Creative collection Meet Lara and Caitlin, the creative duo behind Melbourne-based studio Ink And Spindle
THE CREATIVE PAIR BEHIND MELBOURNE STUDIO INK AND SPINDLE COMBINE A PASSION FOR SUSTAINABILITY WITH GORGEOUS TEXTILES
Caitlin Klooger and Lara Cameron, the duo behind Melbourne textile studio Ink And Spindle, first met in the online creative sphere before crossing paths at trade shows such as the Finders Keepers market. Both artists were separately riding the freelance wave, Lara as a graphic designer and Caitlin dealing in textile design, when they realised their art had a lot in common. “We had a similar aesthetic and similar sustainable values,” says Lara. “It was the right time for both of us to build a business together.”
Fast-forward 12 years, and their business is so successful that they’ve employed a small team of women to help in their welcoming studio, nestled in Melbourne’s beautiful Abbotsford Convent, an arts precinct situated on a bend in the Yarra River. While they started out making ethical textiles for soft furnishings, they have since expanded into photographic work and watercolour paintings.
Pursuing a career as a creative is in the blood for Brisbane-born Caitlin, who moved to Melbourne to study landscape architecture after studying interior design up north. “My dad is an architect and my mum an artist. I have three sisters who are a graphic designer, jeweller and a digital designer.” Growing up in Melbourne, Lara’s experience was similar: her grandmother was an oil painter who fostered her talent from a young age. “I recently found out my grandfather was a dye chemist and my great-grandfather was a German textile weaver, so textiles and colour run in the family,” she says.
With childhood memories of climbing trees and exploring creeks ingrained in the pair like chisel marks in a linocut, it’s no surprise they are championing the Australian landscape through their botanical prints and natural palettes. Their passion for the environment shines through in everything that they do, from choosing organic certified cloths and ink to using compostable packaging. “Sustainability was never a choice, it was just the way it had to be,” explains Caitlin.
This devotion was deepened with the arrival of their children. “They cement the reason we’re doing what we’re doing,” says Lara. “We’re thinking about their future, and their planet, and the duty that we look after it. It’s nice to go into my daughter’s bedroom and it’s not full of odours and offgassing from textiles,” she
“THE AIM WAS ALWAYS TO PRODUCE ETHICAL, SUSTAINABLE TEXTILES, AND WE HAVE NEVER COMPROMISED ON THAT” ~ Lara
continues. (Only bespoke sustainable Ink And Spindle fabrics are used in her children’s rooms.)
The pair’s clients can also personalise textiles to suit their homes, and are often invited to watch their screen-printed designs come to life. It takes two to lift the 1.8-metre metal screen (which they use to create botanical-inspired textiles) onto the 13-metre workbench. “It’s a business that requires a partnership – we would both fall apart in various ways if we didn’t have each other,” admits Lara, laughing. And while their production process is often labour intensive, creativity is at the core of everything they do in the studio. “I always want more time in the day to spend in the studio,” laments Caitlin. “I need to be here more just for my soul.”