Nikki – ‘Nollie and I first met on the Lismore market circuit being part of the Hand-makers Market. Whilst being involved in those markets I was also running The Treasure Trade. I had that for 2 years and towards the end Nollie came in on it to sell her crafts and sourced / found items. We got along so well and we shared some of the same visions and views about business, fashion and recycling. One day I saw this building in Magellan St was available to rent. I floated the idea with Nollie and she agreed.’
Nollie – ‘As soon as we came in it was, Yes! We had talked about having a business together in the future but then this was available and we thought it was wonderful. We were so excited by the windows. It is a beautiful open space and it inspired us. We couldn’t wait to sign the lease.’
Nikki – ‘The Treasure Trade space was chopped off the side of the pub which was originally a hallway that led to the pokie area and through to the nightclub. It worked to put up weird little displays where people could go around corners and discover something else. We outgrew it when there was the 2 of us in there. It was literally a crack in the wall. No windows and now we have 5.1 metres of windows overlooking Magellan St.’
‘We had started reno’s on the new shop. We were a fair way into it and then Debbie came. All of a sudden this was not a priority, saving the stock from The Treasure Trade was the main focus. After the flood we then had two shops to clean. Oh great, let’s do it twice! Poor Nollie got stuck in a landslide out at Nimbin so she was out there fretting, not knowing what was going on. Her phone went with the car down the landslide too so she was uncontactable. I was here cleaning with the help of our partners. In the end we lost a week of trade at The Treasure Trade. We opened as soon as we could and the community was great and so supportive. We were running the shop 6 days a week to keep an income to afford the reno’s for the new shop. We couldn’t paint flooded, wet, mouldy walls so it was like 2 steps forward, one step back. The reno’s we’d already done had to be redone.’
How did you come up with the name , Bunnyhole?
Nikki – ‘We are both fans of Alice in Wonderland. Also Nollie does a lot of quirky, up cycling of vintage books.
Nollie – ‘One of the things that I love and what Nikki and I have in common is we both have these quirky little subversive art practises where we encounter found things. I never know what I may find and then the ways to work with it. I really like the interaction of image and text. Thats a big part of my work. Putting disparate things together, re-imagining them in a different context.’
Nikki – ‘Nollie often uses illustrations from children books that have sweet bunnies in them a lot of the time. Recently my Nan told me that my surname was Rabbit back when our family were first settling here. Somehow it got changed to Roberts.’
Nollie – ‘The word Bunnyhole has every single letter from our names and right in the heart is two N’s which is the first letters of our names. Right from the beginning it felt consistently right. We tried others names but Bunnyhole is us.’
Nikki – ‘We brought Trish and Trevor, our mannequins from the Treasure Trade with us. As we had all this new window space we thought we should expand the team. So now we have Barb and Buck. When Buck first came to us to start work he had a broken spine and was missing an eye. We had a friend do some physio on him and now his back strength has improved. He’s grown his hair and a big beard so I think it’s helped with his confidence about his vision.’
Nollie – ‘I’m not sure if he and Barb are a couple. I think they are just co-workers and I wouldn’t like to say as it’s a professional environment but just quietly I do wonder what happens when we go home. We’re not sure but there may be a spark perhaps between Trev and Buck. We don’t know. All we know is they are very professional at work.’