “Oh, I’m not creative. I don’t know how to do this,” or, “I’ve never sewed,” or, “I don’t…” And the thing is, we all have these memories that live within us and our bodies remember this stuff because they have evolved doing these things. So it’s like picking up those ancestral skills again and finding a part of yourself that maybe has been forgotten. It’s a sort of a remembering rather than a teaching that happens.
For you, the materials that you’re using are just as meaningful as the finished work.
Oh, absolutely. I like to use really natural fabrics and the fabrics that our ancestors would’ve used, like linens and wool and cottons. But also, you might have some fabric that was your child’s pajamas or a bit of fabric from a loved one that’s passed and this doll might be a vessel that carries some of that love or some of that story forward.
So people might wanna bring along a little bit of some fabric or textile or an old earring or a charm or something that has meaning for them, in whatever way that they might want to imbue into the doll.
Something that you encourage people to think about is what’s going on inside their doll as well as what’s on the outside.
Absolutely. Every doll is created with a heart. Yeah. We actually create a very special…we perform a little bit of magic which is creating a beautiful heart. I bring along all sorts of little herbs and little bits and pieces that people might want to put into them. We choose everything intuitively. You can bring some things along for yourselves, but also I will have things there and I really encourage people not to think too much about what they’re putting in, but just to be drawn to what they’re drawn to and then use that, rather than sitting there going, “Well, I need it to have this, or I need it to have that.”
I like people to kind of quietly…because what happens then is that’s where the little magic happens. Because when they find out about what they’ve actually put in there, generally there’s a story behind that that comes through for them or there’s some kind of connection that is made that really speaks to them and then moving forward what their doll is really about.
So you can put dried herbs and things in there as well so it becomes a fully sensory experience?
There’s the smell, there’s the touch, there’s a feeling, there’s memory, there’s story, there’s love, there’s breath. It all goes into them.
I’m interested in some of the practical aspects of your workshop too, because people don’t need any sewing experience or skills or any sort of artistic background to, to take this workshop at the Arts Muster.
There’s absolutely no previous skills in anything needed. There’ll be people with varying skills. Some people will already have certain skills, and they can use them if they like. I’ve always found that we’re just using very basic skills, like very basic stitching. Some people really aren’t comfortable stitching, so they can create a doll that is wrapped. I can show them a very ancient way of creating their doll that really doesn’t need a hell of a lot of stitching or anything. We’ll create a pattern and firstly we’ll start with creating a little bit of a map and just making marks on paper, to get into the flow of things. So we’ll do a little bit of creating and seeing what symbols come through for us. Then I’ll take them through different practices to start to discover who their doll is and what skills they’ll need. But it’s very, very basic skills in stitching. If people are a little bit more advanced, then we can look at a few other practices as well.
I love the idea of the wrapping and binding.
Oh, some of those dolls have just been utterly exquisite that have come through for people. Each bit of cloth that’s wrapped has some kind of intention and it builds and it’s a really lovely practice.
And how do you make the pattern for the doll, for your particular doll?
So it will depend on what style of doll they’re making. I do like to have a few different things there. Some people might like use sticks and bits of nature. And other people will be really interested in sewing a stitched doll like that’s on the picture, the little girl doll. That’s Emily, that’s my daughter, that was a doll made for her. I’ll bring that one along so everyone can meet her. We’ll use different marks and I’ll show people how they can create a really simple pattern for the doll. And from there, they’ll start stitching it and then we’ll go through different layers.
But we also work into the fabric. Sometimes people like to age the fabric a bit or they like to stitch words or symbols into the fabric. So we sort of work through that a bit as well and find out what’s coming through for each person. I take them through step by step and at each stage we see what’s coming through for each of the people. We all start with the same practice and the same thing, and then they all are completely unique and different. There’s never any two dolls that are even vaguely similar.
I did a four-day ancestral doll workshop down in Victoria at the end of last year. We took people on a very big journey and a deep journey over four days. There’s men and women come to these workshops, nearly every workshop, I’ve had both males and females. At this particular workshop I had a lot of older people that were in their 70s, there were two couples, and it was the man and the woman.
One of the men made his great-grandmother, a doll for her, and another man made this incredible dog, he wrapped it … because the thing is, it’s not just a doll. As we’re creating, we’re remembering, and as we’re making things, stories come to us and memories come to us, and all of these become what our doll is, and the stories come through as we’re doing it, which is quite… it’s a beautiful sharing, often there’s something In that as well. It’s about the process rather than having this perfect doll at the end of it. And the thing is, if they were all perfect and perfectly the same, they wouldn’t have the magic of what you’re gonna receive when you actually create your doll.
I can’t wait to swing by your class and have a look at what everyone’s making. Just before we wrap this up, this is probably a really difficult question, because I know it’s hard to play favorites, but what’s the most favorite doll you’ve ever made?
Oh, this is really hard because, each one, as I’m making it, is absolutely all and everything. And then often those dolls, I’ll make them and I’ll carry with me for a while, and then they end up going to whoever they were actually meant to be for. And sometimes I’ll carry a doll for four or five years, and then all of a sudden someone will pop into my world and I’ll be like, “Oh, that doll’s for you.” And so I gift them.
I’ve recently had… you’ll probably see the photos on my Instagram, I’ve recently had this real download and these dolls coming through. I’ve made a little deer and a little rabbit and I’ve totally come up with a whole different way of making them that just came to me recently, and I’m just absolutely in love with them at the moment. So they’re probably some of my faves. I’m gonna bring them all (to the Arts Muster). No two of my dolls are similar or the same, but I’m gonna bring a whole heap of different dolls. I like people to touch them and play with them, nothing is too special that people can’t feel them. I went away on the weekend, and these ones have hawthorn berries and mugwort and some special little herbs in them. People were just holding them and they were so joyful and they’ve just got so much sort of, I don’t know, you hold them and they’re just… You can feel them. I’m, I’m quite excited to bring them along for people to meet.
2. Ephemeral Wonderings & Wanderings with Greer Taylor
Artist Greer Taylor invites participants to re-examine their relationship with the environment. Her workshop shifts the focus away from making permanent objects to place on a shelf. Instead, participants wander through local natural landscapes, engage all five senses, and build temporary, ephemeral artworks out in the elements—learning to embrace impermanence, curiosity, and a deep sense of place. Here is an edited version of our conversation.
Hi, Greer. Thank you for joining me today. Tell me about the concept of ephemeral art.
Ah, that’s a deep one. Basically it’s… Well, there’s two things there, art and ephemeral. Ephemeral is just that word that reminds us that everything is transitory, everything is temporary. Our breath is something that happens once, and then it is gone. Our words come and they go. Our day comes and it goes, and our life comes and it goes. That’s ephemerality. And art is making sense of the world, as each artist sees it and feels it, and putting those two together, I’m wanting to explore ephemerality because it is basically how life works. It’s how the planet works. And to talk about that and entwine it into artworks.
The main photo that’s promoting your workshop that’s coming up at Arts Muster, it shows a hand that’s laying out petals on a rock in a river. What’s the intention behind a work like that?
They’re actually wattle pom-poms. I was at a river edge. There were wattles blooming and dropping their little pom-poms, after they’ve done their work. I’m always really interested in what’s happening on the day, when I’m out in the bush, and this was what the day was speaking about. It was the end of the wattle season, and all these little pom-poms. I’m next to a river and with rocks on the edge, and I see that the water level has gone down. And so there’s this beautiful line of where the water had been in the last day or so. It had left …still got the moisture in the water. And so by taking the pom-poms from the tree, from the wattle trees that had grown right near the creek, and acknowledging the change of levels of the water, and I was just arranging them along that level. I’m just following this beautiful line that was put there for me to follow, and it’s just that, how can I interact with what is happening in the day, or has happened over the past and is now… There’s shadows being left behind, like the moisture held in the rocks there. And, and the beautiful shapes that occur, just as a consequence of following that natural line.
It’s very poetic, a very poetic way of interacting with nature.
It is. And I really believe, have come to believe that allowing things to be poetic is a beautiful way to dance with nature, really, and dance with life. It’s poetry or poetic, I guess, allows things to not be put into boxes and allows to become what you don’t expect them to become. For me, when I look out, I’m sitting here in my studio and I’m looking out to these beautiful gum trees, and I just see every branch on that, though, every gum tree, and every blade of grass as poetic as it interacts with the breeze. It’s
When I do ephemeral works like that one, it’s like I am a temporary choreographer. I’m stepping in, taking what nature is talking about herself, and I’m gathering it into my own hands and then looking around and creating a little dance in a way, like a choreography. And then it’s going to blow away, and all the water will rise, and the little pom-poms might drift off into the water.
I don’t see that part, but that’s that part of that acknowledgement of ephemerality and the poetics of it. Because as it breaks apart, it’s creating new patterns and returning back to nature and back into a chaotic alignment…it’s order and chaos all at once happening and it’s all going to return to soil, which is all then therefore going to return to future life.
I was walking along the boardwalk along the shores of Jervis Bay recently, and the wind was coming up through the grates under the boardwalk and it had lined up all the gum leaves into an alignment. And I wish I’d taken a photo because it was nature making some kind of geometry out of chaos. It was magical.
AbsolutelyYou do see that as well… And then, sometimes I will actually pull off what I see like that and sort of extend work using my way of seeing it. That’s nature’s way of interaction, interacting with her parts, and then me, who is nature as well, interacting in a different way.
What is that urge that we have to make art in nature or, or to see art in nature?
I think it’s innate because we are nature. That whole idea of humans being separate from is part of the reason we are in these dangerous times. And that wanting, I guess, to dance with nature is, I think it’s deeply innate within us. And also, because we have this cognitive capacity, it’s wanting to make sense, and that’s been both a blessing and a curse. But how do we make sense without causing damage? How do we make sense by actually being contributory and participatory?
These are the questions that I ask.
Yes, because it’s not about taming nature, is it? Like you said, it’s a choreography.
Yes, exactly. We, for some reason, 10,000 years ago, decided that taming nature is what we were on about. And it just breaks my heart even just saying that sentence. But we somehow need to… let’s not use words like that… it would be beneficial to all life on this planet if we, with our cognitive capacity, can actually learn to dance instead of learn to try and put things into boxes and make it all smooth and comfortable for our benefit, and forget that we are causing damage to other beings’ lives.
You equate making art to exploration, which is, making art and exploration are both journeys. How do those journeys intertwine for you?
Oh, good question. It’s almost hard to separate the idea of art and exploration. I have a mind that is interested in how things fit together and art has provided me a beautiful way of connecting the dots in a way that is outside the box of what our culture tends to. Well, I’m not trying to control. I’m just trying to explore and open up possibilities that I and potential visitors can see what they might not have seen otherwise. And I’m finding things that I hadn’t seen before through the exploration. And so art provides that. They sit together for me.
I’ve been lucky to see some of your large scale installations in places like, in outdoor environments in Kangaroo Valley or Berry …I love the way that you’re engaging the audience to have an exploration about how art and the landscape interact.Are you trying to give people a lens to view the world in a different way?
The idea of a lens might be too specific, but I definitely want the intention of my work is to open hearts in that it … We all have a connection to nature, but our busy, busy, busy culture tends to distract us from that. And my work is trying to remind us, and by doing that, people’s hearts open up, and then they rememberIt’s about remembering as well that we are a part of nature. We are nature. And that our busy life might not be as deep and as fulfilling as we want it to be, and that part of that reason is because we haven’t made those or maintained those connections, deep connections with nature.
The description of your two-day workshop that you’re offering at Arts Muster here in Huskisson at the end of August, it feels like an opportunity or an invitation for people to join you in slowing down and remembering. You’ve called it Ephemeral Wonderings and Wanderings, I’d love to know what that means. What can a student expect when they join you on those two days?
An exploration. Yes, indeed. We’re gonna be working both inside and outside and stitching those two worlds that we live in together. We’ll be working out in the natural areas around the space that we’ll be at and observing what is happening that day. And of course, each student will see something different, which is part of what’s so exciting. And then we’ll be bringing it back into the room we’re working in, and creating a community drawing, a shared drawing where we keep layering until the drawing is like a forest floor with layers and layers and layers of fallen leaves in a way.
And just as people’s hearts end up being opened and what is in them gets put down onto the page, whether it be words or torn up pieces of paper or scribbles or drawings or whatever. I’m really quite excited to see what will arise… and not working in your little piece of the pie, so to speak. We’ll be moving around constantly and layering onto and responding to other people’s work, and then going back outside and bringing what we experienced outside into the space again, and back outside. And so, there’s sort of this moving back and forth from the inside to the outside.
Well, that certainly sounds like a choreography.
Absolutely. Yes, it is. We’ll also, as part of that, inviting participants, as they’re going deeper into this relationship, into what I call love the earth conversations. Because one of the things that I have learnt, and it breaks my heart every time I speak of it, is that many, many people do love the earth, but are in fact, ashamed to speak it out loud. That fear of being called a tree hugger or a hippie or something like that is rife. I’ve had the opportunity through some of my public interaction projects of speaking to many, many people, and I’ve tragically had that confirmed. So I’m trying to inspire and create containers where people learn to wrap words around their love for the living world. And so that will be a small part of the project, for a little bit in the afternoons probably.
We’ll bring it together. We’ll be going out as individuals and sitting and experiencing, then we’ll come back and work on a drawing, which is community, and then we actually have the conversation.
That sounds absolutely wonderful, and I hope that I get to waft past and see what you’re up to.
Event Details & How to Book
- What: Arts Muster Festival 2026 (12 Two-Day Workshops & 19 Cultural Events)
- When: 27-30 August 2026
- Where: Huskisson, NSW (Jervis Bay region)
- Bookings: Explore the full workshop schedule and secure your place at artsmuster.com.au.
