The farm had been in her father’s family for a century and they grew vegetables and fruit, including a small vineyard, and raised chickens, sheep and goats. They enjoyed fresh eggs and milk and her mother made cheese.

“We had a very free lifestyle. We were free to roam and play and we were very happy.”

Kate and her siblings helped with the farm work from a young age and she believes this played an important role in developing her creativity.

“We made everything ourselves,” she recalls joyfully. “We cooked and baked from scratch, we made our own preserves and cheese and we sewed our own clothes. This was how creativity was instilled in us by our parents.”

Art was always Kate’s favourite subject at school, and she began to dream of being an artist.

“I knew I wanted to be a painter, but I was in awe of painters and didn’t think I was good enough,” she says with characteristic modesty.

After school she married a boy from the same island of Gozo and they decided to move to Australia. English is taught alongside Maltese at schools in Malta, so there was no language barrier when she and her husband arrived in Sydney.

She soon had two young children and there wasn’t much time for her art.

“Their interests came first but we always had a garden and a sewing machine. I did lots of gardening, because it keeps my soul happy, and when the kids were in high school I worked as a dressmaker for a while, and I really enjoyed that.”

As her children grew older, Kate gradually found she had more time for drawing and painting. “It was profound to me. The need to make art was really strong.”

Kate moved to The Southern Highlands 20 years ago and immediately felt at home.

“Wherever we’d lived before, I didn’t think it was going to be permanent. It wasn’t me. It was lacking something. But I knew straight away the Highlands was home to me. I love the nature and the cool climate and there is a great community. And I like being close to the coast. In Malta, we lived on a farm but it was a short drive to the beach. So it’s very similar to how I grew up.”

Significantly, the Highlands inspired her to do more art and she began painting regularly at the home of a local artist who became a close friend. The pair also shared ideas and Kate gradually grew in confidence. In 2018 another friend insisted she participate in a group exhibition in Moss Vale. Though extremely hesitant and nervous, she eventually agreed to submit a painting – and to her great surprise it sold. This further boosted her confidence and she became a founding member of SHAC, the Southern Highlands Artisan Collective based in her home town of Robertson.

“I had a space to work there and it was good for the soul. You can become isolated working on your own and the interaction with other artists was important. We shared ideas and discovered that we were going through similar experiences.”

It was at this time that Amber Creswell Bell (who is now Director, Emerging Art for the Michael Reid galleries) noticed her work and this resulted in Kate’s first solo show in 2019, titled Antidote. Kate describes this as the turning point in her creative career, and she has enjoyed a series of successful exhibitions in the years since.

When you visit Kate in her home, it is clear that art is her life. The walls are covered in paintings, salon style, and there are piles of art books on shelves, coffee tables and the floor. Her current works in progress stand on easels in the garage, in the main living room and in her small downstairs studio. As she prepares for an exhibition, she may be working on ten or more separate paintings at the same time. Throughout the house, tables and chairs are crowded with her favourite subjects – flowers, fruit, boiled eggs, vintage vases, kitchenware with character and beloved books – as well as dozens of half-squeezed tubes of acrylic paint and palettes encrusted with her distinctive colours.

“I just love what’s around me, my surroundings,” she says. “When I include something in my work it’s because I’ve been emotionally drawn to it for some reason. I see it and I react to it – there is something about it that I love. I am always looking in antique shops because I love old things and old books – they have soul. It might even remind me of my childhood, because our home was full of things that had been handed down from generation to generation.”

Gardens have always been important to her, from those childhood days on the family farm in Zebbug to her lush garden in Robertson today. This boasts vibrant violet hydrangeas, a range of roses, a magnificent magnolia tree, orange day lilies, cottage plants, herbs and an array of natives. For her paintings, she supplements the treasures from her garden with flowers and fruit sourced from local suppliers.

Kate’s daily ritual is to rise early, drink a coffee and meditate – a practice she has been following for 15 years. She then walks through her garden with Layla, her 12 year old Keeshond, before painting for several hours. Her house faces east and she finds mornings the most productive time of day for her. In the afternoon, she walks through the quiet country lanes of Robertson, gaining further inspiration from the nature she loves.

The title of Kate’s latest exhibition is Stillness.

“I called it that partly because of my still life subjects and partly because when I am painting I feel very still. I am totally immersed and engrossed in what I am doing. The world stops for me. It is very meditative. It is my happy place.”

Explore Kate’s solo exhibition at Michael Reid Southern Highlands online here.

Looking back, Andy says their naivety was a blessing.

“If we knew up front how much hard work was involved and how challenging it would be, we probably wouldn’t have started,” he admits.

Anna adds that all the stonework around the property was built from stones that they picked or dug up by hand from the trufferie plot and then moved with a wheelbarrow. They have calculated there are about 160 tonnes of rock in their Gabion cages. 

“There’s no way you would embark on that process if you knew at the start what you would be doing,” she laughs.

The Truffle Barn produces fresh truffles for three months a year, from June to mid-September, and the rest of the year is spent pruning and maintaining the trufferie. This is vital to the success of the next season. While they have begun to think about diversification in the future, Andy notes they have learned that an agribusiness can become all-consuming.

“One of the reasons we made the tree change was to have more connection to the land and to each other, to enjoy more quality time,” he says. “The trap you can fall into with an agribusiness like this is that you can work seven days a week – more than you did in the corporate world.”

“We know we are producing really good truffles now and that is a really good feeling,” Anna adds. “We are proud of what we have achieved. I think we need to enjoy that for another couple of years before we start to branch out. There is a danger that you don’t pause for long enough and enjoy what you’ve done.”

For the moment then, Anna and Andy are stopping to smell the truffles.

For more information visit thetrufflebarn.com

The farm had been in her father’s family for a century and they grew vegetables and fruit, including a small vineyard, and raised chickens, sheep and goats. They enjoyed fresh eggs and milk and her mother made cheese.

“We had a very free lifestyle. We were free to roam and play and we were very happy.”

Kate and her siblings helped with the farm work from a young age and she believes this played an important role in developing her creativity.

“We made everything ourselves,” she recalls joyfully. “We cooked and baked from scratch, we made our own preserves and cheese and we sewed our own clothes. This was how creativity was instilled in us by our parents.”

Art was always Kate’s favourite subject at school, and she began to dream of being an artist.

“I knew I wanted to be a painter, but I was in awe of painters and didn’t think I was good enough,” she says with characteristic modesty.

After school she married a boy from the same island of Gozo and they decided to move to Australia. English is taught alongside Maltese at schools in Malta, so there was no language barrier when she and her husband arrived in Sydney.

She soon had two young children and there wasn’t much time for her art.

“Their interests came first but we always had a garden and a sewing machine. I did lots of gardening, because it keeps my soul happy, and when the kids were in high school I worked as a dressmaker for a while, and I really enjoyed that.”

As her children grew older, Kate gradually found she had more time for drawing and painting. “It was profound to me. The need to make art was really strong.”

Kate moved to The Southern Highlands 20 years ago and immediately felt at home.

“Wherever we’d lived before, I didn’t think it was going to be permanent. It wasn’t me. It was lacking something. But I knew straight away the Highlands was home to me. I love the nature and the cool climate and there is a great community. And I like being close to the coast. In Malta, we lived on a farm but it was a short drive to the beach. So it’s very similar to how I grew up.”

Significantly, the Highlands inspired her to do more art and she began painting regularly at the home of a local artist who became a close friend. The pair also shared ideas and Kate gradually grew in confidence. In 2018 another friend insisted she participate in a group exhibition in Moss Vale. Though extremely hesitant and nervous, she eventually agreed to submit a painting – and to her great surprise it sold. This further boosted her confidence and she became a founding member of SHAC, the Southern Highlands Artisan Collective based in her home town of Robertson.

“I had a space to work there and it was good for the soul. You can become isolated working on your own and the interaction with other artists was important. We shared ideas and discovered that we were going through similar experiences.”

It was at this time that Amber Creswell Bell (who is now Director, Emerging Art for the Michael Reid galleries) noticed her work and this resulted in Kate’s first solo show in 2019, titled Antidote. Kate describes this as the turning point in her creative career, and she has enjoyed a series of successful exhibitions in the years since.

When you visit Kate in her home, it is clear that art is her life. The walls are covered in paintings, salon style, and there are piles of art books on shelves, coffee tables and the floor. Her current works in progress stand on easels in the garage, in the main living room and in her small downstairs studio. As she prepares for an exhibition, she may be working on ten or more separate paintings at the same time. Throughout the house, tables and chairs are crowded with her favourite subjects – flowers, fruit, boiled eggs, vintage vases, kitchenware with character and beloved books – as well as dozens of half-squeezed tubes of acrylic paint and palettes encrusted with her distinctive colours.

“I just love what’s around me, my surroundings,” she says. “When I include something in my work it’s because I’ve been emotionally drawn to it for some reason. I see it and I react to it – there is something about it that I love. I am always looking in antique shops because I love old things and old books – they have soul. It might even remind me of my childhood, because our home was full of things that had been handed down from generation to generation.”

Gardens have always been important to her, from those childhood days on the family farm in Zebbug to her lush garden in Robertson today. This boasts vibrant violet hydrangeas, a range of roses, a magnificent magnolia tree, orange day lilies, cottage plants, herbs and an array of natives. For her paintings, she supplements the treasures from her garden with flowers and fruit sourced from local suppliers.

Kate’s daily ritual is to rise early, drink a coffee and meditate – a practice she has been following for 15 years. She then walks through her garden with Layla, her 12 year old Keeshond, before painting for several hours. Her house faces east and she finds mornings the most productive time of day for her. In the afternoon, she walks through the quiet country lanes of Robertson, gaining further inspiration from the nature she loves.

The title of Kate’s latest exhibition is Stillness.

“I called it that partly because of my still life subjects and partly because when I am painting I feel very still. I am totally immersed and engrossed in what I am doing. The world stops for me. It is very meditative. It is my happy place.”

Explore Kate’s solo exhibition at Michael Reid Southern Highlands online here.

It is no surprise when you meet him to learn that Mick grew up in Inverell where his family had been breeding Fine Merino sheep and Poll Hereford cattle for three generations. He studied commerce and accounting at Charles Sturt University and worked for Toyota after he graduated. His wife Karen completed an MBA at Charles Sturt University and then worked in a variety of corporate roles.

They bought their first farm in 2002, near Bargo where Karen’s family were living, and Mick thought he would follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I had a plan to grow meat sheep with a self-replacing flock and then out of the blue Karen said: ‘I don’t want sheep, I want alpacas.’ I said: ‘Let me tell you a story about alpacas. I saw my first alpacas at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in about 1989. There were just two of them in a pen in the goat and pig pavilion. I knew what they were, but I said to my grandfather: ‘Pa, what are these?’ He said: ‘Son, they’re alpacas. Steer clear of them, they will be the feral goat of the 2000s.’

“I told Karen there was no fibre industry, no meat industry and no return on investment and that only iconic, well to do people could afford to have alpacas for their tax scheme. But despite everything I put forward, she said: ‘I don’t care, that’s what I want to do. They are such interesting and beautiful animals.’ And then she told me she’d done all this research and even spoken to Janie Forrest.”

Janie Forrest was an industry leader, having taken over the administration and management of Coolaroo Alpaca Stud in 1995 and then purchasing that business in 1998.

“We’d recently bought our first car and we thought we were so good because we’d saved up and paid for it in cash,” Mick recalls. “And then we bought our first couple of alpacas – and they cost more than the car.”

It was a very steep learning curve for the Williams.

After school she married a boy from the same island of Gozo and they decided to move to Australia. English is taught alongside Maltese at schools in Malta, so there was no language barrier when she and her husband arrived in Sydney.

She soon had two young children and there wasn’t much time for her art.

“Their interests came first but we always had a garden and a sewing machine. I did lots of gardening, because it keeps my soul happy, and when the kids were in high school I worked as a dressmaker for a while, and I really enjoyed that.”

As her children grew older, Kate gradually found she had more time for drawing and painting. “It was profound to me. The need to make art was really strong.”

Kate moved to The Southern Highlands 20 years ago and immediately felt at home.

“Wherever we’d lived before, I didn’t think it was going to be permanent. It wasn’t me. It was lacking something. But I knew straight away the Highlands was home to me. I love the nature and the cool climate and there is a great community. And I like being close to the coast. In Malta, we lived on a farm but it was a short drive to the beach. So it’s very similar to how I grew up.”

Significantly, the Highlands inspired her to do more art and she began painting regularly at the home of a local artist who became a close friend. The pair also shared ideas and Kate gradually grew in confidence. In 2018 another friend insisted she participate in a group exhibition in Moss Vale. Though extremely hesitant and nervous, she eventually agreed to submit a painting – and to her great surprise it sold. This further boosted her confidence and she became a founding member of SHAC, the Southern Highlands Artisan Collective based in her home town of Robertson.

“I had a space to work there and it was good for the soul. You can become isolated working on your own and the interaction with other artists was important. We shared ideas and discovered that we were going through similar experiences.”

It was at this time that Amber Creswell Bell (who is now Director, Emerging Art for the Michael Reid galleries) noticed her work and this resulted in Kate’s first solo show in 2019, titled Antidote. Kate describes this as the turning point in her creative career, and she has enjoyed a series of successful exhibitions in the years since.

When you visit Kate in her home, it is clear that art is her life. The walls are covered in paintings, salon style, and there are piles of art books on shelves, coffee tables and the floor. Her current works in progress stand on easels in the garage, in the main living room and in her small downstairs studio. As she prepares for an exhibition, she may be working on ten or more separate paintings at the same time. Throughout the house, tables and chairs are crowded with her favourite subjects – flowers, fruit, boiled eggs, vintage vases, kitchenware with character and beloved books – as well as dozens of half-squeezed tubes of acrylic paint and palettes encrusted with her distinctive colours.

“I just love what’s around me, my surroundings,” she says. “When I include something in my work it’s because I’ve been emotionally drawn to it for some reason. I see it and I react to it – there is something about it that I love. I am always looking in antique shops because I love old things and old books – they have soul. It might even remind me of my childhood, because our home was full of things that had been handed down from generation to generation.”

Gardens have always been important to her, from those childhood days on the family farm in Zebbug to her lush garden in Robertson today. This boasts vibrant violet hydrangeas, a range of roses, a magnificent magnolia tree, orange day lilies, cottage plants, herbs and an array of natives. For her paintings, she supplements the treasures from her garden with flowers and fruit sourced from local suppliers.

Kate’s daily ritual is to rise early, drink a coffee and meditate – a practice she has been following for 15 years. She then walks through her garden with Layla, her 12 year old Keeshond, before painting for several hours. Her house faces east and she finds mornings the most productive time of day for her. In the afternoon, she walks through the quiet country lanes of Robertson, gaining further inspiration from the nature she loves.

The title of Kate’s latest exhibition is Stillness.

“I called it that partly because of my still life subjects and partly because when I am painting I feel very still. I am totally immersed and engrossed in what I am doing. The world stops for me. It is very meditative. It is my happy place.”

Explore Kate’s solo exhibition at Michael Reid Southern Highlands online here.

According to the Australian Alpaca Association, the Australian alpaca industry has over 200,000 registered animals and is the second largest in the world, behind only Peru. Alpacas thrive in Australia, in small and large herds, and their soft footpads cause minimal soil damage compared with other ruminants. There is currently good demand for breeding, siring, fibre and agistment services and there is potential to develop a market for alpaca meat.

“Despite their appearance, they are a very robust livestock,” says Mick, “and they are much more intelligent than sheep, so they are far easier to work with.”

So what attracts a young woman like Rubey Williams to the alpaca industry?

“I grew up around them and they’ve always been part of my life,” she says thoughtfully. “Being around them and working with them is the place I feel most comfortable. The primary attraction is the animals themselves, but the social side is great. Alpaca shows are like a family reunion, it’s such a fun atmosphere and a great environment to be part of. The lifestyle it allows you to lead is something I hold in really high regard.”

Asked if she will definitely lead the next generation for Coolawarra and StoryBook, Rubey replies enthusiastically and without hesitation: “Oh yeah! I’m knee deep in it already.”

It is no surprise when you meet him to learn that Mick grew up in Inverell where his family had been breeding Fine Merino sheep and Poll Hereford cattle for three generations. He studied commerce and accounting at Charles Sturt University and worked for Toyota after he graduated. His wife Karen completed an MBA at Charles Sturt University and then worked in a variety of corporate roles.

They bought their first farm in 2002, near Bargo where Karen’s family were living, and Mick thought he would follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I had a plan to grow meat sheep with a self-replacing flock and then out of the blue Karen said: ‘I don’t want sheep, I want alpacas.’ I said: ‘Let me tell you a story about alpacas. I saw my first alpacas at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in about 1989. There were just two of them in a pen in the goat and pig pavilion. I knew what they were, but I said to my grandfather: ‘Pa, what are these?’ He said: ‘Son, they’re alpacas. Steer clear of them, they will be the feral goat of the 2000s.’

“I told Karen there was no fibre industry, no meat industry and no return on investment and that only iconic, well to do people could afford to have alpacas for their tax scheme. But despite everything I put forward, she said: ‘I don’t care, that’s what I want to do. They are such interesting and beautiful animals.’ And then she told me she’d done all this research and even spoken to Janie Forrest.”

Janie Forrest was an industry leader, having taken over the administration and management of Coolaroo Alpaca Stud in 1995 and then purchasing that business in 1998.

“We’d recently bought our first car and we thought we were so good because we’d saved up and paid for it in cash,” Mick recalls. “And then we bought our first couple of alpacas – and they cost more than the car.”

It was a very steep learning curve for the Williams.

After school she married a boy from the same island of Gozo and they decided to move to Australia. English is taught alongside Maltese at schools in Malta, so there was no language barrier when she and her husband arrived in Sydney.

She soon had two young children and there wasn’t much time for her art.

“Their interests came first but we always had a garden and a sewing machine. I did lots of gardening, because it keeps my soul happy, and when the kids were in high school I worked as a dressmaker for a while, and I really enjoyed that.”

As her children grew older, Kate gradually found she had more time for drawing and painting. “It was profound to me. The need to make art was really strong.”

Kate moved to The Southern Highlands 20 years ago and immediately felt at home.

“Wherever we’d lived before, I didn’t think it was going to be permanent. It wasn’t me. It was lacking something. But I knew straight away the Highlands was home to me. I love the nature and the cool climate and there is a great community. And I like being close to the coast. In Malta, we lived on a farm but it was a short drive to the beach. So it’s very similar to how I grew up.”

Significantly, the Highlands inspired her to do more art and she began painting regularly at the home of a local artist who became a close friend. The pair also shared ideas and Kate gradually grew in confidence. In 2018 another friend insisted she participate in a group exhibition in Moss Vale. Though extremely hesitant and nervous, she eventually agreed to submit a painting – and to her great surprise it sold. This further boosted her confidence and she became a founding member of SHAC, the Southern Highlands Artisan Collective based in her home town of Robertson.

“I had a space to work there and it was good for the soul. You can become isolated working on your own and the interaction with other artists was important. We shared ideas and discovered that we were going through similar experiences.”

It was at this time that Amber Creswell Bell (who is now Director, Emerging Art for the Michael Reid galleries) noticed her work and this resulted in Kate’s first solo show in 2019, titled Antidote. Kate describes this as the turning point in her creative career, and she has enjoyed a series of successful exhibitions in the years since.

When you visit Kate in her home, it is clear that art is her life. The walls are covered in paintings, salon style, and there are piles of art books on shelves, coffee tables and the floor. Her current works in progress stand on easels in the garage, in the main living room and in her small downstairs studio. As she prepares for an exhibition, she may be working on ten or more separate paintings at the same time. Throughout the house, tables and chairs are crowded with her favourite subjects – flowers, fruit, boiled eggs, vintage vases, kitchenware with character and beloved books – as well as dozens of half-squeezed tubes of acrylic paint and palettes encrusted with her distinctive colours.

“I just love what’s around me, my surroundings,” she says. “When I include something in my work it’s because I’ve been emotionally drawn to it for some reason. I see it and I react to it – there is something about it that I love. I am always looking in antique shops because I love old things and old books – they have soul. It might even remind me of my childhood, because our home was full of things that had been handed down from generation to generation.”

Gardens have always been important to her, from those childhood days on the family farm in Zebbug to her lush garden in Robertson today. This boasts vibrant violet hydrangeas, a range of roses, a magnificent magnolia tree, orange day lilies, cottage plants, herbs and an array of natives. For her paintings, she supplements the treasures from her garden with flowers and fruit sourced from local suppliers.

Kate’s daily ritual is to rise early, drink a coffee and meditate – a practice she has been following for 15 years. She then walks through her garden with Layla, her 12 year old Keeshond, before painting for several hours. Her house faces east and she finds mornings the most productive time of day for her. In the afternoon, she walks through the quiet country lanes of Robertson, gaining further inspiration from the nature she loves.

The title of Kate’s latest exhibition is Stillness.

“I called it that partly because of my still life subjects and partly because when I am painting I feel very still. I am totally immersed and engrossed in what I am doing. The world stops for me. It is very meditative. It is my happy place.”

Explore Kate’s solo exhibition at Michael Reid Southern Highlands online here.

According to the Australian Alpaca Association, the Australian alpaca industry has over 200,000 registered animals and is the second largest in the world, behind only Peru. Alpacas thrive in Australia, in small and large herds, and their soft footpads cause minimal soil damage compared with other ruminants. There is currently good demand for breeding, siring, fibre and agistment services and there is potential to develop a market for alpaca meat.

“Despite their appearance, they are a very robust livestock,” says Mick, “and they are much more intelligent than sheep, so they are far easier to work with.”

So what attracts a young woman like Rubey Williams to the alpaca industry?

“I grew up around them and they’ve always been part of my life,” she says thoughtfully. “Being around them and working with them is the place I feel most comfortable. The primary attraction is the animals themselves, but the social side is great. Alpaca shows are like a family reunion, it’s such a fun atmosphere and a great environment to be part of. The lifestyle it allows you to lead is something I hold in really high regard.”

Asked if she will definitely lead the next generation for Coolawarra and StoryBook, Rubey replies enthusiastically and without hesitation: “Oh yeah! I’m knee deep in it already.”

Palace of Dreams will show at Carriageworks as part of Sydney Contemporary from 8 to 11 September.

Tamara Dean’s career achievements include being commissioned in 2018 to create In Our Nature that was presented at the Museum of Economic Botany (Adelaide Botanic Garden) for the Adelaide Biennale. She has been awarded the Goulburn Art Prize (2020); Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize (2019); Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography Award (2018); Meroogal Women’s Art Prize (2018); and the Olive Cotton Award (2011). Her work has been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia; Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra; Art Gallery of South Australia; Mordant Family Collection Australia; Artbank Australia; Balnaves Collection Australia; and Francis J Greenburger Collection (New York).

It is no surprise when you meet him to learn that Mick grew up in Inverell where his family had been breeding Fine Merino sheep and Poll Hereford cattle for three generations. He studied commerce and accounting at Charles Sturt University and worked for Toyota after he graduated. His wife Karen completed an MBA at Charles Sturt University and then worked in a variety of corporate roles.

They bought their first farm in 2002, near Bargo where Karen’s family were living, and Mick thought he would follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I had a plan to grow meat sheep with a self-replacing flock and then out of the blue Karen said: ‘I don’t want sheep, I want alpacas.’ I said: ‘Let me tell you a story about alpacas. I saw my first alpacas at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in about 1989. There were just two of them in a pen in the goat and pig pavilion. I knew what they were, but I said to my grandfather: ‘Pa, what are these?’ He said: ‘Son, they’re alpacas. Steer clear of them, they will be the feral goat of the 2000s.’

“I told Karen there was no fibre industry, no meat industry and no return on investment and that only iconic, well to do people could afford to have alpacas for their tax scheme. But despite everything I put forward, she said: ‘I don’t care, that’s what I want to do. They are such interesting and beautiful animals.’ And then she told me she’d done all this research and even spoken to Janie Forrest.”

Janie Forrest was an industry leader, having taken over the administration and management of Coolaroo Alpaca Stud in 1995 and then purchasing that business in 1998.

“We’d recently bought our first car and we thought we were so good because we’d saved up and paid for it in cash,” Mick recalls. “And then we bought our first couple of alpacas – and they cost more than the car.”

It was a very steep learning curve for the Williams.

“One of my great assets is ignorance,” Sharp says matter-of-factly while pouring us a cup of Irish Breakfast tea in his well heated kitchen. “I usually go into things completely and utterly unaware of what I’m up for. It’s only when I get halfway through that I realise that if I’d known at the beginning what I was going to end up doing, I wouldn’t have done it at all. But when you get to that point it’s usually too late to turn back.”

Sharp is certainly not turning back from any of the projects he has taken on since buying a 15 acre property four years ago from David Graham and David Kunde, known as The Two Davids and variously described in media reports as former restaurateurs, eastern suburbs developers and stylmeisters.  Known at the time as Rona Lodge, the property was advertised as a Grand Estate featuring wonderful formal and informal spaces, seven spacious bedrooms, a separate but adjoining two bedroom house, a billiard room, library, indoor swimming pool with spa and gym, tennis court and stables with dressage arena.

Asked if he has made many changes since he bought Rona Lodge four years ago, Sharp pauses for a moment before saying: “Like all these things, you start out thinking we’ll just make a little tweak here and a little tweak there – and before you know it you are doing lots of work and small jobs become enormous jobs.”

One easy thing to change was the property’s name. It is now called Thenford, named for the village in Oxfordshire where his great-grandfather was born. Other changes have not been as straightforward. As we walk through the house, Sharp notes that the walls and ceilings have been completely repainted, all the curtains replaced, a hallway removed, additional fireplaces installed, the veranda area reconfigured, several rooves have had to be replaced and the old stables have been converted into a laundry, cellar and gym.

After school she married a boy from the same island of Gozo and they decided to move to Australia. English is taught alongside Maltese at schools in Malta, so there was no language barrier when she and her husband arrived in Sydney.

She soon had two young children and there wasn’t much time for her art.

“Their interests came first but we always had a garden and a sewing machine. I did lots of gardening, because it keeps my soul happy, and when the kids were in high school I worked as a dressmaker for a while, and I really enjoyed that.”

As her children grew older, Kate gradually found she had more time for drawing and painting. “It was profound to me. The need to make art was really strong.”

Kate moved to The Southern Highlands 20 years ago and immediately felt at home.

“Wherever we’d lived before, I didn’t think it was going to be permanent. It wasn’t me. It was lacking something. But I knew straight away the Highlands was home to me. I love the nature and the cool climate and there is a great community. And I like being close to the coast. In Malta, we lived on a farm but it was a short drive to the beach. So it’s very similar to how I grew up.”

Significantly, the Highlands inspired her to do more art and she began painting regularly at the home of a local artist who became a close friend. The pair also shared ideas and Kate gradually grew in confidence. In 2018 another friend insisted she participate in a group exhibition in Moss Vale. Though extremely hesitant and nervous, she eventually agreed to submit a painting – and to her great surprise it sold. This further boosted her confidence and she became a founding member of SHAC, the Southern Highlands Artisan Collective based in her home town of Robertson.

“I had a space to work there and it was good for the soul. You can become isolated working on your own and the interaction with other artists was important. We shared ideas and discovered that we were going through similar experiences.”

It was at this time that Amber Creswell Bell (who is now Director, Emerging Art for the Michael Reid galleries) noticed her work and this resulted in Kate’s first solo show in 2019, titled Antidote. Kate describes this as the turning point in her creative career, and she has enjoyed a series of successful exhibitions in the years since.

When you visit Kate in her home, it is clear that art is her life. The walls are covered in paintings, salon style, and there are piles of art books on shelves, coffee tables and the floor. Her current works in progress stand on easels in the garage, in the main living room and in her small downstairs studio. As she prepares for an exhibition, she may be working on ten or more separate paintings at the same time. Throughout the house, tables and chairs are crowded with her favourite subjects – flowers, fruit, boiled eggs, vintage vases, kitchenware with character and beloved books – as well as dozens of half-squeezed tubes of acrylic paint and palettes encrusted with her distinctive colours.

“I just love what’s around me, my surroundings,” she says. “When I include something in my work it’s because I’ve been emotionally drawn to it for some reason. I see it and I react to it – there is something about it that I love. I am always looking in antique shops because I love old things and old books – they have soul. It might even remind me of my childhood, because our home was full of things that had been handed down from generation to generation.”

Gardens have always been important to her, from those childhood days on the family farm in Zebbug to her lush garden in Robertson today. This boasts vibrant violet hydrangeas, a range of roses, a magnificent magnolia tree, orange day lilies, cottage plants, herbs and an array of natives. For her paintings, she supplements the treasures from her garden with flowers and fruit sourced from local suppliers.

Kate’s daily ritual is to rise early, drink a coffee and meditate – a practice she has been following for 15 years. She then walks through her garden with Layla, her 12 year old Keeshond, before painting for several hours. Her house faces east and she finds mornings the most productive time of day for her. In the afternoon, she walks through the quiet country lanes of Robertson, gaining further inspiration from the nature she loves.

The title of Kate’s latest exhibition is Stillness.

“I called it that partly because of my still life subjects and partly because when I am painting I feel very still. I am totally immersed and engrossed in what I am doing. The world stops for me. It is very meditative. It is my happy place.”

Explore Kate’s solo exhibition at Michael Reid Southern Highlands online here.

There is a memorial area dedicated to his father, who fought in World War II, and grandfather, who fought in World War I, featuring Lone Pines grown from seedlings from the famous Gallipoli battlefield surrounded by rosemary, which grows wild on the Gallipoli Peninsula and has become a traditional symbol of remembrance of Anzac Day. Fittingly, these plantings were the idea of his partner, Rosemary Cummins.

It is the middle of a particularly cold and wet Southern Highlands Winter and I can only imagine how magnificent the gardens will be in Spring.

We have completed our tour of the 15 acres Sharp bought four years ago and now we move to his latest venture. Two years ago, he bought an additional 200 acres from his neighbours, the McKennas, the original owners of Rona Lodge.

“I have managed to lose substantial sums of money running cattle,” Sharp says. “At The Moss Vale Show each year I joke that I should get the blue ribbon for the greatest loss per hectare in the district. So, when I bought this property, I decided I wanted to do something different. My manager said he knew a bloke named Tim Miller who might be interested in doing something with thoroughbred racehorses on my property. His wife is the daughter of friends of mine from Young, so there was a connection there. Long story short, we have a partnership and Tim runs it.”

Sharp grew up with horses in his home town of Young and his children, especially his daughter, were keen equestrians, but he describes himself as only a recreational rider.

So what exactly is his new horse business?

“We do horse breaking, so we take 12-month-old horses and prepare them to be ridden. And we do pre-training, which is taking horses that have never been to a race track and we put them on a race track. We have two race tracks here, one is 1,200 metres and one is 500 metres, and we have two sets of starting gates and barriers. This allows the horses to familiarise themselves with all that procedure.

“The third thing we do is rehabilitation work. We have an eight horse water walker, which is a pretty special piece of equipment. The horses walk around in a circle in a swimming pool with gates between them. It’s a bit like aquarobics for horses and it’s very good for their muscles and injury recovery. We also have an eight horse dry walker and a gallop speed treadmill, which is great for giving them exercise.

“The other thing we do is spelling – which is basically a horse holiday for a racehorse.”

Thenford Farm only started taking horses in February 2021, and there are currently 45 horses on the property. When all the work is finished, it will be able to accommodate about 100 racehorses. The amount of infrastructure is enormous and I ask how many kilometres of fencing he has installed.

“The original quote was for 10 kilometres, but we have ended up with 16 to 17 kilometres,” he says thoughtfully. That is a lot of posts and rails.

For Sharp, Thenford Farm combines bucolic charm with economic sense.

“As the value of land increases in The Southern Highlands, and it’s increased quite dramatically in the past two or three years, it becomes increasingly less economic to run cattle or sheep. So what do you do to maintain the farm-like environment? The best way is with horses, because they are usually expensive things and the cost of the land doesn’t matter as much with horses as it does with cattle and sheep. 

“You also retain a beautiful rural outlook featuring nice fences and green paddocks with horses sitting in them.

“The racehorse industry continues to expand and the historic infrastructure for the industry is now in heavily urbanised areas. The ability to expand that infrastructure, and even keep it, diminishes as time goes by. So the Southern Highlands is a great spot for the growth of the racehorse industry.”

There are also important employment benefits. “If I had 200 acres with cattle on them, I’d probably employ one person,” Sharp notes. “We already employ nine people and we will probably have 14 or 15 when we are fully developed. A lot of people in the racehorse industry make it into a career. They might start out as a stable hand and then work up to different roles, whether it’s a breaker or a trainer or a rider. It’s a great utilisation of the land for this district.”

When he was elected to Parliament as the first Member for the new seat of Gilmore in 1984, the electorate included The Southern Highlands. When the boundaries moved following a redistribution a decade later, Sharp moved to the neighbouring seat of Hume – retaining representation of The Southern Highlands. He has remained in the region since he retired from Parliament in 1998.

For Sharp, The Southern Highlands is home and perfectly located halfway between the two cities where he spends a lot of time – Sydney and Canberra. It’s also easy for his children to visit and stay, as they do regularly. He hates moving house and hopes he won’t be doing so again.

It is no surprise when you meet him to learn that Mick grew up in Inverell where his family had been breeding Fine Merino sheep and Poll Hereford cattle for three generations. He studied commerce and accounting at Charles Sturt University and worked for Toyota after he graduated. His wife Karen completed an MBA at Charles Sturt University and then worked in a variety of corporate roles.

They bought their first farm in 2002, near Bargo where Karen’s family were living, and Mick thought he would follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I had a plan to grow meat sheep with a self-replacing flock and then out of the blue Karen said: ‘I don’t want sheep, I want alpacas.’ I said: ‘Let me tell you a story about alpacas. I saw my first alpacas at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in about 1989. There were just two of them in a pen in the goat and pig pavilion. I knew what they were, but I said to my grandfather: ‘Pa, what are these?’ He said: ‘Son, they’re alpacas. Steer clear of them, they will be the feral goat of the 2000s.’

“I told Karen there was no fibre industry, no meat industry and no return on investment and that only iconic, well to do people could afford to have alpacas for their tax scheme. But despite everything I put forward, she said: ‘I don’t care, that’s what I want to do. They are such interesting and beautiful animals.’ And then she told me she’d done all this research and even spoken to Janie Forrest.”

Janie Forrest was an industry leader, having taken over the administration and management of Coolaroo Alpaca Stud in 1995 and then purchasing that business in 1998.

“We’d recently bought our first car and we thought we were so good because we’d saved up and paid for it in cash,” Mick recalls. “And then we bought our first couple of alpacas – and they cost more than the car.”

It was a very steep learning curve for the Williams.

After school she married a boy from the same island of Gozo and they decided to move to Australia. English is taught alongside Maltese at schools in Malta, so there was no language barrier when she and her husband arrived in Sydney.

She soon had two young children and there wasn’t much time for her art.

“Their interests came first but we always had a garden and a sewing machine. I did lots of gardening, because it keeps my soul happy, and when the kids were in high school I worked as a dressmaker for a while, and I really enjoyed that.”

As her children grew older, Kate gradually found she had more time for drawing and painting. “It was profound to me. The need to make art was really strong.”

Kate moved to The Southern Highlands 20 years ago and immediately felt at home.

“Wherever we’d lived before, I didn’t think it was going to be permanent. It wasn’t me. It was lacking something. But I knew straight away the Highlands was home to me. I love the nature and the cool climate and there is a great community. And I like being close to the coast. In Malta, we lived on a farm but it was a short drive to the beach. So it’s very similar to how I grew up.”

Significantly, the Highlands inspired her to do more art and she began painting regularly at the home of a local artist who became a close friend. The pair also shared ideas and Kate gradually grew in confidence. In 2018 another friend insisted she participate in a group exhibition in Moss Vale. Though extremely hesitant and nervous, she eventually agreed to submit a painting – and to her great surprise it sold. This further boosted her confidence and she became a founding member of SHAC, the Southern Highlands Artisan Collective based in her home town of Robertson.

“I had a space to work there and it was good for the soul. You can become isolated working on your own and the interaction with other artists was important. We shared ideas and discovered that we were going through similar experiences.”

It was at this time that Amber Creswell Bell (who is now Director, Emerging Art for the Michael Reid galleries) noticed her work and this resulted in Kate’s first solo show in 2019, titled Antidote. Kate describes this as the turning point in her creative career, and she has enjoyed a series of successful exhibitions in the years since.

When you visit Kate in her home, it is clear that art is her life. The walls are covered in paintings, salon style, and there are piles of art books on shelves, coffee tables and the floor. Her current works in progress stand on easels in the garage, in the main living room and in her small downstairs studio. As she prepares for an exhibition, she may be working on ten or more separate paintings at the same time. Throughout the house, tables and chairs are crowded with her favourite subjects – flowers, fruit, boiled eggs, vintage vases, kitchenware with character and beloved books – as well as dozens of half-squeezed tubes of acrylic paint and palettes encrusted with her distinctive colours.

“I just love what’s around me, my surroundings,” she says. “When I include something in my work it’s because I’ve been emotionally drawn to it for some reason. I see it and I react to it – there is something about it that I love. I am always looking in antique shops because I love old things and old books – they have soul. It might even remind me of my childhood, because our home was full of things that had been handed down from generation to generation.”

Gardens have always been important to her, from those childhood days on the family farm in Zebbug to her lush garden in Robertson today. This boasts vibrant violet hydrangeas, a range of roses, a magnificent magnolia tree, orange day lilies, cottage plants, herbs and an array of natives. For her paintings, she supplements the treasures from her garden with flowers and fruit sourced from local suppliers.

Kate’s daily ritual is to rise early, drink a coffee and meditate – a practice she has been following for 15 years. She then walks through her garden with Layla, her 12 year old Keeshond, before painting for several hours. Her house faces east and she finds mornings the most productive time of day for her. In the afternoon, she walks through the quiet country lanes of Robertson, gaining further inspiration from the nature she loves.

The title of Kate’s latest exhibition is Stillness.

“I called it that partly because of my still life subjects and partly because when I am painting I feel very still. I am totally immersed and engrossed in what I am doing. The world stops for me. It is very meditative. It is my happy place.”

Explore Kate’s solo exhibition at Michael Reid Southern Highlands online here.

It is no surprise when you meet him to learn that Mick grew up in Inverell where his family had been breeding Fine Merino sheep and Poll Hereford cattle for three generations. He studied commerce and accounting at Charles Sturt University and worked for Toyota after he graduated. His wife Karen completed an MBA at Charles Sturt University and then worked in a variety of corporate roles.

They bought their first farm in 2002, near Bargo where Karen’s family were living, and Mick thought he would follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I had a plan to grow meat sheep with a self-replacing flock and then out of the blue Karen said: ‘I don’t want sheep, I want alpacas.’ I said: ‘Let me tell you a story about alpacas. I saw my first alpacas at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in about 1989. There were just two of them in a pen in the goat and pig pavilion. I knew what they were, but I said to my grandfather: ‘Pa, what are these?’ He said: ‘Son, they’re alpacas. Steer clear of them, they will be the feral goat of the 2000s.’

“I told Karen there was no fibre industry, no meat industry and no return on investment and that only iconic, well to do people could afford to have alpacas for their tax scheme. But despite everything I put forward, she said: ‘I don’t care, that’s what I want to do. They are such interesting and beautiful animals.’ And then she told me she’d done all this research and even spoken to Janie Forrest.”

Janie Forrest was an industry leader, having taken over the administration and management of Coolaroo Alpaca Stud in 1995 and then purchasing that business in 1998.

“We’d recently bought our first car and we thought we were so good because we’d saved up and paid for it in cash,” Mick recalls. “And then we bought our first couple of alpacas – and they cost more than the car.”

It was a very steep learning curve for the Williams.

After school she married a boy from the same island of Gozo and they decided to move to Australia. English is taught alongside Maltese at schools in Malta, so there was no language barrier when she and her husband arrived in Sydney.

She soon had two young children and there wasn’t much time for her art.

“Their interests came first but we always had a garden and a sewing machine. I did lots of gardening, because it keeps my soul happy, and when the kids were in high school I worked as a dressmaker for a while, and I really enjoyed that.”

As her children grew older, Kate gradually found she had more time for drawing and painting. “It was profound to me. The need to make art was really strong.”

Kate moved to The Southern Highlands 20 years ago and immediately felt at home.

“Wherever we’d lived before, I didn’t think it was going to be permanent. It wasn’t me. It was lacking something. But I knew straight away the Highlands was home to me. I love the nature and the cool climate and there is a great community. And I like being close to the coast. In Malta, we lived on a farm but it was a short drive to the beach. So it’s very similar to how I grew up.”

Significantly, the Highlands inspired her to do more art and she began painting regularly at the home of a local artist who became a close friend. The pair also shared ideas and Kate gradually grew in confidence. In 2018 another friend insisted she participate in a group exhibition in Moss Vale. Though extremely hesitant and nervous, she eventually agreed to submit a painting – and to her great surprise it sold. This further boosted her confidence and she became a founding member of SHAC, the Southern Highlands Artisan Collective based in her home town of Robertson.

“I had a space to work there and it was good for the soul. You can become isolated working on your own and the interaction with other artists was important. We shared ideas and discovered that we were going through similar experiences.”

It was at this time that Amber Creswell Bell (who is now Director, Emerging Art for the Michael Reid galleries) noticed her work and this resulted in Kate’s first solo show in 2019, titled Antidote. Kate describes this as the turning point in her creative career, and she has enjoyed a series of successful exhibitions in the years since.

When you visit Kate in her home, it is clear that art is her life. The walls are covered in paintings, salon style, and there are piles of art books on shelves, coffee tables and the floor. Her current works in progress stand on easels in the garage, in the main living room and in her small downstairs studio. As she prepares for an exhibition, she may be working on ten or more separate paintings at the same time. Throughout the house, tables and chairs are crowded with her favourite subjects – flowers, fruit, boiled eggs, vintage vases, kitchenware with character and beloved books – as well as dozens of half-squeezed tubes of acrylic paint and palettes encrusted with her distinctive colours.

“I just love what’s around me, my surroundings,” she says. “When I include something in my work it’s because I’ve been emotionally drawn to it for some reason. I see it and I react to it – there is something about it that I love. I am always looking in antique shops because I love old things and old books – they have soul. It might even remind me of my childhood, because our home was full of things that had been handed down from generation to generation.”

Gardens have always been important to her, from those childhood days on the family farm in Zebbug to her lush garden in Robertson today. This boasts vibrant violet hydrangeas, a range of roses, a magnificent magnolia tree, orange day lilies, cottage plants, herbs and an array of natives. For her paintings, she supplements the treasures from her garden with flowers and fruit sourced from local suppliers.

Kate’s daily ritual is to rise early, drink a coffee and meditate – a practice she has been following for 15 years. She then walks through her garden with Layla, her 12 year old Keeshond, before painting for several hours. Her house faces east and she finds mornings the most productive time of day for her. In the afternoon, she walks through the quiet country lanes of Robertson, gaining further inspiration from the nature she loves.

The title of Kate’s latest exhibition is Stillness.

“I called it that partly because of my still life subjects and partly because when I am painting I feel very still. I am totally immersed and engrossed in what I am doing. The world stops for me. It is very meditative. It is my happy place.”

Explore Kate’s solo exhibition at Michael Reid Southern Highlands online here.

It is no surprise when you meet him to learn that Mick grew up in Inverell where his family had been breeding Fine Merino sheep and Poll Hereford cattle for three generations. He studied commerce and accounting at Charles Sturt University and worked for Toyota after he graduated. His wife Karen completed an MBA at Charles Sturt University and then worked in a variety of corporate roles.

They bought their first farm in 2002, near Bargo where Karen’s family were living, and Mick thought he would follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I had a plan to grow meat sheep with a self-replacing flock and then out of the blue Karen said: ‘I don’t want sheep, I want alpacas.’ I said: ‘Let me tell you a story about alpacas. I saw my first alpacas at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in about 1989. There were just two of them in a pen in the goat and pig pavilion. I knew what they were, but I said to my grandfather: ‘Pa, what are these?’ He said: ‘Son, they’re alpacas. Steer clear of them, they will be the feral goat of the 2000s.’

“I told Karen there was no fibre industry, no meat industry and no return on investment and that only iconic, well to do people could afford to have alpacas for their tax scheme. But despite everything I put forward, she said: ‘I don’t care, that’s what I want to do. They are such interesting and beautiful animals.’ And then she told me she’d done all this research and even spoken to Janie Forrest.”

Janie Forrest was an industry leader, having taken over the administration and management of Coolaroo Alpaca Stud in 1995 and then purchasing that business in 1998.

“We’d recently bought our first car and we thought we were so good because we’d saved up and paid for it in cash,” Mick recalls. “And then we bought our first couple of alpacas – and they cost more than the car.”

It was a very steep learning curve for the Williams.

After school she married a boy from the same island of Gozo and they decided to move to Australia. English is taught alongside Maltese at schools in Malta, so there was no language barrier when she and her husband arrived in Sydney.

She soon had two young children and there wasn’t much time for her art.

“Their interests came first but we always had a garden and a sewing machine. I did lots of gardening, because it keeps my soul happy, and when the kids were in high school I worked as a dressmaker for a while, and I really enjoyed that.”

As her children grew older, Kate gradually found she had more time for drawing and painting. “It was profound to me. The need to make art was really strong.”

Kate moved to The Southern Highlands 20 years ago and immediately felt at home.

“Wherever we’d lived before, I didn’t think it was going to be permanent. It wasn’t me. It was lacking something. But I knew straight away the Highlands was home to me. I love the nature and the cool climate and there is a great community. And I like being close to the coast. In Malta, we lived on a farm but it was a short drive to the beach. So it’s very similar to how I grew up.”

Significantly, the Highlands inspired her to do more art and she began painting regularly at the home of a local artist who became a close friend. The pair also shared ideas and Kate gradually grew in confidence. In 2018 another friend insisted she participate in a group exhibition in Moss Vale. Though extremely hesitant and nervous, she eventually agreed to submit a painting – and to her great surprise it sold. This further boosted her confidence and she became a founding member of SHAC, the Southern Highlands Artisan Collective based in her home town of Robertson.

“I had a space to work there and it was good for the soul. You can become isolated working on your own and the interaction with other artists was important. We shared ideas and discovered that we were going through similar experiences.”

It was at this time that Amber Creswell Bell (who is now Director, Emerging Art for the Michael Reid galleries) noticed her work and this resulted in Kate’s first solo show in 2019, titled Antidote. Kate describes this as the turning point in her creative career, and she has enjoyed a series of successful exhibitions in the years since.

When you visit Kate in her home, it is clear that art is her life. The walls are covered in paintings, salon style, and there are piles of art books on shelves, coffee tables and the floor. Her current works in progress stand on easels in the garage, in the main living room and in her small downstairs studio. As she prepares for an exhibition, she may be working on ten or more separate paintings at the same time. Throughout the house, tables and chairs are crowded with her favourite subjects – flowers, fruit, boiled eggs, vintage vases, kitchenware with character and beloved books – as well as dozens of half-squeezed tubes of acrylic paint and palettes encrusted with her distinctive colours.

“I just love what’s around me, my surroundings,” she says. “When I include something in my work it’s because I’ve been emotionally drawn to it for some reason. I see it and I react to it – there is something about it that I love. I am always looking in antique shops because I love old things and old books – they have soul. It might even remind me of my childhood, because our home was full of things that had been handed down from generation to generation.”

Gardens have always been important to her, from those childhood days on the family farm in Zebbug to her lush garden in Robertson today. This boasts vibrant violet hydrangeas, a range of roses, a magnificent magnolia tree, orange day lilies, cottage plants, herbs and an array of natives. For her paintings, she supplements the treasures from her garden with flowers and fruit sourced from local suppliers.

Kate’s daily ritual is to rise early, drink a coffee and meditate – a practice she has been following for 15 years. She then walks through her garden with Layla, her 12 year old Keeshond, before painting for several hours. Her house faces east and she finds mornings the most productive time of day for her. In the afternoon, she walks through the quiet country lanes of Robertson, gaining further inspiration from the nature she loves.

The title of Kate’s latest exhibition is Stillness.

“I called it that partly because of my still life subjects and partly because when I am painting I feel very still. I am totally immersed and engrossed in what I am doing. The world stops for me. It is very meditative. It is my happy place.”

Explore Kate’s solo exhibition at Michael Reid Southern Highlands online here.