About Me
My name is Lesley - brought up in the English countryside, collecting tadpoles from ditches, climbing trees and helping with the farmer’s pigs next door, I had my first taste of city life at Leeds University where I studied Music and languages. This involved a year in France where I spent most of my time in the art galleries of Paris. In my spare time I worked at a vintage clothes shop at Leeds Market where I developed a taste for 1930s and 1940s dresses. After university I chased the bright lights of London as I tried to make it as a singer. I had a great time touring Europe with various choirs (again visiting all the galleries) but didn’t quite make a career out of singing. Instead I ran off to Spain with a Hungarian conductor! We lived in Barcelona, which is my favourite city in the world, while I taught English and learned Spanish at great speed. Meanwhile I was restoring a wonderful old 16thC stone cottage in a little village north of Barcelona which we moved into in 1995. Village life in Catalunya was like getting back to my childhood of being surrounded by nature and I got really involved with my garden growing olive trees, and all things mediterranean. I spent several years there volunteering for the local animal welfare group, fostering and re-homing dogs. I got so involved I even got qualified as a vet nurse so I could do more for the dogs, hence you will see my fascination for dogs in my Art Deco dogs pages! Well, life moves on, and I now live in Australia with my new (ish) partner Andre. (Gosh is it already 8 years - how did that happen?) I brought three of my Spanish dogs with me to Australia, but sadly only one remains, my lovely Jessie, rescued as a puppy. Recently we've moved house and have a lovely Federation home dating to 1890. A bit early for Art Deco, but my collection looks very much at home here. We’ve picked up bits of furniture, sculptures, kitchenalia, pictures and ceramics from auctions, the internet, garage sales and all over. My love of the internet started when I discovered ebay and hasn’t stopped since. I've been selling all sorts on ebay for the last few years - but mostly costume jewellery - my ebay name is 950lesley. See whether I have any Art Deco items on Ebay Australia right now by scrolling down to the bottom of the page. A few years ago a friend at the university introduced me to Bakelite. She is an avid button collector and has her own online button shop www.thebuttonbower.com. I got on the internet and was hooked. I had never worn jewellery that much, but Bakelite jewellery was something else. I loved the colours, the feel of it, the clunk of it, the smell of it and the shapes. It also sucked me back into that wonderful period of the 1920s -1940s which I had loved as a student. Recently I had fun selling some Bakelite jewelry and other Art Deco goodies at the
Kurrajong Antiques Market.
I’ve had an exciting life, but now another new world is opening up to me – the world of websites – and I’m creating my own. Luckily I’ve discovered the easiest way in the world to do this for a person like me with minimal computer skills – the Site Build It method. They have done virtually everything for me, so I can get on with the bit I like best, writing about Art, Art Deco, Bakelite and all those gorgeous things. And what’s even better is that I'm starting to make some money out of it. You know I might even be able to give up the day job soon. Seriously! There’s link below for Site Build It if you’d like to make your passion into a website like me.
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