Michelle Moesker Art on the Farm

March 2020, the ‘new world pandemic’ had begun. Shutdowns, limited movement, a weird strange feeling in the air.

My hubby’s business in aviation ground equipment came to a halt, with major airlines stopping hire of the business’s ground equipment literally overnight. Ninety percent of the business’s income was gone, overnight.

What to do? We were blessed, we had my dream home, a beautiful Queenslander house with views to the bay, a three minute walk to the sandy foreshore, and family and friends all around. We also had a farm, northwest of Brisbane that was hubby’s weekend play house. But now, with no income for who knows how long, what to do?

Very quickly, the decision was made to reduce our debt, start learning some basic life skills, like growing our own food, and move to the farm. Not by choice, but by necessity. We had moved by mid April.

Initially I was angry - angry to leave my parents and friends, angry to leave the home and lifestyle I loved. The timber farmhouse was more than 100 years old but had been stripped of all its features such as timber floorboards covered in orange cork tiles, VJ timber panelled walls replaced with fibro boards tacked on, and add on rooms with low ceiling height – it had been butchered! As an interior designer by trade, I couldn’t see how to fix my environment quickly and without substantial cost.

A few months later, after feeling quite depressed and beaten, I took to reversing my attitude by engrossing myself into veggie gardens and chooks – to the point of investing in an incubator and watching many chicks’ first cracks of the shell and being born. The farm was now coming to life. I had met some locals and neighbours, all of whom shared their experiences on farming life – who knew that guinea fowl eat paralysis ticks and can kill deadly brown snakes? I began to truly appreciate the beauty of the landscape I was living in, the varying colours, the quiet, the connection with nature, the birds and kangaroos, the changes in weather, the recital of how much rainfall we had, the feeling of space.

My living environment was still a big issue for me. It never needed to be big and ostentatious, but it did need to reflect peace, calm, love and happiness. Then the penny dropped! We get a removal Queenslander house to add onto the property and I can renovate it to exactly how I want it – bring my beautiful bayside house to the country.

Our coastal house was sold, a second skeletal dwelling was relocated to the property, and after a few years of renovations (nothing is done much in a hurry out here), we celebrated Christmas of 2023 in the new old two bedroom cottage. Still a few more things to do, but I love her every day.

I’m genuinely happy and content living in the country, in a small town with one pub and no traffic lights. I have turned the small sunroom into my studio, with an outbuilding earmarked for expansion into a gallery space. I have all the inspiration from nature all around me that I need to keep creating art.

So the ‘pandemic’ did change my life quite considerably, but I am only a little over an hour and a half’s drive away to visit my old coastal area. And I am blessed to be able to invest the time into creating and building Michelle Moesker Art.