Suzie Moncrieff: Containing the World of WearableArt

Today’s episode explores creative success through partnership, told through Suzie Moncrieff’s journey of building World of WearableArt and the often-invisible cost of being the one who creates the container. 

Welcome to Beyond the Template. 

World of WearableArt (WOW): https://www.worldofwearableart.com/

 If you feel like you have done everything possible to get going and keep going with your work… including even taking courses or using coaches… but somehow you continue stalling, that’s what I am here for.  To fill a gap that SO many seem to need.  It’s one thing to know what you want to do, it is quite another thing to actually do it with consistency and perseverance, especially when everything (including your own brain) seems to be getting in the way.  I am here to serve as the creative strategy partner who gets you through to the next phase of you work.  I offer individualized solutions and approaches for my clients that are pumped about their ideas and won’t settle for less than achieving their goals. 

My business, Âme Collaborative offers emotionally intelligent partnership to diverse thinkers, creatives, innovators, and artists feeling the pressure of completion and delivery. My job is to remain by their side and work with them, not against them, to accomplish something that feels too overwhelming alone… while upholding the soul of their work.  If this sounds like you, and you have an idea you are excited about but need help with making a reality, reach out!  

You can email me directly at camelieleboeuf@gmail.com to book a FREE, 30-min 1:1 with me to explore how I can help.

And if you want to learn more about some of the ways I work with my clients, you can visit www.amecollaborative.com wher...

Transcript

Welcome to Beyond the Template everyone! 

I’m Caroline, and I am so excited you are all here for inspiration, entertainment, and community.  If you are new, this is a podcast about creative lives that do not follow straight lines. It is about people who build meaningful work without blueprints, without inherited infrastructure, and often without a helping hand initially. Each week I share the story of what I call, a “Expander”. There are many successful creatives out there, but I only tell the stories of those who I think are relatable to just about anyone, because they didn’t have it easy.  I hope that these lived arcs in narrative help you ask the question for yourself, “Why NOT you?” I also share my own stories as I embody what I believe in… that creative success doesn’t wait for permission or right timing, that it requires trying new things, pivoting and side questing, and that it takes collaborative effort, especially during the long “middle” that most stories skip entirely.  

Last week we talked about Tania Rodger and what it means to be the co-founder whose name is not always the one remembered. Her story showed us the invisible labor behind some of the most iconic and large-scale production ever attempted, and about what it takes to hold vision even when someone else becomes “the face” of the work.  We discovered what the costs are to stay and what the costs are to build something that has or will eventually outgrow you. I think this conversation landed strongly, especially for those of us who know what it feels like to be essential but unnamed or to serve as the foundation of something amazing while remaining unseen. 

Today’s episode continues in these ideas.  We will journey into what it means to leave the “individual brilliance” trope behind and instead pursue containers.  These containers need people to design, build, maintain, and then carry the burden of their success.  They will fall apart without the collaborative hands to hold them in place.

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But! Before we head in that direction, let me share why I am here and what I offer through a very direct and simple message: 

You do not need more discipline. You do not need more ideas. You do not need another cookie-cutter system to download or another mindset to force yourself into.

What you need is to be exactly as you are in your brilliance and creative genius… alongside a grounded partner who can stay with you in the middle.

I partner with diverse thinkers, creatives, innovators, and artists who think in spirals and layers rather than straight lines. These are individuals with large scale visions who feel the pressure of delivery and completion. I help translate the cyclical and intuitive into the calm, strategic, and linear without stripping the soul out of the work.

This might look like a film that has lived in your head for years. Or, a body of expertise that deserves a real structure to teach and share it with others. This could be an event, a retreat, a platform, or a project that gathers people around something you deeply believe in.  

Stop beating yourself up for not being amazing at everything, especially with those skills and tasks that feel like roadblocks, impossible barriers, or so confusing you become frozen and shut down or incapable of taking the next step.  

This concept of the single person at the top of the mountain, or single sovereign at the top of the tower, is a false message that the 1% would have us believe is necessary for success… this message is meant to keep us down because it keeps us isolated and separate from one another.  Let me say this clearly. No one. NO ONE, not even the most rich and powerful people on this planet, got to where they are alone.  They have teams, advisors, committees, and partners.  They might be the face, but nothing we see them do is isolated.  Imagine what WE could do in the world… the good and amazing things we could bring to life… if we embraced our communities and began to build things through shared skillsets and shared talents.  Imagine what the world could be if we became more than just ourselves because we came together.  

This is what drives me to make this podcast each week for you.

All that to say… I am not a coach. I am not a consultant. I am a collaborator. I am here to breathe life into your idea and into YOU, to help you keep going through the hard parts (and the boring parts!). I stay with you through uncertainty, through execution, through recalibration, and through the long stretches where intrinsic or internal motivation alone is not enough.

Now!  If you have listened before, you know I use this platform to show instead of tell… and I have been doing this by sharing my entire journey as I have developed my business, this podcast, and my own understanding of self.  My personal updates are meant to help you get to know me and what I am about and certainly how I get things done.  I myself am living beyond any template set before me.

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So, here I am… scripting this podcast in a tiny little room in a flat at the top of the steepest street I have ever had the pleasured difficulty to walk up and down.  It’s my final day here in Wellington and in New Zealand. Tomorrow, I fly out to Sydney.

I mentioned last week that I got a bit depressed my first few days in this city. I also mentioned that I planned to head to Christchurch for a bit, which I did. The ferry was enormous. About a quarter of the size of a cruise ship! I had no idea how significant this daily crossing is between the islands.  Of course, the ship had to be called the “Interislander”.  It had 9 floors, two movie theatres, a play area for kids, a top open deck, a middle-covered deck, two lounges, and three dining areas… along with ample seating.  I splurged on the lounges… the first because I needed to work… the second because I needed a nap.  It was worth it.  I am worth it.  

The Coastal Pacific train was also hands down amazing. Both times the train was only half full, which meant I could set myself up at a table with my laptop, drafting contracts, getting real work done, and still looking up long enough to breathe in the landscape. There was also an open-air car which was so fun! You had to brace yourself against the railings while the vibration of the train and the wind tried to throw you off balance. And at one point I gave up even trying to capture the views.  They were too big and therefore too elusive to frame on camera.  

Christchurch is still healing. I had heard about the earthquakes on the news years ago, but I did not understand the scale. Eighty five percent of the city was destroyed. And now, they have run out of money trying to bring it back. Everything feels both new and unfinished. Like a scar that is shiny but still tender. What struck me most were the murals which were EVERYWHERE. On buildings, walls, fences, broken pieces from the past and in the forgotten spaces of alleyways. It reminded me of kintsugi, or the Japanese art of repairing cracks with gold to make the new piece even more beautiful than before. It is a place of spiritual presence.  

I worked through most of my time there. Three out of my five days I sat for most of the day in my AirBnb as I was hired on to complete a full contract in a week.  I made sure to support local restaurants and tourist experiences though… including riding the 1910-1920 trolleys and enjoying a ride up and down a mountain on a gondola.  The views were incredible.

But here was the weird part.  When I got back to Wellington, I was happy… like I was coming back home.  Isn’t that wild?  Coming back to the “familiar” even though I had only known this city for four days, felt nice.  What was weird was how uncomfortable I was here (and a bit deflated after building it up in my head for a year and a half) only a week ago.  So what I am discovering is that “home” doesn’t necessarily mean “permanence”.  “Home” might mean, ease, familiarity, comfort, safety and security.  And that’s it.  I rode that feeling yesterday while I enjoyed walking Wellington for hours and hours on Waitangi Day (an extremely important national holiday for New Zealand) without using Google maps, because I already understood the city, how it was laid out, and how to navigate.  And that was an incredible moment after having seven weeks of feeling foreign.  It also makes sense why I was mourning Coco and my little homestay in Auckland at first.  I missed the routine we had created together.  The understanding and expectation that required no decision making… his greeting me in the morning, us going outside, our walks, our meals.  I was missing familiarity.  

I’m looking forward to head to Sydney next, for about two months, across multiple house sits and new sweet little faces to talk to and care for. I know that city will become familiar too. And when I return to it (because I have a deep feeling that I will), I can experience this “knowing” again.

All of this leads directly into today’s Expander.

Last week we moved through Tania Rodger. This week, we move to Suzie Moncrieff.

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Unless you thrive in the world of art, fashion or costume design, you might have never heard the name Suzie Moncrieff, or her legacy. Suzie grew up in rural New Zealand, on the South Island in Nelson. This was a place where practicality mattered and stability was valued. 

She was not privileged. She was not groomed for leadership. While she was raised by two parents were both artists and performers, their craft remained at the smaller local scale.  She did not necessarily have examples of people who turned creative instincts into sustainable and expansive lives. There was no visible pathway for artists to become solvent, let alone influential. She did not grow up with access to networks, mentors, or cultural permission. 

Creativity for Moncrieff existed for her in her life, but it existed quietly and privately.  She observed her parents and then made her own plays where she not only performed, but painted the sets and drew up the characters as well. Creativity was personal, not necessarily professional. In Nelson, passion was something you indulged in, not something you relied on. Creative work was deemed something you did if there was time only after the “real work” was done.

Moncrieff did not initially set out to build an empire. That is an important distinction. Instead she responded to a gap she saw where there was a lack of space and infrastructure for people like her. It was only over time (decades), that the response to her work grew into something much larger than her own creative output, carrying with it both opportunity and cost.

Still, she gravitated toward making. Toward shaping material. Toward exploring form. Sculpture became her language because it was physical and embodied. It required presence. It demanded patience. It did not reward speed or surface level engagement. Sculpture asks you to stay with something long after the excitement wears off. Long before anyone is watching.

Her early work unformed and unfinished.  She was actually rejected from art school when she applied.  And instead, feeling the pressure of realistic expectations, she enrolled to study at the Christchurch Teachers College.  But she intuitively knew what was right for her, and returned to Nelson after a stint of 14 months away where she, again in an attempt to sustain a normal life, ended up working in a psychiatric hospital for longer than any artist might. Sculpture wouldn’t return to her until she was in her 30’s. Along with it, her chosen name Moncrieff, following a series of relationship losses. 

Her first sculpture exhibit was shown in Wellington in the early 1980’s which spawned Moncrieff to seek collaborative partnership for the first time in her creative career.  This is where the first real barrier appeared. Not a shortage of skill or vision, but a structural absence. There was no platform designed to hold this kind of work. The artists existed, but they were scattered. Invisible. Unsupported. And rather than waiting to be recognized, Moncrieff did something quietly radical. She built the thing that did not exist.

She and six other artists, frustrated with the high fees of showing in established galleries, pulled their funds together to buy Cobb Cottage to show their work instead (now named a Category 1 Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga historic place).  Moncrief first thought of the idea of competition for marketing here, to promote the gallery through a national sculpture competition.  This decision would establish the foundational knowledge to which she would use as part of the first World of WearableArt show, or WOW in 1987.

The first WOW was small, intimate and grassroots based. It was certainly not a polished final production.  The labor was personal and unpaid and the energy was communal. Work submitted to WOW sat in an in between space where artists showed their own work and modeled pieces which were wearable, performative, while experimental. These first pieces did not belong fully in galleries, and did not belong in fashion houses either. Which meant it often belonged nowhere at all. Which is crucial, because it is a familiar experience for many creatives attempting to bring something brand new into the world.  They might feel like they are wrong in their aspirations, or lack the talent to succeed.  But the reality is that there may just be a lack of a space for them, or a container which makes sense for their creativity. 

200 people attended that first show.  

Moncrieff did not build from ambition. She built from necessity. She saw talented people with nowhere to put their work, including herself. And she created a space where that work could be seen. But when you build from necessity, you carry more than vision. You carry responsibility of coordination and delivery. You also carry the emotional weight of other people’s hopes.

As the show grew, so did the demands. Each year required more funding, logistics, negotiations, and time. Moncrief, just as Tania Rodger did, slowly shifted from being primarily an artist to being a producer, a fundraiser, a spokesperson, and a negotiator. But her original concept and vision remained intact even though her work in it changed shape. 

Throughout the nineteen nineties, WOW expanded incrementally. Most people think that successful ventures explode like an “overnight sensation”.  But no.  It grew because people responded to it, and because it allowed those in-between artists to be seen.  It created a visual and emotional experience for all who participated. Growth brought validation, but it also brought complexity. And complexity brought pressure.

In 2005, WOW had continued to expand to the point that Moncrieff finally decided to move it to Wellington.  In 2009, a study confirmed that the show contributes to Wellington in the approximate amount of $15 million NZ dollars each year. This was a major turning point. The event then became international where attendance continued to match the spaces the show was offered in. 

Moncrieff was now responsible for holding the dreams of hundreds of artists.  She had already stopped making as a result of the scale increase and instead allowed space for others to do so.  This sort of “container” role is very complex. It requires constant decision making, conflict navigation, risk tolerance, public accountability, and it requires you to absorb the pressure of the entire organism.

This is a role in the creative success journey that is rarely spoken about honestly.  And that is because it’s isolating. It is lonely.

Moncrieff has spoken openly about burnout she experienced through the strain of being both visionary and operator. She has shared about the grief of losing her own creative practice in service of the larger mission. There were moments where WOW was thriving externally, while internally she felt exhausted, stretched thin, and disconnected from the very work that brought her there.

Partnership became essential to sustain WOW.  Teams, producers, operational leaders, sponsors, government relationships, tech experts, administrators, and the confidance from her sister were not optional. Just as she did with the opening of her first gallery space, sharing the burden with 6 others, Moncrieff positioned herself as the visionary heart of the institution, but understood the work itself could no longer be sustained through personal sacrifice alone.

What remained was shared labor. Distributed responsibility. Structure. Systems. And still, the emotional weight did not disappear. Because when you are the originator, the letting go is not clean. There is grief in watching something you birthed take on a life of its own. There is identity loss in stepping back from a role that defined you.

In 2023, WOW was sold and Moncrieff walked away after three and a half decades of dedication. This was the opposite of a failure or retreat.  She had not lost her relevance.  WOW had simple grown beyond her capacity to carry it. Moncrieff was committing act of honesty.  She was smartly acknowledging her limitations. She chose herself over burnout.  

Her story reminds us that building infrastructure is in itself creative work at a certain scale, and that allowing space for others to create is part of the vision which extracts a cost. She shows us that collaborative efforts can be crucial at many phases of the creative work, to the point that allowing others to take hold is necessary and part of the journey.  None of it erases what a visionary has built. 

Suzie Moncrieff did not rise through nepotism or inherit power; she siphoned inspiration and support from those around her.  Her success was impossible alone. Her sustainability depended on partnership. And through her network she built a container for others to do the same because there was none.

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What an inspiring story, right?  For those who have been following along, you already know that this is a “more than just-talk” podcast.  So everyone, it’s time to put what we have learned into practice!

Here’s what I want to leave you with this week.  Write it on a sticky note, in your journals, or somewhere you will see it.

Where in your work have you become the container for everyone else’s vision while quietly abandoning your own, and what kind of individual might you seek out to help you change this pattern without burning everything down?

If this question landed, do not ignore it. 

If you are seeing that you might be carrying something too large, too complex, or too important to keep forcing through by yourself, this is exactly the work I do!

Reach out to me for a real conversation about what you are building, what is heavy, and what kind of support would actually help. You can find me through my website or email, which is listed in the podcast description for you. 

To all my listeners, thank you for joining me today!  I hope you continue in the pursuit of your projects and your dreams.

Keep it up, keep it creative.