Sarah Schaeffer can’t remember a time she wasn’t interested in drawing. “From very young I was always drawing and doodling. It’s always been a passion of mine and part of my life,” she said.
Growing up, Sarah attended a very small school – she had 28 students in her graduating class – and didn’t get any formal art training until she went to college. She started her career as a middle school art teacher in Red Oak, a small town in southwest Iowa, where she found, she could easily relate to her students.
“When you teach middle school, you’re trying to get the kids to find a passion, so you try and push a number of techniques and materials as much as you possibly can. When people ask what material I use to create art, my standard reply is ‘whatever is within reach.’ I consider myself the world’s oldest eighth grader. I get bored really easily, so I’ll be working on something for a month and then try something else,” said Sarah.
After teaching 16 years in Red Oak, Sarah moved to McCook, Nebraska where she taught students at the community college for three years before moving to Dodge City where she has been for more than three decades. She taught at Dodge City middle school before retiring seven years ago. “I taught for 48 years and thought, ‘that’s probably enough,’” said Sarah.
Since retirement, Sarah has found her “second creative home” at the 2nd Avenue Art Guild/Gallery where she helps man the gallery and teach workshops. She’s also competed in Art is Ageless® for four years and won Best of Show-Professional for her pen and ink drawing of “Barn Kat” in the 2025 competition and will be featured in the 2026 Art is Ageless Calendar. Sarah entered the local Art is Ageless competition at Manor of the Plains in Dodge City, Kan.
How did she react when she heard she won? “I was dumbstruck and overwhelmed. I was absolutely amazed and very flattered and humbled. I immediately called my daughter and said, ‘you have no idea what happened,’” said Sarah.
Her winning entry took about a week to 10 days to finish and she even changed course during the process.
“When I started it was only going to be black and white. And the original plan was that I was going to draw the whole cat. But I got to looking at those beautiful amber eyes and thought I needed to do those in color. That’s when the color pencil came out. And to accent the eyes, I thought I’d just do the face so that the eyes were the focal point.”
Sarah added, “Pen and ink is tedious work – it’s lots of strokes and dots. You can get kind of exhausted, but it was great fun, and I enjoy it a lot.”
In fact, Sarah has found that joy is an important part of her artwork.
“I get a great deal of joy from creating my artwork. If it makes me happy, I’m going to continue with it. I feel that’s the way I want people to see my work. And those people who buy my work, I want them to have the same feeling – when they hang it up on the wall and walk by it, it just makes them smile.”