‘She was leaning on one of her old post-and-rail fences,’ Martina Gemmola said, ‘looking over her farm, wearing her little hat made from a tea cosy. My grandparents were very resourceful and creative in their own way. My Pop made braces out of old seat belts and insulated his coat with newspaper to keep warm on the farm. He was a poet, ceramicist, and collector of oddities, as well as a sheep farmer. In the photograph that I took of my Nana, she’s resting on the timber, just surveying her land, and she’s just got this really beautiful, gentle look on her face.’
At the time, Martina was in year 11 at a small, rural high school not far from the Grampians in western Victoria. She’d grown
