Staff Stories

Pamela Saunders

Growing up in Washington, DC with creative parents who supported the arts, I was exposed to different forms of art throughout my life so much so that it was woven, one strand at a time, into the fiber of my being. My mother, a writer by trade, would casually pull grapevine branches off a tree and form them into wreaths. My father, who worked for the Federal Government, stored every detail of trips we took to museums in his mind and recreated things in miniature for the wooden dollhouses he would make. We went to plays at the Kennedy Center and to international art festivals and craft shows, where my mother sold her handmade ornaments. I learned early on that art was everywhere – from the stripes on the zebra at the zoo to the kaleidoscope of colors being transformed into one of my father’s stained-glass window designs.

I attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where I received my B.A. in Communication Studies with a concentration in Public Relations and minor in Sociology. As part of a graduate-level course, I created a PR Campaign for The Center for Creative Arts in Greensboro. Before long, I was taking a pottery class there and the next month I was on their staff for teaching art classes at the summer camp and special workshops to preschoolers. I loved every minute of it!  When I returned to Washington, DC to begin my career, I realized after a few years that the decorative painting business I had on the side was what I wanted to pursue full-time. And I did. For five years, aligned with Interior Designers, I designed and painted murals throughout the DC area. When the opportunity to teach at Brooksfield came about, I couldn’t wait to share all of my enthusiasm for art with preschoolers again. My first child was born during my first year of teaching at Brooksfield and she is now 12 years old.

You might run into me (as some Brooksfield students have), at art museums or installations around town, usually with my children, ages 12 and 9, exposing them to the arts the same way that my parents did with me. In 2009, I started Young At Art, which currently brings extracurricular art lessons to Brooksfield, Haycock, Franklin Sherman and Kent Gardens Elementary School as part of their enrichment program. In my free time, I develop art projects, read about artists, think about art, paint, design, draw, volunteer at McLean Project for the Arts, teach wreath-making and furniture painting workshops, write and dream. And, I’ve been known to make a grapevine wreath or two!