Sally Robison was an artist, writer, and committed advocate of the arts and humanities on Bainbridge Island.
Growing up in the South listening to the colorful tales told in her family circle, she developed an acute ear for the vividly turned phrase, an eye for the telling detail, and a way of looking at the world that was always slightly off center. In college, she earned an MA in fine arts from the University of Florida with a thesis on the topic of intuitive design, her tribute to the importance of creative thinking. By the time she moved to the Pacific Northwest in the 1960s, she had developed the quality of being Southern into an art form.
She published two children’s books and contributed a bi-monthly column in the Bainbridge Review, later collected and published as A Permanent Guest’s Illustrated Guide to Bainbridge Island. As an artist, she used digital technology as an essential part of the creative process, giving her work an offbeat take on the world: “quirky” as she would call it. She was a founding member of the Bainbridge Island Arts Council, served as president of what was then Bainbridge Arts and Crafts, and led a writing group for fifteen years.
Sally was a born storyteller, both in her writing and in her art, who “breathed life” into much of the early cultural life on Bainbridge Island as we now know and appreciate it.