On a spring day in 1957, my art teacher, Mrs. Dorcas Taylor, announced, “Get your sketch pads and pastels together. We are going outside to do some drawings from life.”

I found a cherry tree across the street from Sequim High School. The boughs were bent with pink blossoms. Mrs. Taylor walked from student to student. “Bring out the contrast, dark and light. It will make the image pop,” she told us.

Later, we carved animals from blocks of salt. I still have the charging bull I carved. I did a watercolor still life. It won a Hallmark Scholastic Gold Medal and was on display at Frederick & Nelson in Seattle along with art of other Washington State students.

In the years that followed, I covered the walls of our house, our children’s and neighbors’ houses with bold, colorful images.

She taught us to look for beauty everywhere, to understand nature by observing it. She taught us to revere life.

She was a gifted artist in her own right, deserving of a museum filled with her marvelous art somewhere in this valley she loved so dearly.

I remember her now and urge everyone to vote “YES” on the School Bond issue to replace our aging, decrepit school buildings. I hope that a big, naturally lit art studio is in the plan. It should be named “The Dorcas Taylor Studio.”

Tim Wheeler

Sequim

Sequim High School Class of 1958