Words: Elissa Friday

“As a female and an actor it’s always very competitive,” says Geelong writer-director Miranda Nation.
“There aren’t always many roles and I wanted to create strong roles for women.
“I’d like to think that through my work and the way I cast my films there’s room to make some positive change as well, in terms of equality and diversity.”
Miranda will have a chance to apply her film-making ethos to Undertow, which she begins shooting soon in Geelong and the Surf Coast, with a $2 million budget.
A former student of Montpellier Primary School and Geelong College, Miranda grew up at Highton with her teacher mum and pharmacist dad before moving to Melbourne for university.
“I originally studied medicine but dropped out to pursue acting, which some may say was a foolish choice but, you know, I always wanted to be a creative.
“It took that courage to follow the path that I always dreamed of.”
So in 2000 Miranda went to Paris to study acting at L’Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jaques Le Coque.
“Geoffrey Rush actually studied there,” she says.
Intent on making her own work, Miranda returned to Australia to write for film before going on to study directing in Sydney for a year.
She won a best short movie award at 2013’s Sydney Film Festival and was nominated for an actor award in 2014.
Undertow, to be filmed in 2017, will be the first full-length movie she has made.
But the $2 million budget is “pretty tight” for an away-shoot from her Melbourne base, she says.
“The story is about a couple who lost a baby and struggle to deal with that grief and they meet a young woman who’s pregnant,” Miranda explains.
“It’s about the way that they start trying to care for her, projecting their unresolved grief onto her and wanting to kind of protect her and her baby, so it’s a thriller but in a very understated and subtle way.
“We’re in casting, were location-scouting, we’re raising private investments – the stuff that goes on behind the scenes that you have to do to get the film to the stage where you’re shooting.”
Miranda’s writing is “performance-driven,” so she enjoys collaborating with her actors during rehearsals and shoots to “bring the characters to life,” she says.
“Ultimately, I’m about wanting to tell a great story.”
With a baby girl, Miranda has little time spare outside work but loves going to the cinema, even though it’s “still in the realm of work”.
She also enjoys yoga, running, walking, getting out of Melbourne to swim in the ocean and being “connected to this part of the world”.

From barrels of oil to relationships and labelling – ELISSA FRIDAY meets three female success stories operating diverse Geelong businesses

Delivering, loading and unloading 200-litre oil drums was just the start for M&R Distributors owner and director Monique Holmes-Richardson.
“It was only me back then,” Monique says of her experience as a teenage entrepreneur.
“I used to rep and deliver everything myself in the truck.
“I had to learn how to move the 200-litre drums – they had to make me a tool so I could lift it on its side and roll it.”
Just learning to physically move the drums took nearly 18 months, Monique remembers.
“When I started there weren’t any female oil reps or even females within the industry, so that was pretty tough.
“Men were not so nice to me when I was 18 and started out, so you have to overcome those obstacles.”
Now on top of running M&R Distributors, Monique’s also a Highton “taxi” mum of three children and has volunteered with local charity Our Women Our Children for 11 years.
She had just finished studying at Geelong College when she started distributing oil and synthetic lubricants in 1992 “by default” after the death of her father.
“I was heading off to uni and dad’s cancer spread rapidly, so I stayed behind to help mum because I had two younger sisters.
“Dad’s business was oil distribution and we had service stations, so I’d worked in those before on school holidays.
“Dad died during the recession, so it was pretty tough and the economic state of Geelong was shocking.
“I was 18 at the time and had never seen anything so depressing – people were, grown men, were so depressed about working, or had no work or money. Everyone was in debt.
“It wasn’t a nice time at all to start my life in business but we just grew and saw some opportunities and the main company that I was dealing with was growing rapidly, too.”
Four years ago Monique changed oil companies for the first time in 19 years, sending M&R Distributors through “a complete 360”, she says.
“I had to reinvent myself, my business. I feel like I started all over again building Hi-Tech’s brand, which had never been in Geelong before.
“Has it been hard? Yes, I don’t think I’d want to do that kind of change again.”
“But I’m dealing with really good people and good support. We’re predominantly looking at the trucking industry, farms and automotive garages but we now deal with all market segments”.
During the brand rebuilding phase Monique identified an opportunity to become a “one-stop shop” for her existing clientele. She expanded her range with items such as cleaning products, helping customers purchase all their essentials with the one order.
With a staff of five, the North Geelong-based company now services everything from trucking and farming businesses through to hotels.
“Our products are not the cheapest – we don’t want to be the cheapest,” Monique says.
“We just want a quality product that compares to the price.”
With truck-driver clients who “rave out” M&R’s products, the company now also exports to Malaysia and Thailand.
“Most of my clients I’ve had for 24 years, so I know their feedback is going to be honest,” Monique laughs.

With multiple business interests, Geelong’s Samantha Krajina “was always very entrepreneurial”.
“But I loved accounting. When I sat my CA (chartered accountancy exams) I got 98 in tax – what a nerd,” Samantha giggles.
Before she was an accountant Samantha started out as a child model until a “very bad experience with an agency” inspired her to start her own.
Samantha used her “great relationships” with brands from her modelling experiences to create a nationwide agency with models in every state.
Samantha grew up in Geelong, attending Catholic Regional and Clonard colleges before finishing her university degree in two years.
“I loved learning,” she declares.
“My husband calls me a sponge.”
Now mum to Emir, 3, and one-year-old Mazen, her children’s names were the inspiration for her kid’s clothing label, Emaze Me.
After six months working on product development, Samantha launched her online brand just over a year ago.
She creates the Emaze Me designs herself, incorporating her psychology studies to keep all the wording on the kids’ T-shirts “cute an innocent”, she explains.
‘Oh My, Dear Me’ and ‘Future CEO’ have hit a chord as two of her best-sellers, Samantha says.
She particularly enjoys developing ideas as a key aspect of her businesses.
“It’s like you never work,” she says,
“But the journey to get there is a different thing. Sometimes you have to do those things you don’t want to do in order to get to that space where you’re enjoying what you do every day.
“I’ve definitely endured that journey.”
Samantha’s interest in psychology also inspired her to write a blog and establish a relationships business with husband-of-15-years Emir.
They have based the business on their studies of neuro-linguistic programming and multiple brain integration techniques.
“They’re kind of the study of the brain and behaviours, the study of psychology more than psychology itself,” she explains.
The couple established E&S Relationship Specialists, their first business together, five years ago.
Emir covers the personal side, working with couples, singles, families and schools to improve inter-personal relationships. Samantha deals with medium to large corporate clients on issues such as personal and professional development, leadership and customer service.
Like Emaze Me, E&S Relationship Specialists has a strong digital presence, including an active website and The Dating Wingman app, which won the praise of judges at the 2014 iDate Awards.
“We came runner-up in front of Tinder for ours but it’s not a pick-up app, it’s just to help users with their dating.
“That (the app) is part of how I tried to get our name out there when we started.”
Samantha is also the brains behind Geelong Women In Business, which she launched in April after developing an appreciation for the value of networking groups while working in Melbourne.
“It really took off,” Samantha says.
“People often ask, ‘Why is it just women, why not men?’ The true answer is, ‘Because women face different challenges to men, not lesser or more or greater or worse, they’re just different’.
“For myself as a woman, I know I face different challenges; having two children, working as an accountant in a male-dominated industry. It’s character-building and provides life lessons that build who you are.
“We’re definitely not a feminist or sexist group, we just support the different challenges women face.
“There are so many smart, wonderful, incredible women in Geelong who are popping up these innovative and clever businesses.”
Samantha also describes herself as a “venture capitalist”, working behind the scenes in four other businesses.
She spends time with coaching and utilising her “vast network” to help ambitious young entrepreneurs get the businesses up and running.
When she’s not working, Samantha enjoys spending time “at the You Yangs every other day” with her kids.
“They’re the coolest little dudes you’ll ever meet,” she says.

Stuck On You’s Carrie Felton describes herself as “the CEO who isn’t fond of titles”.
“We have to have a title for the organisational chart but I believe everyone in our business should and does have a voice, so mine shouldn’t be loudest,” she says.
The Ceres resident began her global business in a spare room, which later became the bedroom of her middle child, Harry.
She hit on the idea for Stuck On You when she wanted to label eldest son Charlie’s school gear with “something better than a Band-Aid and black marker”.
She approached a printer for labels in “three different colours with black text”.
“I asked the printer to put an aeroplane on it and I liked them, so I got a graphic designer to make some up for me.”
Utilising her network of friends and the “bush telegraph” of social media, Carrie then sent order forms with sticker samples to 487 contacts.
She received back 463 orders, some with one child’s name and others up to four.
“I realised that this was a product needed or wanted,” Carrie says.
“I think I’m good at following my gut instinct – it’s stood me in good stead along the way.”
Stuck On You has branched out over its 21 years to now also offer other kids’ products including various accessories, stationery products and clothing.
Twelve years ago Carrie expanded the business with the acquisition of Penny Scallan Designs, which now sells a range of products ranging from children’s luggage and lunchboxes through to back-packs, drink bottles, rainwear and bedroom accessories.
With distributors in Asia, Europe and America, Carrie’s business interests now ship orders to 127 countries.
Stuck On You, based at Breakwater, employs 50 permanent staff and up to 90 during peak periods. About 15 people work in various offices overseas.
“We also have warehousing in America, Poland, China and Australia,” Carrie says.
She credits her “creative and nimble team” of “forward-thinking people” with helping make Stuck On You an international success.
“I’m very busy. There’s not a lot of down-time for me at this stage in business – it’s growing exponentially overseas.”
The business also supplies 900 retailers in Australia, including David Jones, which Carrie puts down to an emphasis on “quality and design”.
She counts her business goals as “making life easier for mums” with “good-quality products”, especially the labelling items.
“They help mums spend less time looking for lost property”.
Carrie’s husband was a pilot but retired from flying to become more active in her business.
“He works closely with our CFO (chief financial officer) and the rest of our accounts team, mainly managing foreign currency exchange,” she says.
Away from work, Carrie loves cooking at home to socialise with friends and family.
“We have a large social life, we live in the country and entertain a lot.”

A campfire proposal leads to marriage vows for long-time locals Caitlin Ciangura and Liam Bainbridge.

Words: Elissa Friday
Pictures: Louisa Jones

WHERE THEY GREW UP
Caitlin Ciangura was raised at Lara and Liam Bainbridge had been living in Geelong from his teens. They’ve now resided happily together at Bell Park for the past two years.

HOW THEY MET
“We met through my brother – Liam was friends with my brother,” Caitlin says.
“We’d known each other for a while, Caitlin and Liam went on their first date three years ago.
“We went out for lunch, then to Avalon Beach to check out the boat ramp.”

THE PROPOSAL
The couple went camping in the Ottways where Liam proposed by a campfire.
“Liam lit the fire then got down on one knee with the ring in a box and with a bottle of red wine,” Caitlin says.
“I was taken by surprise. There were tears of joy and I said, ‘Yes’.”

THE PLANNING
Caitlin and Liam married last autumn within a year of their engagement.
“We had a fairly big wedding at Barwon Park Mansion in Winchelsea, with about 130 guests and we had a sit down dinner,” Caitlin says.
Family and friends helped with the planning but the couple handled most of it themselves.

HENS AND BUCKS
“No, Liam did and I didn’t,” Caitlin laughs.
“He played golf in Geelong and went out for dinner and some drinks.”

THE DRESS
Caitlin already had a dress in mind after seeing her ideal dress in bridal magazines.
“I had an Anna Campbell dress. I didn’t want anything too big at the bottom of the dress.
“I also had a white and green bouquet.”

BRIDESMAIDS & GROOMSMEN
Caitlin had five flower girls and three bridesmaids. Liam had three groomsmen.
“My flowergirls were all our nieces,” Caitlin says.
“One bridesmaid was my sister and two were my sisters-in-law.
“Woodland Weaver made my bouquet and bridesmaids’ flowers.”
Caitlin chose the navy blue of her bridesmaids’ dresses but they chose the design.
“Liam’s three groomsmen were his brother and his two of his best mates,” Caitlin says.

FLOWERS
The couple put together their own flowers, which were small arrangements on each table.
“They were white and green, fairly simple,” Caitlin says.
“We got all the flowers two days before the wedding and Liam, me and the family spent the morning the day before the wedding, putting them together.”

THE CEREMONY
The couple married at Manifold Heights’ Holy Spirit Church.
“I was pretty nervous,” Caitlin admits.
“I walked down the aisle to the song Ave Maria by Beyonce.
“It was a lovely ceremony.”
Liam and Ciatlin walked out to Stand By Me.

PHOTOGRAPHY
The couple had professional photos taken by Louisa Jones Photography.
“One photo we had taken in my dad’s garden at home was one of my favourites,” Caitlin says.
Other settings were Avalon Beach and the grounds of Barwon Park Mansion.

ENGAGEMENT
Liam chose Caitlin’s engagement ring “all on his own”.
“We had a personal engagement with all our family at mum and dad’s house and had a sit down lunch,” Caitlin says.

RECEPTION
Caitlin went for a “simple set-up that was more rustic”.
“Dad made timber planter boxes that we filled with succulents around the outside of the room,” she says.
The couple decorated the room with green and white.

THE CAKE
“I say a cheese cake but it was actually wheels of cheese,” Caitlin says.
The couple’s three-tier cake featured wheels of pecorino, maasdam, edam and brie.
Cheese platters and dessert platters were served at the end of the night.
“That was my idea,” Caitlin says.
“We enjoy cheese and wine and wanted to incorporate that.”

FIRST DANCE
“We danced to a John Legend song, Stay With You, for our first dance.
“I was pretty nervous, it was nice,” Caitlin says.
The flower girls joined in at the end of the song.
“It was good fun and they loved it.”

THE FAVOURS
“My dad made them for us and Liam and I helped,” Caitlin says.
“They were mini cheese boards and we had our initials, L&C, with est 2016 branded onto the timber.”
The couple also gave guests a cheese knife with a thank-you card attached.

HONEYMOON
The newlyweds went to New Zealand for 10 days.
“It was something we had been talking about. Liam wanted to go outside of snow season and I’d never been before,” Caitlin says.
They travelled to the south island, from Christchurch to Queenstown.
“It was great,” Caitlin says.
“It’s a beautiful place and the scenery was great. We did some jet boating, which was lots of fun.”

By Luke Voogt

Queenscliff’s former gasworks site has become a leafy haven for a couple who lost a property in the Black Saturday disaster. LUKE VOOGT admires their handiwork.

Pictures: Louisa Jones

Dale and Neil Trezise’s move to their Queenscliff home was more than timely – it was life saving.
They moved to their newly-finished house in February 2009 as a Black Saturday bushfire tore through their eight-hectare property near Kinglake.
“This place saved our lives,” Dale says.
“We’d have died like the neighbours did.”
The couple found the property – the former site of Queenscliff’s gasworks – in their 2006 quest to build a beach house.
The gasworks were Queenscliff’s only industrial site and supplied the town with gas from 1884 to 1960 – when the government tore it down.
“I found this little piece of land being sold by the State Government,” Dale says.
“It was vacant land, north-facing, with amazing views of Swan Bay.”
The couple bought two of the four blocks available and took them two and a half years to build their home, which mimics architecture of the original gasworks.
“It’s a modern architect’s interpretation of the buildings that were there,” Dale says.
Dale and Neil love their eight-bedroom house, which they designed as a coastal getaway for their children and 10 grandchildren.
“It gets busy but you don’t really notice because if necessary you can press the two kitchens into work,” Dale says.
But her pride and joy are her “pocket gardens”.
“The garden’s tiny but it produces a huge amount of produce,” she says.
While some might see its size as a limitation Dale says the lack of space was a perk. It took her mere weeks to get it growing.
“Some of the builders gave me some plants and popped them in,” she says.
“It wasn’t a great hassle. It’s a moveable feast and it’s manageable for old people. I can keep changing it rather than doing acres and acres like I did in St Andrew’s (the couple’s previous property).”
The 71-year-old loves moving through the garden collecting herbs for cooking.
She’s got all the “usual” herbs like thyme and parsley, and more “unusual” varieties like Vietnamese mints and cardamom.
“It’s a Zen experience, it’s so restful,” she says.
Dale grows a wild array of citrus and other fruits, which she uses in baking and to season local fish.
With onions, lettuce and avocados growing in Dale’s handmade compost, and her other garden in Ocean Grove’s industrial estate, she rarely has to buy produce.
One of the garden’s more unique fruits is a Japanese yuzu tree – believed to be a hybrid of sour mandarin and Ichang papeda.
“The taste is a cross between a tart mandarin, a lemon and an orange,” Dale says.
Dale’s favourite non-edible plants include her colourful wisterias and six special jacarandas.
The trees are a living memorial to all she and Neil lost at St Andrews – from their neighbours to the trees on their property.
“They were just tiny burnt sticks so we brought them down and planted them,” she says.
“They are very beautiful jacarandas. They were worth saving.”
Dale says people often mistake her house for a restaurant.
“People walk into the courtyard all the time – they just wander in to have a look.”
But the couple are happy to open their garden to the public officially, as they did one sunny morning last year to help the Uniting Church fund-raise for the homeless.
“We had 500 people go through,” Dale says.
“My husband’s an organist so we had a music recital as well.”
The couple plan to spend the rest of their lives in Queenscliff.
“It’s a brilliant place to live,” Dale says.
“From we live you can walk to the shop, the restaurants, the marina, and, dare I say it, the pub. And of course I can admire everybody else’s gardens.”

By Luke Voogt

After thousands of kilometres, closed borders and nasty bouts of food poisoning Myles Benham has conquered the great continental adventure: the Mongol Rally.
Luke Voogt takes a look back at the Barwon Heads local’s amazing journey.

If Myles Benham learnt anything from his 10,000km-plus adventure in an old Citreon, it’s that generosity exists in unexpected places.
“We have met countless people who have shown us the most incredible hospitality,” he says.
“But Iran has easily set the bar for generosity and kindness.”
Myles and his German friends David and Maja drove through the “Axis of Evil” country in their quest complete the Mongol Rally.
They joined hundreds of people in the rally, driving busted up old cars from Europe to Ulan Bator each year.
In Iran the trio stopped in Hamadan – one of the world’s oldest cities – and asked a young man for wi-fi.
The Iranian invited them to stay, took them to the world’s largest underground lake and threw a party – just to show them a good time.
He even phoned his cousins in Tehran and Esfahan to show the trio around when they got there.
“All from one question on the street,” Myles exclaims.
“So many Iranian people helped us with directions, invited us for lunch or dinner and were generally interested in ensuring we enjoyed our time.”
The Geelong Indy first spoke to Myles in September as he and “Team Pineapple” reached Turkey, after travelling through Austria, Slovenia and the Balkans.
“My friends and I just wanted to do something different,” Myles said.
“The opportunity of going to places like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan, which are not normal travel destinations, was something that we found very exciting.”
Myles had jumped 24m from Stari Most Bridge in Bosnia and Herzegovina a few weeks before.
The 16th Century Ottoman bridge was reconstructed after being destroyed during the Croat-Bosniak War.
“Making the plunge into the icy water below was absolutely insane,” Myles said.
The trio launched their quest from Germany in an old Citreon, which had been gathering dust in Maja’s parents’ garage.
“After some convincing and pleading to her parents we were allowed to drive it to Mongolia.”
The trio camped and paraglided in the Iranian desert and rode borrowed horses to cross a river in Georgia.
They flew over the Turkish city of Goreme in a hot air balloon at sunrise, drove on winding European roads through the mountains and ate with Kyrgyzstan nomads.
Their 20-country-plus journey even brought them to the “Gates of Hell”.
Myles was amazed by the flame-ridden Darvaza Crater, known locally as the “Door to Hell”, a five-hour drive from the Turkmenistan capital Ashgabat.
“The crater is the result of soviet exploration in the ’70s I think and it’s emitting natural gas, which is what is burning,” he says.
But the trip had its challenges.
The aptly-named Team Pineapple hit a roadblock in Montenegro due to a small landslide in the mountains, and closed borders in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.
“The greatest challenge was trying to leave Uzbekistan,” Myles says.
“We planned to be in Uzbekistan for their Independence Day and after visiting the Silk Road cities of Bukhara and Samarkand we wanted to leave for Tajikistan.
“What we didn’t know when planning the trip was that Uzbekistan celebrates Independence Day for five days and during that time almost all the borders are closed down.”
The trio also ran short of money in Iran.
“Iran has no international ATMs and therefore you need to take all the cash you need into the country,” Myles says.
“We vastly underestimated how much we would need for two weeks and got stuck with no money, not enough petrol to get to the border and a bill at our hostel.”
Luckily a nearby high-end hotel had a service which the German Embassy organised for them to use.
“We paid our bills, drove through the night on chocolate, energy drinks and loud music and were able to leave without any more problems.”
The three friends suffered food poisoning at the worst timer possible – when they needed to cover a long distance due to visa issues.
“So instead of lying in bed close to the bathroom we have all been forced at different times to endure long hours cramped in the car and many stops in less than ideal places to relieve ourselves.”
And despite it being the Mongol Rally Myles never entered the country.
“I had some trouble with my visa so I couldn’t enter Mongolia but instead entered Russia from Kazakhstan and took the train into Siberia.”
“The train back to Moscow was 86 hours with the typical drunk Russians which was an interesting stereotypical experience.”
Myles was amazed by the generosity of locals everywhere the trio went.
“A Turkish family hosted us for two nights in Bursa and showed us around, which was a great experience for all of us,” Myles says.
An elderly Montenegrin couple allowed the group to camp in their spare paddock, overlooking the mountains, while a Herzegovinian invited them to a secret garden party on an island near his village.
“We also stopped at some random blackberry bushes in Serbia for a photo,” Myles says.
“The lady there was so welcoming – despite not speaking English. She showed us which ones to pick and wouldn’t let us leave without taking a huge basket of them.”
After the “blur” of the rally Myles is settling back into the daily grind after moving to New Zealand.
“It’s been a little tough getting back into the real world and setting the alarm every morning, but my mum is happy that I’m back in countries she has heard of and knows are safe.”
The car made it back to Germany but it was in serious need of a good service.
“I think it’s currently for sale in Germany although there are not too many takers considering its recent journey.”

Balmy evenings, a cool sea breeze and a barbecue – if there’s one thing Australians love it’s relaxing with family and friends.
As outdoor entertaining gets fancier and entertainers upgrade from the good old snag to full-on roasts, so too do alfresco areas.
Now so much more than just a barbeque and an outdoor setting, the alfresco area is an extension of the home.
The outdoor kitchen creates a ‘transterior’, bringing the outside into the home and the inside out in a seamless integration
They are now a high priority on new-home buyers’ and renovators checklists and the key to a great alfresco area is in the planning.
Newgrove owners Sean Blood advises to plan before going out and purchase a barbecue.
“We see too many people rushing out and purchasing an inappropriate barbecue and then find it doesn’t suit the area or there are better options for a seamless transition from benchtop to barbecue,” Sean said.
“When planning, think about how you will use the space and what’s important to you.
“Will you still use your main kitchen for food preparation and then cook outside or do you want to be able to do everything outside? This will determine your choice of appliances, whether you need a sink, is there access plumbed water or natural gas and how much bench space you will need.
Beverage centres, including under-counter bar fridges, bottle cooling and ice storage, can be incorporated into alfresco areas, Sean said.
He advises that alfresco area benchtops and cabinetry must be durable to withstand harsh sunlight and torrential storms.
Sean recommends DuPont Corian as an all-weather material.
“It’s a hi-tech solid surface that’s perfect for the outdoors. Colours and patterns run through the entire thickness of the material and cannot wear away.
“Corian is easy to clean and maintain and it does not stain. Grease and fat simply wipe away with hot, soapy water.”
Corian is available in a range of UV stable colours. Dark colours are not recommended for external applications.
More information about Newgrove and its products is available at newgrovebenchtops.com.au. Newgrove’s showroom, featuring an alfresco area display, is open 6.30am to 4.30pm, Monday to Friday.

By Luke Voogt

Music is Sweet Felicia’s salvation.
“I would be dead without it,“ she says. “Well, without that, my two fur children and some excellent therapy.”
The veteran Geelong songstress has survived sexual assault, financial trouble and a troubled childhood.
“I’ve been abused until I almost died,” she says candidly.
“You feel like you’re the victim and it’s your fault.“
The 59-year-old, her siblings and her World War II veteran father suffered at the hands of her mother as a child.
“There was absolutely no help for that sort of thing when I was growing up in the ’70s.”
“My mother tried to kill him so many times in front of us. She was so insane he was constantly protecting us from her.”
But in her darkest times her music and her two little dogs Bessie and Harlem have kept her going.
“It’s basically saved me from degenerating into a drug-addict loser – as what happens to so many who go through that.”
Sweet Felicia has always been in love with music. But it became her calling when her brother’s band mate invited her to play his bass.
“Once I played it knew it was what I had to do.”
For three decades Felicia has travelled the country her “jump swing” blues, while working as a systems analysts, shoe salesperson and everything in between.
Her up-tempo music and smoky voice saw her win the Melbourne Blues Challenge in 2011 and represent Victoria in Memphis the next year, where she made the semi-finals.
“It was absolutely amazing,” she says. “It was the first time in my life I had been out of Australia.”
But nothing tops playing with the late Blues legend B.B. King in Brisbane during the late ’90s.
“He was such a gracious and kind man, and it was an honour to meet him,” she says.
Felicia moved to Geelong seven years ago.
“I was working on the (Bellarine) Blues Train and Melbourne just got a bit too expensive to live in,” she says.
When she’s not playing at Pistol Pete’s or a festival gig, she’s mentoring Geelong’s young blues artists.
“I just want to help them navigate the industry,” she says. “It can be very tough out there, especially for women.”
She runs song-writing workshops for mental health networks – using music to help others, as it helped her.
“It makes a big difference in their lives – it’s basically musical therapy I guess.”
Catch Felicia’s next at Bluestone Blues Festival in Murgheboluc.