Haefligers Cottage

Hill End Artist Residency, NSW
Australia
February 2018

I spent the month of February living alone in this absolute dream of a worker's cottage built 150 years ago around the time of the gold rush. The whole house and studio were mine to sit, read, make and cook within. It was a magic time for me, listening to the birds eating in the fruit trees, saying hello to the kangaroos on my way to and from the outdoor toilet and going for long walks through the bush at the end of a day in the studio. I worked on cyanotypes on fabric using found native flora, and made ten new abstract collages from photographs. 

Studio at Haefligers

Hill End Artist Residency, NSW
Australia
February 2018

Unpacking a new studio, making work, getting caught in a summer storm. 

You can miss a house like you miss a person

Hill End Artist Residency
Australia
February 2018

Turns out, you can look at photographs of a house and miss it as keenly as you miss a parent or friend in another country. This house was my everything for four weeks and looking at the way it glowed gold in the evening and reflected soft blue in the morning makes me sad, homesick, full of love.

The time there was a fire

Hill End, NSW
Australia
February 2018

One Saturday afternoon whilst gazing out my studio window lost in thought, I noticed smoke in the distance, glowing red where it touched the horizon. For the first time in my life I called the fire brigade, knowing this was peak summer, peak fire season in the bush. Turned out the fire was 18 km away, which is little comfort when you live in a town that's at the end of a single lane road through the bush, an hour's drive from anything. But also comforting, because that's still a long way, long enough to be able to have a plan to get out early. So I hiked up to my favourite look out and watched the smoke for a while, and for the rest of the weekend I constantly monitored the NSW Rural Fire Department's Fires Near Me website. Blackened leaves fell down on the town, but nothing worse reached us, and the sunsets were especially beautiful for a few days.

The time it rained

Hill End Artist Residency, NSW
Australia
February 2018

I can almost smell the rain still when I look at these photographs. The rain came suddenly on a very hot day. The kangaroos in my garden were soaked, and the birds disappeared for a little while. 

Hill End

Hill End, NSW
Australia
February 2018

Hill End was a magical place to walk around, with beautiful dusty light, gum trees stretching over dirt paths and goats and kangaroos weaving in and out of the bush,