Behind the Scenes: RoseyRavelston Books at Nauti Studios

RoseyRavelston Books are a small social enterprise based in Nauti Studios Blue Mountains.

Zac & Cath have combined their love of reading with their passion for supporting refugees and asylum seekers. These legends, with the vital support of a small group of supporters, donate 50% of their profits to the Amiculus: The Humble Friend Project charity.

We asked them some red hot Qs to get a behind the scenes look at
the world and inspiration behind Rosey Ravelston.

Zac, Cath and Echo, of RoseyRavelston Books, in their bookshop at Nauti Studios Blue Mountains.

Tea or coffee?
Cath (C): LOTS OF Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon and after dinner. We met working in coffee, and my mum is British so the best of both worlds here.
Zac (Z): Coffee to wake up, tea to keep going.

Sunrise or sunset?
C: Realistically, Sunset. There’s a reason we need lots of coffee in the mornings!
Z: Dusk. Sunset is nice but there’s something magical about that moment when the sun has gone but darkness is not yet final.

What inspired you to start RoseyRavelston Books?
C + Z: A love of books, a need to share that love and passion for doing something positive for our community. That means providing affordable, quality books to people, using our bookshop and Nauti Studios as a place for people to meet other like-minded people and as a way to raise money for the charity Amiculus: The Humble Friend Project, whom we give 50% of our profit every month so that they can support refugees and asylum seekers within Greater Sydney.

Echo, Zac and Cath’s 10-year-old adorable labrador. She is their Quality Control supervisor, and you might be lucky enough to meet her if you visit RoseyRavelston Books at Nauti.

Do you work well as a team?
C + Z: Cath generally reads more fiction and Zac more non-fiction, so we can both rant for ages about lots of books in various genres. Except horror. Cath is a wuss.

What are your top five fav books of all time?
C: Too hard! There would be an Orwell in there, for sure, I think “Homage to Catalonia”? Definitely “My Grandmother sends her regards and apologises” by Frederik Backman, perhaps “Bone people” by Keri Hulme? I loved “Burial Rites” by Hannah Kent…. Nah. Can’t do it. I’m already changing my mind. Also Zac wrote a book so I should probably include that too....Sanlundia by Z T Quinn.
Z: Too hard! The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafón), Sapiens (Yuval Noah Harari), SPQR (Mary Beard), Keep the Aspidistra Flying (George Orwell), The Testament of Mary (Colm Tóibín). But that list would probably change if you asked me again tomorrow.
C: Oh yes! Colm Tóibín!

What scares you?
C + Z: Inhumane Government policies.

Zac, Cath and Echo, of RoseyRavelston Books, in their bookshop in Nauti Studios Blue Mountains.

Is Echo best described as creative director or site manager?
C: Quality Control. She paws-es to look over each book and selects the book that our readers will Labr-adore.
Z: Neither – unless you’re talking about creative director of finding ways to get a pat, or site manager of the Nauti Studios kitchen…

What’s your fav thing about Nauti?
C: The community and the love of puns.
Z: Awesome people with amazing talent. And that the name makes people think you work in an adult store.

If you could have dinner with any author, dead or alive, who would it be?
C: I would probably have dinner with George Orwell, alive.
Z: Yeah I’d prefer to have dinner with an alive person as well, although if my guest was dead at least they couldn’t complain about my cooking.

Quality Control of RoseyRavelston Books, Echo, bludging on the job at Nauti Studios.

Have any authors work changed the way you see the world?
C: There’s a theme here. Reading “Down and Out in Paris and London” by George Orwell helped me to realise just how much Neoliberalism has negatively impacted society, but in a way that makes it seem like the poor are poor because of their own volition. It relates so much to Australia and the way we treat the “other”.
Z: Totally agree with Cath. I also love tracking Orwell’s evolution and views throughout his books, his willingness to criticise both the right and left side of politics and his understanding of the dangers of political extremism. He had plenty of flaws but had made quite a transformational journey by the time he died.

Are you secretly writing something at the moment?
Z: If I told you it wouldn’t be a secret any longer…
C: Come visit our shop

Good books, chats, helping others

Haikus are awesome.

To keep up to date with the incredible RoseyRavelston Books team, buy some incredible books, find out when to come in to the bookstore, attend their awesome poetry and book club nights at Nauti Studios, and see pictures of Echo on a regular basis… You can find RoseyRavelston Books at their website here, and on instagram, and Facebook.

If you’d like to join RoseyRavelston Books working at Nauti Studios, get in touch here.

Let's Spoon! Nauti Studios' Spoon Carving Club on Trees, Tools and Techniques

Once a month on a Monday night you will find a small band of tool-wielding folk sat in a circle
in the common room of Nauti Studios in the Blue Mountains.
Some are chatting, some are concentrating, some wear aprons, some don’t, but all of them are holding a small piece of wood that they are painstakingly carving and shaping, ever so slowly,
until the wood begins to look like something
we can all recognise…a spoon!

Yes, the spoon carving club in Hazelbrook is in da house and upholding an age-old tradition and
craft. And, the first rule of spoon club is, wait for it…you only make spoons! Nope, no forks or
knives or tissue holders or other such handy items, because alas, as the name says, it’s all in the spoon.

They are seated in a circle, a Spoonie pow pow and talk soon turns to trees and tools and techniques.

How did Spoon Club start?
It began as a small group of people meeting at Georgina Donovan’s workshop in Woodford in 2017,
before it grew and needed to be moved to Nauti. Sometimes there are up to ten people who come
to the studio. Georgina jokingly refers to their weekly gatherings as ‘Monday Spoontaneity’
because ‘when you say you are in Spoon Club at Nauti Studios, it raises eyebrows.’

How long have you been spoon carving?
The answers vary from years to months. There are newbies and those who seem to have been born with a wooden spoon in their mouths. ’I have been spoon carving for 18 months,’ says Ingrid Errington. ‘This is a very slow and meditative hobby, a very nice combination. I don’t think I’ve ever met a spoon carver that I didn’t like.’

Georgina jokingly refers to their weekly gatherings as ‘Monday Spoontaneity’
because ‘when you say you are in Spoon Club at Nauti Studios, it raises eyebrows.’

What is the best kind of wood to use and how do you source it?
There are as many types of wood as there are ways to find them. It often comes down to personal preference and happenstance. Georgina is using a piece of Mulberry and explains how she is always on the lookout for wood on the side of the road. Lots of Spoonie heads nod in agreement with various people talking about the excitement of a downed tree.

Georgina explains that the wood needs to be wet, soaked in water, so it is easier to carve. When a
fallen branch is found, she chops spoon sized blocks out of it and then soaks them in water to
soften, which she then has to put in the freezer to preserve for later use. ‘It’s a constant negotiation
with one’s partner - the space for wood in the freezer!’ There are currently pieces of a Cherry Tree in hers.

‘Dry wood is hard work,’ Paul Crowe adds. ‘I am a biologist and a pretty keen gardener,’ says Ingrid, ‘I am
always looking around at trees. I like Birch but I find the willow is very soft, too soft for a spoon. If you tap on the side it makes marks.’

Georgina carving away!

So, how is it done?
A spoon shape is sketched on to a prepared piece of wood and then a whole range of carving and
chopping objects are used to carefully coax the utensil out of the wood. The Spoonies all seem to follow the mantra ‘Carve, Look, Examine’. But, there is always the risk that the wood will split and derail the whole thing.

After an hour of carving, Erik Sipiczki laments to the room ‘Oh no, it’s going to crack off, I just realised that his piece of wood has a small crack down it, but that’s the beauty of the whole thing,’ he adds, ‘it changes all of the time.’

Jill’s collection of wood carving tools.

‘ …but that’s the beauty of the whole thing, it changes all of the time.’

Do you use the word ‘whittle’?
A few laughs and then Paul pipes up, ’whittling is carving without a purpose!’. ‘That’s what I do,’ laughs Lindsey Pacchini.

How long does it take?
‘It could take me a day if I wanted to finesse it,’ says Jill Day, ‘or it could take an hour, and it also
depends on the wood’.

What are the tools?
Erik goes outside to split wood in the traditional way, on a block using a froe, which is an L shaped shake axe looking tool, that has a wooden handle, which is about the same length as the metal blade. There are tools of every shape and size and sharpness used for very specific jobs like hatchets for chopping larger chunks, or long thin bladed knives for fine tuning sharp turns. Then there are these awesome Hook Knives, think very sharp ice cream scooper, which are used to scrape and bore out the spoon bowl.

Erik looking like a lumber jack.

John Steel, a carver and a blacksmith, is visiting the group tonight and has an impressive collection of tools all laid out on the table. It looks like an operating room set up for spoon surgery. Another very important ‘tool’ of the trade is an apron. Jill has a beautiful kangaroo hide apron, which protects her from injury. A popular way to carve is by holding the wood against your sternum, elbows tucked in and pulling the knife toward you and accidents can happen. ‘You have to be very mindful really and you have to be quiet in yourself,’ she warns, ‘it requires a calm presence.’

We must know the nautical interests of all the Spoonies! What sea animal would you be?
Ingrid – King Penguin, Georgina – Squid, Paul – Octopus (‘so I can hold more tools’), Lindsey - Turtle, Jill – Sea Horse, John – Sea Horse, Erik – Worms that lunge up from the bottom of the sea

Raise your hand if you can’t get that image out of your head of
Spoon Bob Carve Pants and his merry band of Spoonies at the bottom of the sea?
For more info on joining the Spoon Club – get in contact with Nauti Studios here.

Assorted craving tools on the table at Nauti Studios.

Kicking Off 2019 By Giving Back: Nauti's Twelve Month Residency Program

To start off 2019 we are having a chat with Nauti Studios’ Founder and Captain, Nat Cheney. Having opened applications for a brand new twelve month Residency Program at our Blue Mountains location, we ask Nat about the inspiration and drive behind this initiative.

Nauti Studios Founder and Captain Nat Cheney. Picture: Ann Niddrie.

A twelve month Residency Program?! What? Where did this come from?
I have started 2019 by having an amazing festive season. It has been filled with amazing chats and idea sessions with fantastic people around me at Nauti. I have kept at work over the past few months at Nauti, but it has felt like a holiday in that the amazing people around me have helped me be more invigorated, inspired, and grateful for their incredible influence. I decided, feeling very grateful for the incredible people I am surrounded by, that I wanted to give back. The Arts, Culture & Small Business Residency Program is designed to give massive opportunities to an individual, team or group who would benefit from having their own private work space, mentorship, and being around creative, inspiring and productive people. Giving this opportunity also has the potential to greatly impact locals, the local economy, and the international industry of the Resident/s’ profession. Through someone developing and furthering their practice, it will have a great impact on the people around them, the businesses they interact with, and the international community of the industry in which their work is produced. Seems like a win-win situation to me. I love that saying “a rising tide lifts all boats”.

Who is able to apply for the Residency Program?
As the people working at Nauti Studios are very diverse, as are their professions, I have written the program to be applicable for most industries. We are welcoming all applications from artists, designers, media innovators, educators, creative arts researchers, scholars, and anyone working on a project or in a field in arts, cultural development or small business.

“A rising tide lifts all boats.”

Is the opportunity open to people of all skill and experience levels?
You betcha! All disciplines, and all skill levels are welcome.

What does the Residency Program provide?
Participants receive full-time access to our work space for twelve months, with access to our communal areas, social events, utilities, amenities, mentor opportunities, professional knowledge and networks. Also, our Hazelbrook studio is easily accessible from Blue Mountains areas by car or public transport.

What is expected of the Recipient/s of the Residency Program?
Nauti expects that they will be dedicated, productive, and grateful for the opportunities they are given. We also welcome and encourage the recipient/s to give back to their local, national and international community. This giving back can come from simply furthering and developing their practice and profession throughout their residency. Also, Nauti Studios can provide working space and open areas for meetings, rehearsals, workshops, exhibitions, or other, for participants to give back to the community during the Residency Program. For example, recipient/s may like to hold an event, presentation, exhibition, or such, inviting industry professionals and the general public to share the work they have been able to achieve during their time at Nauti Studios.

“A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”

When and how can someone apply for the Residency Program?
Right now, baby! Applications are now open, and finish up 15th March 2019. If people want to learn more, they can check out the info here, and if anyone has any specific questions they can ask me here.

And to wrap up, would you like to say to anyone reading this?
Happy 2019 Sailors! May this year be productive, inspiring, and may you rise to all challenges. Remember, ”a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”

Aye Aye Captain!

One of the great, and sustainably made, work spaces at Nauti Studios.