Escape to the Country

Life in the Australian bush has a way of slowing everything down and sharpening your perspective. When COVID forced us to step away from city life, we returned to my family farm in rural Western Australia — trading deadlines for dirt, creativity for quiet, and rediscovering what it means to live, work and raise a family on the land. This is a story about farm life, photography, and finding inspiration in the country.

One day you’re loving every minute of your career, and the next you’re forced to put it all on pause by a global pandemic. Rather than accepting defeat, we decided that an extraordinary problem required an extraordinary solution.

So we packed our bags, said goodbye to our art studio in Fremantle, and headed for the COVID-free countryside — chasing space, simplicity, and inspiration in the rugged Australian bush.

We shacked up at my family farm. A quaint, slightly shabby farmhouse sitting on 260 acres of rolling hills in Quindanning. This farm has been in my family since I was two years old and has always held a special place in my heart.

As a child, our weekends were spent working the farm. Seven hundred head of sheep, four horses, two dogs, hay crops stretching as far as the eye could see. Our days were filled with sheep work, cubby building, horse riding, and exploring every corner of the property on motorbikes.

The farm shaped me in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time. It kept me grounded, taught me the value of hard yakka, and showed me that the sky was limitless when it came to creativity. It also instilled a lifelong appreciation for fitness — another quiet gift of farm life.

So many of my favourite memories are woven into the fabric of this place. Now our family is a little bigger, and I get to keep weaving new memories with the love of my life, Jake, and the apple of our eye, Sienna.

We recently celebrated one of life’s biggest milestones and were married on the farm — the perfect setting, especially given Jake also grew up in the outback. Raised in the rugged mining town of Leonora, it was there that his own creative journey began, eventually leading him to life as a professional artist.

In 2019, we welcomed little Sienna into the world. We feel incredibly lucky to be raising her in the country, giving her the same whimsical, dirt-under-the-fingernails childhood we both experienced.

Since moving back to the farm, we’ve found ourselves wishing we’d done it sooner. Free from the constant pressure of deadlines, we’ve been able to slow down, reconnect with nature, and rediscover the joy in the simple things. Unsurprisingly, our creativity has flourished.

I’ve had the camera out almost every day, documenting the life unfolding around us, while Jake has painted just about every available surface on the farm. We hope some of that creative energy is rubbing off on Sienna, who’s been there for every step of the way.

COVID-19 made this chapter possible. It forced us to step away from our manic city lives and into a daydream we’re not quite ready to wake from.