Alice Thomas sits Feb. 7, 2023, at her art station in her home in Pendleton as she reflects on her life as a teacher and discusses the importance of supporting the local art community.

PENDLETON — Art educator Alice Thomas of Pendleton devoted her career to encouraging and inspiring students to craft and refine the artistic principles of drawing and painting.

Thomas stood inside the art studio at the Pendleton Center for the Arts surrounded by art materials she brought from her house — brushes, pastels, charcoals, paints and sketch drawings.

She picked up her journal, flipped through the pages and shared some personal sketches and collages she‘s been working on.

“This is what you could have students do in their journals so that it’s not just like the pressure of keeping a sketchbook,” Thomas said. “Things like collaging images from a magazine. Just fun stuff that kids might like to do.”

Although some artists struggled to balance teaching and working on personal projects, Thomas found joy in teaching art full-time. She also reminisced about her childhood in Eugene.

“It was a great place to grow up,” she said. “I felt like it was a real privilege to grow up in the school system in Eugene because of the teachers.”

Growing UpThomas’ parents raised her and her brother but split up during her childhood. Her mother participated in community organizations and was part of the board that started the Saturday Market in Eugene.

Her father, an architect and city planner for Eugene, also was an artist and would encourage Thomas to create her own work. He advised her rather than purchase something as simple as a Valentine’s Day card to construct her own cards and hand them to classmates.

“I’d be sitting at my little table with all my art supplies, and I’d be making a Valentine for each kid in my class,” Thomas said. “So the whole ‘here’s your space to be creative’ was really encouraged.”

She took piano and flute lessons and attended symphony concerts. Her brother, Rob Thomas, delved into the music world and would go on to play first violin in orchestras. But for Alice Thomas, the music didn’t stick. She devoted herself to drawing and painting.

When Thomas left high school she decided that it was time to leave Eugene and find her calling.

Figuring it OutThomas went to Monmouth where she attended the Oregon College of Education, now Western Oregon University. It was originally Oregon Normal School, the state’s school for training teachers.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” she said. “I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to write and illustrate children’s books, that’s what I wanted to do. But it’s not practical to go off to college and say, ‘I’m going to be an artist.’ At least it didn’t make any sense to my parents.”

She began majoring in elementary education, then switched to English while minoring in French and considered becoming a linguist. Her parents felt as though Thomas did not understand what she wanted to do with her life.

“They stopped paying for my college after two years,” Thomas recalled. “And they just said, ‘You just changed your major so much. You don’t seem to really know what you’re doing. So we’re going to pull the plug.’ But I didn’t have that drive that some people have.”

Thomas ended up working during the summer to pay for the rest of her tuition. She got hired as a bank teller for US Bank and got married to her first husband, Bryan Traylor, who she met during her first week in college. He got a job as an elementary education teacher in Pendleton so they moved and started a family.

Back to schoolThomas settled into motherhood and focused on raising three children. She got involved in the community by joining the Pendleton Arts Council and College Community Theater.

When she had her last child she began itching to return to school to complete her degree, but the decision was a major step. At this point, Thomas was a mother in her 30s and working for Columbia River Bank. After deep consideration she began a new chapter in her life.

She registered at Blue Mountain Community College, transferred to Whitman College in Walla Walla and received her bachelor’s degree in studio art.

“I graduated from Whitman and my senior thesis project had been the self portrait,” Thomas said. “The art community locally was super supportive of me.”

She focused on drawing, painting, printmaking and had her first solo show. She began dabbling in the teaching role. She taught workshops at the Pendleton Center for the Arts and day camp at Crow’s Shadow on the nearby Umatilla Indian Reservation.

“I wanted to go back to school to get my teaching degree,” Thomas said. “I had to get my master’s. I couldn’t afford to do that, at that time, just family wise and money wise. I was working at the Columbia River Bank before I decided, right around the time I turned 50. I said if I don’t do this now, I’ll not do it. And I really want to do it. So I quit the bank and signed on with the master teachers ed program.”

She earned her master’s degree and started to search for her first teaching position.

Working into teaching artTeaching art full time while attempting to create personal work on the side is a difficult task to balance.

“I haven’t done a solo show since Walla Walla,” Thomas said. “And then I went back to school. That’s when I kind of shut down hard while I was studying to be a teacher. And then I was a counselor, and then arts teacher.”

Her first official job in the school system was being a school counselor for the Morrow County School District. She counseled for five years until she got her first break to finally teach art full time at Garrison Middle School in Walla Walla.

She taught drawing and painting for four years there before moving to a teaching position at Pendleton High School. She branched into photography classes. She bought some of her student’s artwork, which remains on display at her home.

“It was a treat when I had a student that really wanted to be taught something by me,” Thomas said. “I could feel valuable in a way that was more than just being encouraging and supportive. I have some student work around here. Sometimes they would give their work to me and sometimes I would buy it if they were selling it in a gallery show.”

She taught at Pendleton High School for four years. When the pandemic hit, Thomas taught virtually and then decided it was time to retire.

The flame in her heart to teach continues to burn as she supports the artist community and hosts workshops.

Thomas now hosts a class, “Drawing Collaborative: Coffee and Creative Exploration,” Wednesdays at 10:30-11:30 a.m. with local artist Shari Dallas at the Pendleton Center for the Arts.