When a table of strangers sits down together at Strange Bird Studio in Daylesford, Nicola Weston has noticed there are usually about 35 seconds of awkwardness. Then everyone starts making something.

“Suddenly the whole thing softens,” Weston says. “There’s something about having your hands busy that makes conversation happen sideways.”

People begin with ridiculous things and somehow arrive at grief, loss, family dynamics and relationships. They talk about businesses they want to start, ideas they haven’t had the confidence to pursue, or things they are struggling with. Others barely talk at all.

“A bunch of strangers walk in, there’s 35 seconds of weirdness, and then this tiny temporary community appears around a table.”

Weston moved permanently to Daylesford in 2019, three years after she and her then partner bought a little miner’s cottage backing onto Cornish Hill.

“Daylesford has always felt a little bit magical to me,” she says. “There’s something about this place that draws you in and holds you close.”

They fell for the slower pace, the walking tracks and the traffic-light-less streets. Eventually, they stopped wanting to leave. But Weston says it is the community that has kept her and her daughter there. “People genuinely show up for each other.”

Strange Bird grew partly from Weston’s own compulsion to make things. She has made everything from a quirky dollhouse for her daughter to a “slightly unhinged” children’s table and chairs covered entirely in thrifted stuffed animals.

“I just know I feel better when I’m making something.”

About 18 months ago, Weston visited James Street Gallery in Geelong, run by not-for-profit organisation genU and showcasing work by artists with disabilities. She became “completely enamoured” with what she saw.

“The work was joyful and strange and brilliant, and there was this real creative freedom to it.”

She bought a painting of a bird by artist Marcus Lovell. The bird became a kind of mascot for the studio. Its name also draws on one of Weston’s favourite books, Dr Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, and its description of the “strange birds” we encounter along the way.

A friend, Jobbo, saw how animated Weston was by the gallery. “You should do something like this,” he told her. “And so I did.”

Weston didn’t think Daylesford needed another place teaching people how to become artists. She wanted somewhere children and adults could simply make things, meet people and unwind. The distinction matters to her.

“I hear ‘I’m not creative’ and ‘I can’t even draw a stick figure’ all the time,” she says. “But the whole point of Strange Bird Studio is that it’s not about being good at art. It’s about art being good for you.”

She can see the transformation physically. Shoulders drop. People stop asking whether they’re doing things correctly. They cut up old coffee-table books, splash around paint and make bizarre collages that make them laugh.

One woman told Weston afterwards that it was the first thing she had done purely for herself all year. Weston thinks adulthood has lost some of its capacity for play.

“There’s so much pressure to make everything count,” she says. “We’re meant to be achieving something, improving something, earning something, ticking something off. Even our hobbies somehow end up needing to be productive.” Then she adds: “Capitalism, amiright?”

At Strange Bird, people make collages, prints, stamps, zines and cards. Weston describes the desired atmosphere as “sip and paint, but with soul”. The finished object is almost incidental.

“Perfection and creativity are terrible housemates,” she says. Children understand this better than adults: they make things without worrying whether they’re any good or what somebody else might think.

“The good bit is how it feels while you’re making it.”

And when people eventually get up from the table, Weston isn’t particularly concerned with what they’ve made. She hopes they leave carrying something less. “Maybe just a little less weight on their shoulders than they carried in.”

Strange Bird Studio
hello@strangebirdstudio.com.au
strangebirdstudio.com.au

STORY BY MAHMOOD FAZAL
PHOTOS BY KAIYA RAE