Kristin was born to Australian parents in Bathurst, NSW, and grew up in Canberra. Her paternal grandparents were British; her grandfather was raised in Australia before becoming a Rhodes Scholar and is considered one of Australia’s greatest educators of the 20th Century. William Dargie’s portrait of him won the Archibald Prize in 1946. On her mother’s side, there is ancestry going back to the Spanish Armada which Kristin believes explains her own and a number of relatives’ dark eyes and hair.
Kristin’s family also have strong artistic genes with many of her siblings and children pursuing careers in the creative arts. The father of three of her four children is jazz violinist, ‘George Washing Machine’ who is half Venezuelan, his father being the internationally renowned Venezuelan guitarist, Rodrigo Reira, and his mother the Australian classical guitarist, Sadie Bishop.
Kristin’s youngest child’s father has Scottish heritage and has much fairer features than her three older half-siblings, who are dark and of distinctive Latin appearance.
Kristin was brought up a meat and three-vege girl. Her family ate simple but healthy meals like chops, mashed potatoes and green beans, although her mother later came to embrace multi-ethnic influences, becoming more adventurous in her cooking. Last year Kristin brought Iced VoVo’s to her office’s A Taste of Harmony lunch. Kristin had fond memories of them as a child, although her colleagues had never seen or tried them!
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