Hand Made: Olivia O’Connor

26 June

Olivia O’Connor is a wood carver based in rural Victoria devoted to keeping traditional skills alive.

Words: Phoebe Hartley, Photography: Nicky Cawood.

Olivia O’Connor transforms flora into fauna. The 35-year-old wood carver specialises in making and restoring rocking horses. “I find my inspiration in the natural landscape and the animals,” she says. She works on the outskirts of Victoria’s Leongatha, not far from the home she shares with her husband Paul and their two dogs in Mirboo North, about 150 kilometres south-east of Melbourne. She has carved out a solid place for herself in a traditional niche, with customers around the country. “I figured out recently I’ve got a horse in every state or territory of Australia,” she says proudly.

Olivia grew up on the Mornington Peninsula, surrounded by horses, cattle and sheep, not to mention “we always had dogs and cats and rabbits”. Her Dad was a horse trainer - which perhaps fuelled her interest in rocking horses. “My whole life I’d thought ‘wouldn’t it be cool to make a rocking horse?’” she says. “It was always in the back of my mind.”

After completing a degree in furniture design and construction at Melbourne’s RMIT, she made the big move to Sydney to study prop making and scenic art for theatre and film, at the prestigious NIDA. Olivia lapped up the learning, but struggled in the big city. “I really missed having animals in my life,” she says. “I found that quite hard - apartment living, without much connection to nature.”

Read the rest of this story in Bush Journal Issue 07, where we feature makers using traditional skills in a modern world.