Over the past couple of months, I've made a conscious decision to cut back on commercial commitments to focus on personal work.

For a while, I've felt like there's been a lack of growth or evolution in my work. Like the ability to channel what is important or significant to me has been waylaid. I've just felt bored, tired and trite. 

So it's nice, now, to start chipping in to that channel again. To read books and listen to music and think about things that are clear, sophisticated and true. Things that are hard to comprehend, that educate my mind and stretch my awareness. And, y'know, to indulge in things that are just straight pure, like listening to AC/DC on a highway drive or holding Bird of Paradise flowers up to the sun. 

Anyway, hopefully this is the start of something new; something growing and fresh and strange. 

Photography by Alyssa (@alyssmnxphoto), model: Ashleigh Baily (Viviens Syd)

Pony Gold Dreamer tee available here. 

Solsana Shoes Peggy slides; Viva La Body perfume balm; Lovisa Celestial Crystal drop earrings; Tree of Life dress

In summer, on the farm, everything is dusty and dusky and warm. The crackling dry gumleaves and sun-bleached yellow grass underfoot, all much to my dad’s dismay after weeks without rain. The sky is faded; perfect Levis blue, empty, cloudless and bright. My Melbourne skin has gone warm and brown, bolts of platinum are appearing in my otherwise dirty-blonde hair.

Everything has the same echoing glow: my father’s woodwork, the yellowing pages of old books, the swirl of strong cups of tea. The damp fog that blankets the valley at dawn, heralding hot days and high noons; the solid, dusty horse-smell of the neighbour’s tall chestnut gelding, who glows warm and burnished at the fenceline, in the first yellow light of each day.

The glow passes through the cold beer being drunk by the banjo player on the pub verandah, and reappears in the colour of vintage silk dresses, brass buckles, leatherwork, the light in the antique store. It is in the sand, the rocks, the beach; caught in the spindly pandanus leaves. It is in the river, the gravel, the sparkling light reflections that run over the surface. It moves across cow hides, my dog’s eyes, to the whistling baby hawks. In the evening it is in scotch-and-sodas, Rodriguez on the stereo, mosquito coil smoke, muttered conversations.

For now, everything glows like summer, home, warmth. 

For my last sketchbook post for 2016, the stills from my little flick-through video, just for a closer look... Hope you all have fun sparkly brilliant new year celebrations, and lots to look forward to in 2017.