Tunisia RPCV Lynn Erickson creates art project to illustrate history of Olympia Washington
Lynn Erickson researched and designed views of the Sylvester Park area from the 1840s to today, and engaged the services of painter Bob Chamberlain to put the images on canvas. Prints of the paintings will be given to area schools for local history lessons.
Read and comment on this story from The Olympian about Tunisia RPCV Lynn Erickson who has spent much of her 51 years not only volunteering in schools, but devising programs or activities to fill gaps that concern her. Her latest idea might not only illuminate Olympia history in a visual way, it could become part of Olympia history, says artist Bob Chamberlain, who is working with Erickson on the project. Her project, called "Sylvester's Window," includes eight detailed paintings from the same location -- the site of Olympia pioneer Edmund Sylvester's home near what is now Sylvester Park, which looks out over downtown Olympia and Budd Inlet -- on eight different days over the past 160 years. Read the story at:
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Art project chronicles history of Olympia
LORRINE THOMPSON FOR THE OLYMPIAN
OLYMPIA -- It's 2003 in most of Lynn Erickson's house.
Tile in the hallway and kitchen has been dug up by sons Matt and Dan as the family finally gets around to fixing earthquake damage. An energetic Lynn hurries between computers and file cabinets and maps to demonstrate her newest project in a lifetime of creative projects aimed at helping spark interest in schoolchildren.
Spread on a small table in a breakfast nook is the Olympia of 1933 -- maps, historic photos and news articles that tell a story of life in that era.
In a room that used to belong to one of her college-age sons, other Olympia eras have completely taken over. Old fire insurance maps of historic Olympia buildings and homes paper the walls, and historic photographs, drawings and diary descriptions of days gone by cover tables throughout the room.
In the Erickson living room, long-dead Nisqually leaders Leschi and Quiemuth stand talking with Hudson's Bay traders, and an ancestor of Gov. Gary Locke walks down a dirt street of 1899 Olympia where he was a prominent businessman in Olympia's Chinatown. These historic men live in two of five detailed paintings that are part of Erickson's current project.
An elementary school teacher and wife of retired Olympia city attorney Mark Erickson, Lynn has spent much of her 51 years not only volunteering in schools, but devising programs or activities to fill gaps that concern her. Her latest idea might not only illuminate Olympia history in a visual way, it could become part of Olympia history, says artist Bob Chamberlain, who is working with Erickson on the project.
"She's quite a gal. She's doing the research and I'm doing the artwork," said Chamberlain, a retired graphic artist who is now a fine artist.
Activist upbringing
Lynn Erickson grew up in Bellevue in a family of civic activists -- her father, James Ellis (brother of Mariners executive John Ellis) particularly is known for a number of civic movements in King County.
Wanting to spend more time talking to people from different areas, Erickson spent a summer driving a taxi in Seattle. At age 18, she taught English with the Peace Corps in Tunisia, where her older brother also was serving.
She met her husband, Mark, at the University of Washington when she accidentally wandered into an advanced law class and sat next to him and didn't want to leave in the middle of the lecture.
"She was very nice and very enthusiastic," Mark said. "Her enthusiasm is what strikes me as one of her biggest qualities. When she gets into something, she's in it 120 percent. She can tire a person out."
The family moved to Olympia when Mark accepted a job as an assistant attorney with the city, and Lynn taught elementary school until their three children were born -- Matt is 21, Dan is 19, and Hayley is 17 -- when she took time off from work. But she continued to be concerned about needs of schoolchildren.
At one time, Erickson was concerned about the lack of strong role models for girls, so she wrote a story about a time-traveling heroine for young girls and tried to get toy companies to consider a doll based on the character. "Boys had all these action figures and girls had Barbie," Erickson says. It didn't work, but "at least I tried."
In 1994, worried about how schoolchildren and teachers could keep up with rapidly changing world geography, Erickson devised a classroom program called the Passport Club. Children receive current world maps and passports in which they can record their "travels" to different countries. After the students identify the countries on a map, they receive colorful postage stamps from countries around the world.
"That makes the countries come to life for them," Erickson said. "I wanted teachers to have a simple way to track the changing political world."
The Passport Club took on a life of its own as word spread among teachers and administrators, and is now offered in 90 schools in six states and five countries including France, Egypt and China.
Birth of a project
As excited as she is about the Passport Club, Erickson has had to take a little time out for her latest project, though she's quick to explain it wasn't her idea.
She was visiting a teachers conference in Chelan when she and other teachers were fascinated by an art project presented by a Harvard professor. It was a series of paintings of a fictitious town over 200 years from the same viewpoint, showing the landscape, architectural, technological and human changes that would be seen from that viewpoint over the decades.
Erickson immediately decided she wanted such a project done for Olympia, but using real people, real landscapes, real historic events.
She found 19 sponsors and raised $50,000 for the project, then she found local historians enthusiastic to help her with details. She later met Chamberlain when she saw a mural he had painted for the Budd Bay Cafe.
"I needed someone who was willing to work on this crazy project and work on it for a long time and on a low budget. And Bob just said yes," she said.
Called "Sylvester's Window," the project includes eight detailed paintings from the same location -- the site of Olympia pioneer Edmund Sylvester's home near what is now Sylvester Park, which looks out over downtown Olympia and Budd Inlet -- on eight different days over the past 160 years.
Five paintings in the series are finished:
- July 9, 1841, shows Nisqually and Squaxin tribe members at work, and traders and explorers from the John Wilkes expedition who were exploring the site that day with the help of an elderly Nisqually woman who acted as their guide.
- Oct. 30, 1856, shows stockades built for the Indian War that had erupted, as well as Clara and Edmund Sylvester, Tumwater pioneer George Washington Bush and other historic people walking around the town.
- April 7, 1874, shows the city gearing up for a push to build a railroad to Tenino after the Northern Pacific Railroad chose to bypass the city.
- July 4, 1899, shows a streetcar and citizens riding bicycles, a new courthouse with a lighted clock tower, and residents such as Emma Paige, a blind Olympia woman who spoke around the state on the value of kindness, succeeding in getting the state legislature to agree that kindness would be taught in all schools for 10 minutes a day.
- April 21, 2001, shows a Procession of the Species parade with attendees such as Gary and Mona Locke, who were actually at the parade that day with their children.
Three more paintings are planned to fill in the decades up to 2001. When finished -- possibly by June, Chamberlain said -- the large watercolors will be donated somewhere they can be displayed, but first will be reproduced in smaller sizes to be handed out in schoolrooms along with narratives of what is happening in each painting.
A team effort
Erickson has worked to include historic people who might not be listed in many history books, particularly women and minorities.
"It's a nice feeling to be able to step into a time," she said. "It gives (students) a feeling, and the feeling is what you want. This kind of says, 'Start here, and if you find something interesting, go to the library and look it up.' "
The project couldn't have happened without enthusiastic sponsors and local historians who provided Erickson with mountains of details, or without Chamberlain, who "has a can-do attitude," Erickson said.
The project would never had begun without Erickson, who pulled it together and insists on as much historic accuracy as possible, Chamberlain said.
"I tease her that she's a bit of a fly inspector," he laughs. "She'll say that this (painting) is done now. Then she'll come out a week later and say, 'Can you do this and this?' And I'll say, 'Geez, Lynn, give me a break.' "
Erickson acknowledges that the project has grown more encompassing than she or Chamberlain expected -- "We both dream about it frequently," she says -- but is excited that it may soon be sparking the imaginations of children about Olympia's past and present.
Though the project is almost done, Lynn still frets about the details. When the job is done, Erickson says she'll spend more time on the Passport Club and might return to teaching elementary school, where it's possible she'll end up using the project she helped create to inspire her students.
"I should return to the classroom," she says a little wistfully. "That's where I've found a lot of joy."
Lorrine Thompson is a correspondent for The Olympian.
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