If you follow me on social media, it looks like I’m always out of the house: cruising around the streets looking fancy, checking the talent at community art events, general urban marauding.

But next Saturday 7 October I’m heading to a styling session at the Rag Pop Up Market at the Perth Town Hall.  I’ve never been to a styling session before (can you tell?), and this one is going to low-key with lots of personal space because it’s a group learning session – not someone one-on-one telling me to declutter my overstuffed wardrobe.

I’m going to be learning about trends, styles, fashionable palettes and on point accessories for Spring and Summer with Style by Juvelle (actually I’m already jealous of her stylish name.)

However, none of this really sound like my jam, does it?  I’ve never been one for being told what I should be doing and would rather battle through the textile undergrowth with a machete carving out my own look, swinging from “corporate bohemian” to “parrot that fell out of the dress-up box”.

But I like to try new things.  And learn new things.

And this is something that I tell people in my art workshops all the time.  (I just need to remember my own advice). 

If you just learn ONE AWESOME THING from a lesson, workshop, class, lecture, etc, then it’s worth it. 

One penny drop moment, one bright idea, can change everything. 

But sometimes, you don’t learn a tip or a trick, a talent or a skill.  Nope.  Sometimes the real lesson is an overall appreciation.

Many years ago I went to a 2-day enamelling workshop.  How to make your own cloisonné bead.  I love enamel jewellery, the colour is vivid and the patterns delicate.  It’s gorgeous!!  But holy cow, I swear I grew 3 extra thumbs that first day and then managed to stick them altogether.  Carefully placing bent wire and squishy enamel on a 2mm wide sliver of a round bead, trying to defy physics by keeping the heavy portion of the bead top-side up and not swivel around on its metal prong and plonk all the enamel on the bottom of the kiln.  So frustrating.  So much so that I couldn’t face a second day of continuing to work on the same sodding bead!  These people have the patience of a glacier.  (My friend persevered with the 2nd day and the instructor finished my bead for me.  It’s here in the bead box waiting for a project.)

But what I did learn was not so much HOW to enamel, but how to APPRECIATE the art and to UNDERSTAND the cost of these things, in time and skill. 

So I need to keep my mind open for next Saturday at the styling session with Juvelle.  Let me see what tricks she’s got up her stylish sleeves that I can incorporate into my outfits (with more ease than that cloisonné bead!).