Chatto Creek Tavern owners Grant and Fi Sutherland have owned the business for four years and Mrs Sutherland had been indulging her love of art around the garden.
A comment that someone had not noticed the tavern from the Otago Central Rail Trail, despite the large garden and brightly coloured umbrellas, made her think the business needed a sign on the trail.
Then, as happens, social media gave her a sign.
Milton-based mural artist Alice Muiral, a play on her maiden name of Muir and her work, popped up and the Sutherlands realised they had seen her work on buildings in Invercargill.
Within a short time they connected and a sign turned into a collection of murals around the property.
"Grant told me I could do two more projects," Mrs Sutherland said.
The murals were one of them.
The men’s toilets had had a steady stream of people of all genders visiting to see the special touch left gifted by the artist, whose name is Alice Blake.
She painted her first building when she was 15 years old. While she had not studied art at school, she sold her paintings which led to the invitation to paint a Mosgiel tattoo shop.
Since then, buildings all around the south had been embellished with her designs.
Working around her family, she usually painted at weekends when her husband was home with their two small children.
Many of the commissions she did were part of a chain that tracked back eight years to when she painted on the first school her son attended, Blake said.
"It was a gift to the school. I wanted my son to feel I was there with him."
Someone saw her work and was inspired to commission their own, as Mrs Sutherland had.
Her art could be seen in towns all around Southland and Otago from Invercargill to Dunedin airport.
Chatto Creek presented its own challenges with the Central Otago temperatures making it hard to paint fast enough, she said.
Working with brushes and test pots, she worked from her imagination with no help from computers or drawn plans.
"I never consider that things might not turn out. They sort of evolve."
She was getting better with all the practice, she said with a laugh.
Next up was Balclutha Hospital and hanging 13 paintings in the Dunedin airport.
And a commission for Chatto Creek next year, Mrs Sutherland said.
