Hello Halls Gap.

Hello friends. I have officially returned to Australia, with my darling partner Ed. Two weeks ago we moved to Halls Gap, a tiny town set on the edge of the Grampians National Park, three hours NW of Melbourne.

We've had very warm welcomes to our new home, from humans, marsupials and birds! We are surrounded by hundreds of kangaroos. There are a pair of emus roaming nearby. Cockatoos, kookaburras, Australian magpies, crimson and eastern rosellas, galahs, swallows, willy wagtails, several varieties of honeyeaters, many tinier birds that we are yet to identify, plus happily a sprinkling of my long-time muses, rainbow lorikeets! We feel very, very fortunate to be here.

My studio gear will be shipped over here in a few months; in the meantime, dear Adriana Christianson has lent me her spare wheel (and a stash of studio essentials, AND two bags of my favourite clay!) I'm excited to be making again, especially to resume painting glorious Australian birds.

​In the spirit of sharing the realities of being a self-employed artist I'll admit that I'm waitressing three nights a week to supplement my income, whilst working on re-establishing my practice during the day.

Thank you for sticking around through the quiet period of applying-for-and-waiting-on-visa-boring-times. Your support and encouragement is deeply appreciated, thank you.