A new artisan-made homewares, giftwares and jewellery store will officially open its doors in Dubbo on Wednesday.
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After a well-received pop-up market in 2020, Creative Fusion, run by Dubbo's Laura Dunkley, will operate permanently from its new location on Macquarie Street.
"Basically, it will look like an art gallery, there will be artwork on the walls, but it's artisan-made products - products that are either designed from an artwork that an artist created and then made things from, like a tea towel with the picture printed on it - or it will be beautiful clutches that are hand-sewn here locally, or jewellery, resin boards, candles locally made, there's giftwares and homewares," Mrs Dunkley said.
"But it's all artisan-made and brought in, it's not resold, so It's supporting the people who make it directly. It's supporting the people who have the craft and have learnt the skill."
Mrs Dunkley said the store would sell work from local artists, but also artists living in other regional locations across Australia.
"I've got an artist from regional Victoria and I have some beautiful candles coming from the middle of Queensland, so it's supporting regional artists as well as local ones, it's supporting people who can't just pop down the road into metro Sydney and have three galleries to chose from," she said.
Mrs Dunkley said Creative Fusion would be taking applications on a rotating basis for those wanting to sell their products there.
"There's a panel, which is usually me and two others - that may be myself and other artists, someone I know from the community from an art-buying of gift buying perspective or a friend of mine - to assess the applications, to go, 'we think that fits within what we are doing and that represents the look we are achieving in the space'," she said.
"People can always be applying. There is a limit to the space we've got, so we just want to make sure it's really well curated and the things we're putting in here are well finished. "
Mrs Dunkley said Creative Fusion was unique to Dubbo and had proven to be popular which the pop-up market success was indicative of.
"People get sick of shopping at chain stores and everything's the same. I think having things that are unique and unusual, that you don't see in every second shop, I think that makes it a pretty good destination, and the money stays in the community," she said.
Creative Fusion will operate Wednesday to Saturday "most weeks".
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