After ten years of taking her art seriously, being accepted into exhibitions and winning a few regional awards, Sally Wilson opened a gallery, studio and shop in Cobargo's main street 18 months before the Black Summer bushfires.
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She is one of four small business owners selected to operate from Cobargo's new business innovation hub because they lost almost everything - home, business, livelihood or all three - in the bushfire.
"I didn't have a pencil to my name," Ms Wilson said.
"We had been building our house so every brush, pen, paper, camera, printer and 20 years of artwork was in the shop."
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Starting all over
After the fire, Services NSW helped her get a grant and a relative arranged a crowd-funding effort.
"All up we managed to raise $10,000.
"I wouldn't have been able to start up again without that grant and the help of strangers so I could buy paints, printers, canvases," she said.
Ms Wilson has been painting and rebuilding since.
"I did go through a dark period in my art.
"That was how I dealt with it, moving through it on canvas."
Having set herself up on Spotify, a woman she met by chance in the Southern Highlands took Ms Wilson under her wing and took charge of the website and social media after everything had burnt so Ms Wilson didn't have to deal with it.
"It was a virtual gallery because it had all gone."
She got her business restarted through her landscape bracelets.
Ms Wilson hand-makes each bead and interprets a landscape through painting the beads to create a wearable piece of art complete with its own story.
She also sells printed tea towels and palette-inspired scarves reflecting her early apprenticeship in screen printing and graphic production.
Home is where the art is
Ms Wilson moved to Cobargo five years ago from the NSW Central Tablelands.
"As soon as I came here, I knew it was home because of the creativity, the diversity of the people and the acceptance of the people.
"It is the perfect combination of coastal and country which feeds my art perfectly."
The timing of the business hub was also perfect.
Immediately she got the key she went to her new space with a bottle of champagne and would just sit there becoming familiar with it.
"I am so happy, it is the perfect next step."
She said the business hub could be a template for flood-affected businesses.
"We had nothing so I hope those businesses can do something like this."
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