An interview with Tara Poole
Primary research
HARVARD REFERENCE:
Poole, T 2025, ‘The makers project - Ballarat’s Creative Sector - An interview with Tara Poole’.
Rare and forgotten trades centre, n.d
WHAT IS IT?
This interview was with Tara Poole, the coordinator for creative City Ballarat. Within the interview we discussed her outlook on the creative sector as it stands, what initiatives her organization are making to support artists, and where she sees value in maintaining the prevalence of heritage trades.
WHY IS IT RELEVANT?
Her role places her at the forefront of Ballarat’s creative scene and hence her insight provides additional information beyond that obtained through discussions with my artists.
WHAT NEXT?
My key takeaway from this was the importance of education, in terms of reframing people’s minds when they think of artesian goods. It is not simply about letting the public see value in the craftsmanship, but about showing people what is possible, to hopefully encourage people to take the step into having their own creative careers or hobbies. As such I think showing the ‘joy’ within my work is really important. I need to portray the narrative of why artists create. To celebrate them and their studios and inspire others to get involved.
the interview
“When they are called lost trades, the reality is that they are heritage trades…they are not necessarily lost, they’re just resting”
Tara Poole is the coordinator for the Creative city program for the City of Ballarat.
I met with Tara to discuss her outlook on the creative sector in Ballarat as it stands, to get a sense of the current support measures in place for creative industries and an outlook for future initiatives as well.
Tara mentioned within our discussions that currently 3-4% of Ballarat’s population works full time in the creative sector, which is a substantial amount. With that her role works to preserve those numbers and to both encourage creatives and facilitate them to “make an economic decision to stay within a creative practice”.
Ballarat has a rich cultural background, particularly, like many other mining towns, with crafts at the forefront of this. Many of these practices still draw crowds to our town today when you look at organizations such as Sovereign Hill and the Rare Trades Centre. Despite these efforts we are still losing a lot of our knowledge.
Tara presented the conundrum so often faced by members of the creative sector: “do you simply [try to] recreate…when you’ve lost all the knowledge that wasn’t documented? Or do you create something new?” She discussed the work focusing on this area, “there’s a lot of thought going into that right now, about how you re-create or re-establish creative practice” she notes that the work so far has had value in “making the city very aware of what it’s lost”
Being artists, the end goal for so many of us is to have the opportunity to create in a way that is positive. Art and creative industries are expensive to practice and being able to either obtain income from your work, or simply fund you own hobby is what gives people the freedom to create today. Tara notes that “we [Creative City Ballarat] to make the city a location. Where if you move here, you will find sustainable practice and so that's my job is to try and make you as fertile ground as possible to attract creative practitioners to live work and study in the region and that's what all of our programs designed to do. “
City of Ballarat, Craft Lab n.d
City of Ballarat, People enjoying themselves at Craft Lab, n.d
Creative City Ballarat, Working in the Rare trades centre, n.d.
Discussing lost trades:
City of Ballarat, have UNESCO creative city status, focusing on craft and folk-art, and are the only Australian city to have that status, and one of only 350 global cities involved Tara discusses. “It’s a statement of intent that we are going to actually focus and concentrate some of our energy on re-establishing and maintaining trades at risk for being forgotten” Ballarat currently places focus on ceramics, textiles and first Nations skills and lost trades.
Providing support.
Creative City Ballarat track how many people are entering into these industries and use this information to guide them in looking into what services they can provide to those makers. Looking at what sort of career development they can assist with as well. Their goal is to allow people the opportunity to say ‘yes, I want to make this my industry. I want to make this my career and supporting them…’
Commercial side of art
Much of this project has revolved around looking at what about handmade object appeals to people, looking at the shifting role of these products overtime. Such as how items such as a leather boot – if we are talking about makers like Wootten, used to be a necessity but now are an indulgence.
Tara agreed “Well you're pretty much applying a capitalist lens to the work that actually focusing you which is justifiable because you know we are being trained to look for the cheapest and the most essential items… I mean Wootten is definitely a really good example because 150 years ago if you went down to Bridge Mall every second shot was a big maker. It was essential was an absolute item that you needed. If you were going to survive on the goldfields…” Now these items are bought out of both an appreciation for the craft, but also as a luxury purchase.
We can also compare then the skills used to make say a spoon “at what point as a spoon a piece of a functional piece of cutlery and what point is becoming artwork”. It is this balance between art and practical use that adds a certain complexity to the arts sector today. Tara’s workplaces weight on these societal shifts and are exploring these issues from a number of angles. “We are looking to try and develop the opportunities to have an economy which permits both that you're not necessarily pushed to purchase just the Kmart shoe, but you have the opportunity to invest in an artwork”.
Education:
Tara also discussed within this interview, the role of education in the preservation of heritage trades. Which seems so simple, but the issue runs so dee through our society today. There just isn’t access for people to seek formal training like there may have been in the past. She states “. Practitioners of tomorrow are going to be fewer and further between because the capacity for them to actually get hands-on [experience and education] is falling so if we're gonna be looking at the future where this [heritage trades practices] (are) actually drying up whether that's something that local government can deal wit,h probably not. What we can do is actually nag and encourage and constantly bring it to people's attention that there is a big black hole approaching. But it's means lots of different levels of government and also private sector and also you know different institutions have to get together to work together”
I hope with my project to play a small part in that reeducation, or more accurately, reminding people of what’s out there.
Current Initiatives:
A regularly event in the Ballarat yearly calendar, Craft Lab is one event Tara’s team prioritises, with an expected reach of over 8000 people this year, and each participating creative paid for their time, the potential for the spread of enthusiasm is great.
She notes their future planning “comes out because it's listening to what the community says they want and they need and then developing a program to help them but then that's only one part of the work we do. We also look at the other side which is. Infrastructure and making sure we've got we've got a gallery now but where's our gallery for the future…We need to grow those services and skills to make sure that people who don't currently think of creativity is being an avenue for them actually realise that it is…”
“I'm a big believer of that You know anger is catching but so is happiness and joy and so is curiosity so let's make curiosity the thing that we catching “
Full interview transcript v
