Tales of Spring Valley: 'The Beginning'

Sharon L. McGraw Bio: BFA, B.Ed.

Alberta Artist 50 years, author-illustrator, teacher, mother of 4, grandmother of 10.

 Some of Sharon’s earliest memories include picking apples from a huge old tree as she leaned out the kitchen window, and gathering shells on the beach a few minutes away. At the age of three, the damp coastal city was exchanged for a dry windy, prairie city with a big pile of dried out dirt for a yard. While living there, her life was shaped by some unique exoeriences: a beautiful rock garden gradually transformed the new property; in grade four her best friend died; she entered and won first in an art drawing contest; was gifted with and became enthralled by an old set of Oz books; wrote her own stories for school; and her family started the first of four flower shops.

​Growing up under a flower pot, sharing secrets with her cat, learning to cook, and spending every spare minute learning and helping to arrange flowers was the routine until  the family bought a horse. Weekend life changed to driving to see the horse, riding the horse, showing the horse, living and breathing anything horse. Two new horses were bought [one for Sharon’s sister], the two girls and later a young brother shared a horse, with all three siblings escaping from the flower pots as often as possible.

​While completing a BFA, Sharon met and married her future husband, a mischievous cowboy, and spent the next seventeen years as a ranch wife raising four kids and Black Angus cattle. Hard workdays were filled with hilarity and many memorable moments. Somehow she found time to teach art and do her own paintings. A family move north to another rural location, included travelling every week to complete a BEd degree, and then teaching public school Art and English in two small towns. She misses her students. 

​Wonderful animals and amazing children are finally stepping into the pages of her books: stories exploring what animals might think and speak; her children’s poetry capturing first-time moments and observations through the eyes of children.

Currently she has 12 different books in her head, all bursting out around the edges!

 Ten incredible grandchildren, nine of whom are very young, provide a delightful source of inspiration for both writing and painting.