CREATING A GEM

such as sisters Andrena Smith and Rochelle McKillop—who’ve endured almost 10 years of drought on their western properties—are now sculptors, transforming old barbed wire into art. They’ve exhibited at Sculptures in the Garden every year. It’s the reason Rosby is now an arts workshop venue, connecting printmaking, painting and welding teachers with those who want to learn (and who want to eat Kay’s famous stew and drink Gerry’s wine). And it is the reason Kay’s daughter Amber moved back to Mudgee with her own young family. In chasing her own dreams, Kay has created opportunities for many others.

Today Amber Anderson is sitting next to Kay at a wooden table in the green kitchen of the Rosby farmhouse where she grew up. They both have a steaming cup of tea in front of them and the exposed mudbrick walls of the Rosby house behind. They look into the computer to talk to me, Amber steering her mother back to my questions after Kay goes off piste.

Kay’s husband Gerry, an accountant-turned-vigneron, and Amber’s Cameron, an architect who now runs his regional practice from Mudgee, are there too, but out of frame.

When I ask them what it’s like to work together, as mother and daughter, they both laugh. ‘Mum is a fiercely independent woman,’ says Amber. ‘She’s definitely softened now she’s a grandmother.’ Kay looks into the computer with a deadpan shrug and then laughs, at herself, I think. In 2010 Amber returned to Mudgee with her then boyfriend Cameron for six months to help her parents fix up a guesthouse. They had no intention of leaving their Melbourne life and careers behind. Eleven years on, a marriage and three children later, they are still there.

‘There was a period when I didn’t know how it was going to go,’ said Amber about her move back home. ‘I was pregnant. Cameron was away working in Sydney. I was living with my parents. I didn’t know how I was going to fit into this town and how I was going to be anyone other than Kay Norton-Knight’s daughter. It was a weird time.’ But Amber eventually found her way, becoming a crucial

member of the Rosby team, while Cameron established his own architecture firm in town. ‘Now I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else. Having Mum and Dad be so much a part of my children’s upbringing and this property being loved and enjoyed by them as much as it was by me and my sisters, it’s pretty special.’

While Kay is the face of Sculptures in the Garden—she’s got the contacts with the artists and the big ideas—Amber, who had a career in film and TV production, handles the back end and makes these big ideas happen. Together, with the support of Gerry and Cameron and a dedicated committee and volunteers, they make a formidable team. As well as Sculptures in the Garden and the residential workshops, they have recently built a permanent gallery and cellar door at Rosby, which will host a series of exhibitions throughout the year.

‘To Mum and Dad’s credit, they are very open to our suggestions. We all respect what each other brings to the table. We still have our barneys and disagree immensely, but we have learned over the past 11 years exactly what each other’s skills are.’

The art workshops started as a way to for locals to learn skills, but last year it was mainly people from the city and the coast who booked out all the classes and the guesthouse too.

‘I think people are beginning to realise what they’ve been missing out on and what we can offer them,’ says Kay.

Amber speaks of the changing culture in towns like Mudgee and how she sees more people her age moving there. ‘And everyone who comes brings something with them— knowledge, experience, style, the ability to make great coffee.’ She also thinks regional towns are good places to experiment with new businesses.

‘You can start in your garage or garden with very little outlay or pressure, unlike in the capital cities. That’s how all our Rosby businesses have started. We can do this ourselves, we say, and if it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it’s not the end of the world, we just move on.’ n Sculptures in the Garden runs from Saturday 9th to Sunday 24th October 2021. Visit sculpturesinthegarden.com.au or @sculpturesinthegarden for more information.

‘I THINK PEOPLE ARE BEGINNING TO REALISE WHAT THEY’VE BEEN MISSING OUT ON’

During the pandemic, Greg and Julia Stirling retreated into a handmade world, keeping busy until the family could gather again at last.

Words Julia Stirling Photography Charlie Kinross

A pandemic will see you do unusual things. In my case, I dug out the leaves of our 10 foot cherry extension table that Greg made more than 20 years ago and slotted them in, bringing the table to full extension. It seems ridiculous to see the two of us sitting in the kitchen for lunch at such a large table. Usually we only ever extend the table for family celebrations where the 13 of us can sit: children, partners and grandchildren all together.

However, there it sits, waiting for our family to return, acting as a kind of beacon helping me through the day; to feel connected to our family who are cut o from us with closed borders around Melbourne and New South Wales.

My view from our cherry table is of a blue sky, pale green olive trees set to a backdrop of black wattle and the bush beyond. The crab apples at the foreground are laden with fruit that the parrots are eating. And our resident magpies graze close to the house with their o spring. The honeyeaters, wrens, retails and pardalotes dart between the shrubs as they go about their business.

The land we live on is tough clay soil—the topsoil pillaged during the 1850s gold rush in central Victoria. We’ve slowly nurtured it back to life: mulched it with sawdust, newspapers and ground covers, shrubs, fruit trees and natives; and we’ve watched the wildlife proliferate. When we rst went into lockdown and businesses closed and people were ordered to work from home, we felt grateful that working from home was the norm for us. >

Opposite page Windsor chairs are just one example of the simple, made-with-love furniture that Greg Stirling crafts in his workshop.

Greg has always had a home-based workshop where he crafts his handmade furniture. He decided more than 40 years ago to buck the family trend of a career in engineering and forge his own path. It was very much a leap of faith. Growing up in a tough industrialised western suburb of Melbourne saw him yearning for a di erent way of living.

Leaving home at the tender age of 16, he worked around Australia before he had a chance meeting in Alice Springs with master craftsman Dickie Blackman, who became his mentor, on and o , over 15 years. Blackman was raised on a Quaker farm in the English Midlands and he had a prodigious background in craft: woodworking, blacksmithing, leatherwork and other skills related to the maintenance of a nineteenth century farm.

Greg travelled to Britain where he found himself restoring Iris Murdoch’s roof on bitterly cold winter days, or weeding around devas in spiritualist Maud Kennedy’s garden. When he ran out of money, Maud advised him to go to Ireland because ‘they will look after you’. And so they did.

For board and food, Greg spent nine months living with musician Peadar Ó Riada and his Irish-speaking family in County Cork: building Peadar a shed for his beekeeping, and helping a handful of local farmers as the need arose.

He was enchanted by the landscape and the small farming community that was rich in music, language, poetry and history: >

Julia’s oral still-life paintings adorn the walls of the dining room, where Greg’s cherry wood table is at full extension, waiting for the family to gather.