Photography: Kieran Morrissey
Paint-covered hands, a multicultural feast and an afternoon spent in good company. MADE IN KIN made its Adelaide debut with a cosy, creative gathering in the beautiful surrounds of Stangate House & Garden.
When Stangate House & Garden invites you to take up a week-long residency at its historic Adelaide Hills estate, the imagination naturally runs wild. Inspired by its sprawling gardens and character-filled house, I dreamt up Paint & Picnic – a day devoted to art, good food and good company.
Admittedly, I’d spent the lead-up watching the weather forecast as though it were my wedding day. I had such hopes of everyone enjoying Stangate’s beautiful gardens, but Sunday had other ideas.
Thankfully, the estate’s function room proved just as inviting. With enormous picture windows framing the lush greenery outside, a crackling fireplace, soft music, and calamansi juice flowing, we had ourselves a rather cosy setting for the day.
Our morning began with a still-life painting workshop led by Filipino-Australian artist Peter Francisco, who opened the session with a story about the neighbour who first taught him to paint. Now, he takes great pleasure in passing those skills on to others.
And that generosity was evident throughout the morning. Peter moved patiently around our long table, offering individual pointers, encouragement and the occasional joke. He had a wonderful way of making everyone feel comfortable, whether they were experienced painters or picking up a brush for the very first time.
Peter’s practice often draws on his Filipino heritage, so I enlisted him to transform a yellow linen tablecloth with hand-painted mangoes, calamansi and hibiscus flowers. I drew on my own Filipino roots for the still-life arrangement, combining a teapot borrowed from Stangate’s pantry, camellias picked from the gardens and two ingredients close to my heart – eggplant and papaya, staples in some of my favourite Filipino dishes.
And those camellias deserve a special mention. Stangate is home to more than 800 camellias, tended by the Camellia Society, whose volunteers helped earn the gardens international recognition. Footage we’d captured of the camellias in the sunshine earlier that week played on a loop behind Peter, bringing a little of the gardens indoors.
Before long, plenty of concentration settled around the table, interrupted by the occasional laugh and a few encouraging words from Peter. Slowly, each canvas took on a colourful personality of its own.
With the rain still coming and going, our planned garden picnic became an indoor long lunch instead. While we transformed the painting room into a dining space, guests wandered through the gardens with umbrellas in hand, admiring the grounds and the gentle pitter-patter of rain through the towering trees.
Inside, the fire continued to crackle as the table filled with food from three wonderful local businesses. Marshi’s Kitchen brought a taste of Sri Lanka with fragrant curry bowls, tuna croquettes and chicken bao buns. Alminas Kitchen served up Lebanese favourites, including mini yiros, colourful dips and baklava, while Crumbs and Comfort rounded out our multicultural spread with Filipino treats, from buko and ube pies to sweet little pastry scrolls.
I have to give an extra shout-out to Nicolette and Mark, the couple behind Crumbs and Comfort, who personally delivered their pastries early that rainy morning. Judging by how quickly their pastries disappeared at lunch, you can imagine just how delicious they were. I didn’t even manage to get a slice of buko ube pie – one moment it was there, the next it was gone!
Before everyone headed home, we had one last treat – a picnic prize drawn from a basket filled with everyone’s names. The prize pack brought together a few goodies from MADE IN KIN collaborators we’ve connected with along the way: a picnic blanket from Peek Neek, a bottle of Zonzo spritz, a notebook from Bespoke Letterpress and flowers picked from Stangate’s gardens.
As luck would have it, the winning name belonged to someone who had come along alone and emailed me beforehand to admit she was feeling nervous about painting.
Not only did she leave with a beautiful artwork she’d created herself, but she also went home with the picnic prize. We’d spent much of the afternoon sitting together, chatting away. It was a sweet reminder of what can happen when we put ourselves out there, even when the prospect of turning up somewhere unfamiliar feels a little daunting.
What I found particularly meaningful about this gathering was how different it felt from our previous MADE IN KIN events. This time, we opened the doors to the wider public. People came simply because they fancied a morning of painting, a good meal or an excuse to spend a Sunday somewhere beautiful.
And perhaps that was the beauty of it. We didn’t need to explain the bigger mission behind what we do. We simply created an experience for everyone to enjoy, with people of colour at the heart of it – dreaming up the ideas, shaping the experience and welcoming others in.
