{"id":13778,"date":"2023-11-30T17:22:34","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T17:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thestar.test\/2023\/11\/30\/rocking-horses-lead-lifestyle-3\/"},"modified":"2023-12-02T18:30:42","modified_gmt":"2023-12-02T18:30:42","slug":"rocking-horses-lead-lifestyle-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/blog\/rocking-horses-lead-lifestyle-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocking horses lead lifestyle"},"content":{"rendered":"
\t\t\t\tTuesday, July 10th, 2018<\/span> | Posted by Tayla Kershaw<\/a><\/span> \t\t\t<\/div>\n

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Rocking horses lead lifestyle<\/h1>\n

BLOCKBUSTER film sets and London theatres could not keep this local away from her home in the rolling, green hills of South Gippsland.
Working for a year and a half in the film and theatre industry put Olivia O\u2019Connor off the trail of scenic art and prop-making and into the wooden rocking horse trade.
According to Ms O\u2019Connor, it wasn\u2019t a calling from childhood – as with many of her artisan friends – but a realisation after her final assignment in her course at the National Institute for Dramatic Arts, where she was required to make a rocking horse.
Developing a severe allergy to the toxic resins used in prop-making combined with the industry\u2019s unsustainable practices pointed Ms O\u2019Connor towards something where she had more control over where she lived, what products she used and ultimately her art.
\u201cI really liked the work but in theatre you make something and it\u2019s used for six weeks. Then they put it in the skip,\u201d she said.
\u201cFor a film, a prop or scene you\u2019ve made, it might be used for about half an hour and then it\u2019s disposed of for legal or copyright laws and never used again.
\u201cSomething I really like about making rocking horses is that you make it and people expect to keep it for generations in the family.\u201d
Ms O\u2019Connor only uses natural and where possible, Australian products with the exception of the horse hair which she sources from the USA because her father\u2019s horses couldn\u2019t keep up with demand.
\u201cThere are a lot of different craft skills you need like hand carving, leatherwork and airbrusing, but I think people really underestimate time planning and management,\u201d she said.
\u201cThere is a lot of business skills in it if you want to make a living from it. There are hours of business stuff, which I hate, but who doesn\u2019t?
\u201cHaving a strong online presence has been really important, especially through my website, and people watching the project\u2019s progress through Facebook and Instagram.\u201d
Working on her parents\u2019 property, Ms O\u2019Connor said she plans on moving on to her own, larger workshop but continuing to do wood carving demonstrations such as at the recent Mudgeerabah Show in Queensland and holding classes in traditional rocking horse making.<\/p>\n

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Handmade horse: bespoke artist Olivia O\u2019Connor, pictured with her trusty companion Ruby, turned her back on the city lights to make traditional rocking horses at Berrys Creek.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPosted by Tayla Kershaw<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ton Jul 10 2018. Filed under Featured<\/a>. \t\t\t\t\tYou can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0<\/a>. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can leave a response or trackback to this entry\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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Tuesday, July 10th, 2018 | Posted by Tayla Kershaw Rocking horses lead lifestyle BLOCKBUSTER film sets and London theatres could not keep this local away from her home in the rolling, green hills of South Gippsland. Working for a year and a half in the film and theatre industry put Olivia O\u2019Connor off the trail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13778"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14483,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13778\/revisions\/14483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}