Side Projects
AN INTERVIEW WITH SALLY TABARTSix years ago, Sally started Ladies of Leisure as a side project with a then acquaintance. Here, you can listen to or read our interview as we talk through LOL’s beginnings as a print publication to the workshop and community space it is now, social media, motivation, making time, and wrapping it all up with a dollop of good advice you can take with you into your own side projects.
EM: Who are you and what do you do?
ST: I actually really never know how to answer the ‘what I do’ question, because officially, I have a full time job; I am newly the managing editor of The Design Files which is a big design publication in Australia, but I have done a lot of things over my life. I've worked in film production, I've started a kind of side project called Ladies of Leisure which is a community-based group for, not just women but I guess, people who would like to explore themselves. So I find it hard to kind of funnel what I do into one category. I like to think that I like having conversations with people.
When I was 22, so 6 years ago, I had a acquaintance, Savannah, so someone that I met a couple of times, and I don’t know, when you're that age I think I think you're so open to meeting new people, and your eyes are kind of wide and bright and excited, and we kind of just a resonated on level where I think we were both wanting to do things beyond what we were doing at Uni and really excited and interested by this big new creative world that we had recently entered in, and were just kind of in the paddling pool of. So [Savannah] had this idea to do a publication called Ladies Of Leisure, so we did the first three editions together -it's funny ‘cos at the time feminism, and women-centric publication is such a over churned idea now and it's very like commercialised, but at the time there was nothing, like it was around the time Rookie had just launched, and it was a really fun thing to do because it felt so new and so exciting. We did the first three publications over, I think, four years, and over time we started doing these workshops where -because we’d have launch parties for our magazines, and all these people would come and we didn't know who they were or where they were coming from, so we had the idea to start a kind of workshop series that place to go to bring people together.
The first iteration of that workshop series was in a place called, Places for -Spaces for ...things? I can’t remember now. And we did the first series of workshops from there. I was actually in New York at the time so Sav was running them, but we worked on the programming together and it went really well! And then the next year, we did another workshop series, so over 10 days we did a workshop every day with different hosts and that was I think the moment that we realised that it was something that really people wanted because they all sold out immediately.
It took a couple more years, but we always had the back of our minds that we wanted to have a physical space, and an opportunity came up with some guys we knew who had a bar, and there was a space they were renting above the bar... and so we took it! It’s been so good, I can't believe how good it’s been actually.
EM: I did want to ask about how at the start of Ladies of Leisure which was very much is a side project for you how you made room and made time for it with other stuff going on, with a job, that kind of thing?
ST: In those moments where it was difficult it was really just because we wanted to! I think if you have a side project or if you have something that's not paying you any money, you have to love it. You really have to love it. It has to come from something -you have to be motivated by more than just financial gain or even acclaim. It is it was about so much more than that for us and I think it's really kept us both afloat emotionally and spiritually in a away for the last 6 years, because we haven't made a cent off Ladies of Leisure. Everything that we make goes back into our business, which I don't even know if you can call it a business, it goes back into our project, and a lot of time goes into it, but I think the way that we make that time is that we genuinely want to be doing it and we genuinely feel like we are doing something good and people want it. So I guess that's how we make the time.
When we first started Ladies of Leisure the steps where pretty easy; find people to write, edit their writing, and put it in a magazine. And that was kind of a task that could be finished, that you could break down into time. I think that now if we were to do that, I could find time to do that, it might take a long time but, it's just about allocating extra time after work or before or whatever. Often I’ll get up at 6 and spend a couple of hours on my emails, or writing for LOL. I think it was a Coppola who said that “the muse finds you,” if you do something at the same time every day, and I really resonate with that. I like to allocate specific time to do things because I find that my work is better when I know that's what I’ve got to do in that time.
EM: What role has social media played in the growth of Ladies of Leisure if at all?
ST: I think that it has given us a kind of drop pin, if you will, a physical kind of internet presence that we can update easily, because having website is hard to put stuff on, and you can't do it as frequently, so it gives us a place to share with our community and definitely it’s because we've got, I think we've got 28,000 followers or something, which I guess isn’t that many these days -but it's still something. So, people do approach us for opportunities and it helps you get that first foot in the door because you can be like, “Hey, I’m from Ladies of Leisure, you may not have heard of us, but you can go to our Instagram page,” and you can see that it's something. But, we've had many conversations about Instagram and how we want to approach it, and how we want it to influence us or, not, really. We don't post every day, we don't have any sort of schedule. I think especially with the algorithm and the way that it’s changed -I don't want to be a slave to a medium that will inevitably die, and all of our audience that we built on that will go with it. So, I think the way that I approach social media now and especially with Ladies of Leisure is, it’s a useful tool for right now, but in no way am I going to hedge my bets on that as a primary source of anything. It's a kind of necessary thing to have but I don't think that anybody should equate success with what they have on social media.
EM: What advice do you have for creatives who are looking to start a side project, and who look at something like Ladies of Leisure that has grown, and have aspirations for it?
ST: I would say don't start a side project because you want to start a side project. I don't think that there will be any longevity in that and you won't do it if you don't love it. I think you need to interrogate yourself and really figure out why you want to do something, and the best way that that is done. You just have to start, you don't have to -I think of really important thing to know is that you don't have to have an audience to start something. I feel like I've had so many side projects in my life, and Ladies of Leisure is one that other people have resonated with but, all of them I've just started because I needed to do something, I needed to get something out of me and just put it in the world even if there wasn't people looking at it. So the advice I would give is to not get to hung up on whether or not people are paying attention because I think that if you really care about something and you're doing it because you care about it that is the most important thing, and if you do it for long enough people are going to take notice. You shouldn’t try and work backwards, there's no kind of back door to getting into that side project thing. You just have to start from the from the very beginning when nobody knows you are and you don't know what you're doing, and be okay with that.
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EM: Who are you and what do you do?ST: I actually really never know how to answer the ‘what I do’ question, because officially, I have a full time job; I am newly the managing editor of The Design Files which is a big design publication in Australia, but I have done a lot of things over my life. I've worked in film production, I've started a kind of side project called Ladies of Leisure which is a community-based group for, not just women but I guess, people who would like to explore themselves. So I find it hard to kind of funnel what I do into one category. I like to think that I like having conversations with people.
When I was 22, so 6 years ago, I had a acquaintance, Savannah, so someone that I met a couple of times, and I don’t know, when you're that age I think I think you're so open to meeting new people, and your eyes are kind of wide and bright and excited, and we kind of just a resonated on level where I think we were both wanting to do things beyond what we were doing at Uni and really excited and interested by this big new creative world that we had recently entered in, and were just kind of in the paddling pool of. So [Savannah] had this idea to do a publication called Ladies Of Leisure, so we did the first three editions together -it's funny ‘cos at the time feminism, and women-centric publication is such a over churned idea now and it's very like commercialised, but at the time there was nothing, like it was around the time Rookie had just launched, and it was a really fun thing to do because it felt so new and so exciting. We did the first three publications over, I think, four years, and over time we started doing these workshops where -because we’d have launch parties for our magazines, and all these people would come and we didn't know who they were or where they were coming from, so we had the idea to start a kind of workshop series that place to go to bring people together.
The first iteration of that workshop series was in a place called, Places for -Spaces for ...things? I can’t remember now. And we did the first series of workshops from there. I was actually in New York at the time so Sav was running them, but we worked on the programming together and it went really well! And then the next year, we did another workshop series, so over 10 days we did a workshop every day with different hosts and that was I think the moment that we realised that it was something that really people wanted because they all sold out immediately.
It took a couple more years, but we always had the back of our minds that we wanted to have a physical space, and an opportunity came up with some guys we knew who had a bar, and there was a space they were renting above the bar... and so we took it! It’s been so good, I can't believe how good it’s been actually.
EM: I did want to ask about how at the start of Ladies of Leisure which was very much is a side project for you how you made room and made time for it with other stuff going on, with a job, that kind of thing?
ST: In those moments where it was difficult it was really just because we wanted to! I think if you have a side project or if you have something that's not paying you any money, you have to love it. You really have to love it. It has to come from something -you have to be motivated by more than just financial gain or even acclaim. It is it was about so much more than that for us and I think it's really kept us both afloat emotionally and spiritually in a away for the last 6 years, because we haven't made a cent off Ladies of Leisure. Everything that we make goes back into our business, which I don't even know if you can call it a business, it goes back into our project, and a lot of time goes into it, but I think the way that we make that time is that we genuinely want to be doing it and we genuinely feel like we are doing something good and people want it. So I guess that's how we make the time.
When we first started Ladies of Leisure the steps where pretty easy; find people to write, edit their writing, and put it in a magazine. And that was kind of a task that could be finished, that you could break down into time. I think that now if we were to do that, I could find time to do that, it might take a long time but, it's just about allocating extra time after work or before or whatever. Often I’ll get up at 6 and spend a couple of hours on my emails, or writing for LOL. I think it was a Coppola who said that “the muse finds you,” if you do something at the same time every day, and I really resonate with that. I like to allocate specific time to do things because I find that my work is better when I know that's what I’ve got to do in that time.
EM: What role has social media played in the growth of Ladies of Leisure if at all?
ST: I think that it has given us a kind of drop pin, if you will, a physical kind of internet presence that we can update easily, because having website is hard to put stuff on, and you can't do it as frequently, so it gives us a place to share with our community and definitely it’s because we've got, I think we've got 28,000 followers or something, which I guess isn’t that many these days -but it's still something. So, people do approach us for opportunities and it helps you get that first foot in the door because you can be like, “Hey, I’m from Ladies of Leisure, you may not have heard of us, but you can go to our Instagram page,” and you can see that it's something. But, we've had many conversations about Instagram and how we want to approach it, and how we want it to influence us or, not, really. We don't post every day, we don't have any sort of schedule. I think especially with the algorithm and the way that it’s changed -I don't want to be a slave to a medium that will inevitably die, and all of our audience that we built on that will go with it. So, I think the way that I approach social media now and especially with Ladies of Leisure is, it’s a useful tool for right now, but in no way am I going to hedge my bets on that as a primary source of anything. It's a kind of necessary thing to have but I don't think that anybody should equate success with what they have on social media.
EM: What advice do you have for creatives who are looking to start a side project, and who look at something like Ladies of Leisure that has grown, and have aspirations for it?
ST: I would say don't start a side project because you want to start a side project. I don't think that there will be any longevity in that and you won't do it if you don't love it. I think you need to interrogate yourself and really figure out why you want to do something, and the best way that that is done. You just have to start, you don't have to -I think of really important thing to know is that you don't have to have an audience to start something. I feel like I've had so many side projects in my life, and Ladies of Leisure is one that other people have resonated with but, all of them I've just started because I needed to do something, I needed to get something out of me and just put it in the world even if there wasn't people looking at it. So the advice I would give is to not get to hung up on whether or not people are paying attention because I think that if you really care about something and you're doing it because you care about it that is the most important thing, and if you do it for long enough people are going to take notice. You shouldn’t try and work backwards, there's no kind of back door to getting into that side project thing. You just have to start from the from the very beginning when nobody knows you are and you don't know what you're doing, and be okay with that.