Luzette Crossan has never been one to blend into the background. (4-minute read)

When she first arrived in Ōamaru with her now husband Phil about 18 years ago, she felt conspicuous in the small, seemingly conservative town.

“I felt like I was the only young South African, and everybody was wearing black and grey, no earrings or makeup, and these . . . Kathmandu fleeces. Everywhere I went, it was easy to remember me, because I had this strong accent and I was wearing bright colours.” 

The artist described herself as a “loose cannon” growing up in Pretoria, and so her mother sent her away, to board at a prestigious high school.

“With the hopes of the hostel pulling me into line and all that.

“I didn’t know anybody when I started high school, and that was very daunting, but it also taught me quite a bit of how to be with people, how to get to know people, how to make people feel comfortable around you and that sort of thing.” 

After high school, she felt a lot of pressure to succeed. In a country with a large population and not enough employment opportunities, you had to be the best in your field to get work, she said.

“So everybody’s got that real pressure from high school to perform and be the best - and I just couldn’t keep up with that, and so I decided to go overseas.”

She sold some artwork she had done at school, and made enough money to buy a return ticket to the United Kingdom, and five nights in a hostel. Within those five days she got a job as a chef.

She met her Kiwi future husband Philip Crossan, “and the rest of that part of my life is kind of history”.

The couple worked in the UK and travelled until their visas expired, and then came back to do the same in New Zealand, but “life happened” and they married and settled in Ōamaru, Phil’s home town.

Luzette earned a reputation as a great chef, and when her nine-year-old twins Laura-Ann and Flynn were six months old, she started running Vines restaurant in Waimate.

She was working for Ann and Gary Dennison - “lovely people” - at Te Kiteroa Lodge. The restaurant was to help showcase their winery.

By 2016, she was working 80 to 90 hours a week, and ended up having a nervous breakdown.

“So that’s kind of where my life took the turn, to where I am now.” 

She blamed her need to work so hard as a hangover from growing up in South Africa. 

“I think I was very much in that South African mindset of having to keep up with everybody. I was constantly comparing myself to other people, and like ‘Oh my gosh, how do they get to drive those cars and live in those houses, and get to have those clothes, they must be working like mad, because I’m working like mad and I’m not getting there’.

“So I just kept on doing it, kept on going, ignoring my body.”

Until her body refused to be ignored.

“I literally woke up one morning and couldn’t get into my phone - I couldn’t remember the password.

“Just silly stuff, I couldn’t get the car into reverse, yeah - and then I started vomiting, and that sort of stuff. 

“It was a real physical reaction in my body to just go ‘nah, you’re done’, and I never knew that your body was that strong - to over-ride you like that. I always thought that I could work through anything - that just made me stop.”

And then she had to begin again. 

“Learn how to sleep, learn how to eat, learn how to exercise and look after my body. Like it was literally that simple.”

Her art was “a real blessing” during that time, and she dove into it. She had already been working on commissions on her days off from the restaurant, and she continued with those to keep her mind occupied and so she still had a small income coming in.

“It probably took me around two years to actually get out of the house, because I felt very ashamed.

“I felt like everybody knew that I let them down, and I wasn’t baking their macarons anymore,” she laughed. “It’s so stupid, looking at it now.” 

She took on an ambitious painting project to help with her mental health, and named it Being Content. 

Luzette working on Being Content. PHOTO: Supplied

“The big old man, and he ended up winning prizes, and all of that . . . and from that my friends and people I knew started asking me to come into school and help with an art project or whatever."

Luzette quickly came to the realisation art wasn’t prominent enough in schools.

“And so I got quite passionate about the fact that if your teacher’s not passionate about art, you don’t get it - so it’s real hit and miss for children.”

Art played such an important part in her life, she believed it could often cater for children who might have learning difficulties, or struggle to fit into the mainstream, or “the box”. 

She began running after-school art classes about four years ago, and for the past three years, had run her classes and worked on her own art in a space above the Harbour St Collective Cafe.

Towards the end of that time, she also branched out into becoming a tattoo artist. It was something a relative had been urging her to try for a long time. He offered to train her up, and eventually she agreed.

“He wanted me to tattoo him, I think. So that’s why he really wanted me to do it. 

“Then we had Covid, so I couldn’t actually get into the art studio, and I had all these tattoo guns and fake skins in the car, so it was really my only outlet, so I just practised.”

There comes a point where a tattoo artist has to start tattooing people, and far from being reluctant, the Ōamaru people were lining up to be Luzette’s guinea pigs.

An early tattoo of Luzette's. PHOTO: Supplied

“And that’s kind of where things took off. I thought there was going to be, like, three people in Ōamaru that wanted a tattoo, and I thought I’ll just do these three people, and then I’ll just carry on with my art classes - but I haven’t really been able to stop.”

She was growing and learning through tattooing, and said the biggest gift it gave her was something she had not unexpected - really getting to know her customers.

“You get to sit with somebody for eight hours sometimes - and you’re learning them, right? So you end up developing cool friendships and relationships with people, and you’re not just putting something on their skin, right - there’s always a story with it.”

Initially Luzette was tattooing at a separate premises from her art studio, but now she had all the different facets of her businesses under the same roof, after moving upstairs in the Thames Arcade in December last year.

It also provided space for the latest venture - Luzette Design, after the purchase of the printing equipment from Halalele Design.

Luzette’s eldest son Jake, 13, was good with computers, and had been printing and selling things off his 3-D printer. This was another avenue for him to explore, she said.

“We can support him through that, potentially, hopefully try and generate some income for supporting that, because once again that’s something that at his age, you probably don’t get heaps of at school.”

Luzette was working on creating designs for Phil and Jake to print onto vinyl stickers when they had time, around work and school.

She laughed at the suggestion she might be creeping back up towards those 80-hour work weeks again, and said it felt different working for herself.

“More fruitful.”