Looking Back’s theme for 2025 features Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. In 2005, historian Lynn Erickson and artist Robert Chamberlain collaborated to produce a series of watercolors called Sylvester’s Window. The images portrayed how downtown Olympia evolved over the course of 150 years, from a spot overlooking Sylvester Park. This watercolor is a self-portrait by Mr. Chamberlain, painted a few years after he completed the Sylvester’s Window project. Image selected and captioned by Deborah Ross on behalf of the Olympia Historical Society and Bigelow House Museum, https://olympiahistory.org.
Courtesy Robert Chamberlain