Bethany Mckay might have just made the shortlist for one of Australian art’s most prestigious endowments, but it doesn’t hold a candle for her compared with her Swan Hill art classes.

Not only were art classes where her journey in front of the canvas began, as a nine-year-old in Echuca, it is her Swan Hill classes that now drive her forward.

Teaching, Mckay confessed, “has always been my t...