Nancy Scharf is retiring from school art career

Sisters Middle School will be bidding farewell to a beloved staff member with the June retirement of art teacher Nancy Scharf.

“Nancy is one of the five finest teachers I’ve ever worked with,” said Middle School Principal Lora Nordquist.

“She is a gifted artist and a gifted process teacher. She helps kids get from point A to point B and has created a warm and welcoming classroom.”

Scharf’s journey to the art department at Sisters Middle School began with a second-place prize in a poster contest among Salem elementary students.

She was in second grade, attending a rural school in the Willamette Valley.

Scharf’s parents were farmers there, and she grew up close to the land, feeling an affinity with it and the people who work it.

Her siblings and father share a delight in working with their hands — her sister is a potter, her brother used to make furniture and her father does fine woodworking.

“We are makers,” she said. “We like doing tangible things.”

She credits a middle school art teacher with sparking her passion for painting and drawing. At the University of Oregon, she majored in painting and drawing, before succumbing to reality and changing her major to general education, ending up with a teaching degree.

A stint teaching third grade in Myrtle Point followed.

Scharf, her husband, Cliff, and the first of their four children moved to Sisters in 1976. Cliff, also an artist, was working with leather and just beginning to craft jewelry.

For several years, the family sold their creations at craft fairs all over the Northwest.

During this time and between babies, Scharf made herself available as a substitute teacher in Sisters.

This allowed her to see the development of children at all ages as she took on classrooms from kindergarten through eighth grade.

A competent musician as well as artist, she was able to incorporate art and music into many of those classrooms.

After 15 years of sporadic teaching and full-time caring for her family, as well as helping Cliff establish the Cliff Scharf Gallery in Sisters, Scharf took on a kindergarten classroom.

She taught half-time and regained her teaching certificate. Moving up to fifth grade after five years kept her fresh, until health problems caused a rethinking of her life.

A renewed zeal for painting resulted in a body of work which has been shown in juried shows and solo exhibitions.

When the middle school opened in 1996, Scharf was offered the opportunity to create the art program there.

“It has been the most exciting development of my career,” she said. “I was finally working in the field I was made for.”

The environment Scharf has fashioned is both challenging and nurturing, enabling students to use divergent thinking, and increasing their avenues of communication in the process.

Artistic children don’t always communicate well in traditional ways, she said. Art can help them gain confidence in their ability to communicate effectively.

Scharf’s greatest reward has been watching her students grow to become fine young men and women.

“I hope to help them become better human beings,” she said.

The program uses all mediums, with particular emphasis on drawing as a form of literacy.

She stresses the importance of visual problem-solving, with the result that most students discover they can draw better than they think they can.

Once her students have honed their knack for painting, Scharf said many of them become interested in landscapes

“They want to be able to reflect the beauty they see around them,” she said. And to be able to sit quietly, taking time to finish a painting, is a time of refreshment for her students.

Retirement plans include much painting and a move to the Umpqua River in southern Oregon.