Howdy Tara! Can you please introduce yourself and a bit of what you do? I first established my self-titled fashion brand in 2015, after returning to Australia after a year of working with war-affected Guatemalan weavers. It was during this time in Guatemala that formed my painting practice. My collections are made in Melbourne with natural fibres, digitally printed to reduce environmental impact, utilise offcuts to minimise waste and are available in sizes XS to 10XL and feature all my hand-painted artwork. Nature plays a very prevalent part in your work. Why are you so drawn to the environment? Growing up, my dad was Melbourne’s happiest tram driver and he spent a lot of time gardening. Each week new little additions would be added; little mosses planted between the bluestone and different kinds of flowers bursting with colour and I was so enchanted by it all. Nature is an endless source of inspiration for me.  You’ve also lived overseas in Guatemala, Japan, France and the USA. How has being in these places inspired your art? While living in Guatemala, my camera was pinched. My friend and I spent the entire night running down storage water pipes and through the entire jungle to try and catch the thief, but we couldn’t find them. Because of that, I started painting instead to capture memories as I figured they probably won’t get stolen. It also felt a lot less intrusive with the locals to sit and paint a scene or a memory rather than take photographs. This was the beginning of painting wherever I go to capture memories. My clothing collections have become travel diaries and every artwork has a story; from tipping over a crate in a glass house in San Francisco, creating an impromptu desk to paint flowers all day, my funny neighbourhood cat hiding in the grass, to late nights spent chatting about art with champagne and cheese at my art residency in France. These memories all find their way into my prints.

What helps you get in the zone? Sometimes I get really excited about an idea so jumping into creating something is really easy, but other times I’ll put on some fun music or a podcast to help me out. I paint nearly every day so I’m used to putting paint to paper, it’s become a discipline. What’s been a highlight of your career, so far? There have been so many highlights! I never even properly considered art as a career until five of my year 12 artworks were selected to be shown in TOP Arts at the NGV. That was a real turning point for me. I moved to Guatemala for a year to design for war-affected Guatemalan weavers which was an absolute adventure and very special to me! I would see a volcano on the way to work and I enjoyed designing textiles and products which would help Guatemalan women send their kids to school, buy basic medicine and feed their families. I was also held up at gunpoint and nearly kidnapped, but that’s a story for another day. Working with so many local makers made me passionate about creating a brand when I returned back to Australia. In more recent years, having opportunities such as showing my clothing collections at New York Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week has been incredible. Working with frankie on the 2024 diary? A dream!

What are the differences and similarities you’ve found with working with textiles and fashion VS creating art on paper? To keep the textiles creative, I try to not worry too much about the end product and just enjoy making something I like. I mainly create artwork on paper then translate it to a textile, so seeing the artworks in book form is exciting! I found it fun to see my artworks at this scale and be enjoyed in a different way. What were the main inspirations behind illustrating the 2024 frankie diary? I was so excited to spend a week painting and sketching in Auckland for the diary. I really love painting life so it was such a joy to sketch animals at the Auckland War Memorial Museum and see details up close. I learnt a lot about the flowers at the Auckland Domain Wintergardens; the gardener surprised me and had me discovering so many new things about flowers you can’t experience from a photograph. The best surprise was the flower that smelt like peppermint! I was also told that returning to smell the corpse flower when it blooms is a must. Drawing in public often leads to very fun conversations. You will also find a lot of little surprises in the prints if you look closely. While not all the plants and animals are strictly from New Zealand, it was wonderful to draw inspiration from the space and try and capture a bit of the characters I met there.Do you have a favourite illustration that you made for the diary? I love them all for different reasons, but I quite enjoy the owls with their funny personalities! The cats are all local neighbourhood cats from Wangaratta, so it’s nice to capture them from my time living there.

And I also enjoyed all the butterflies, insects and moths!Do you have any plans or goals for 2024? More collaborations! I’d love to see my prints in more places. The beauty of creating artwork is that it can be applied to so many different surfaces; homewares, books, packaging, fashion you name it! I’m also working on a new exciting clothing collection! Stay tuned!

frankie's 2024 diary and calendar is available to pre-order! Plus, you'll also score bonus greeting cards when you pre-order our diary or bundle, while stocks last. To see more of Tara's work, check out her Instagram and her online store.