Gresham resident, Polly Ann Hobbs, passed away Monday evening, July 27th, 2020. She was 91.
Polly Hobbs, also known as PoHo, was a confident accomplished artist, educator, writer, illustrator, caregiver and a mother figure and friend to many.
She started her art career her senior year of high school when she submitted the winning design for the Pasadena City float for the 1946 Pasadena Rose Parade in Los Angeles, California. She married Bill Hobbs on August 15, 1948. In the 1950’s she taught private art lessons while raising her four children.
In 1960 she and her family moved from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon where she taught for a private college and continued working as a freelance illustrator. In 1970, after finishing her degrees at Portland State University, she began teaching Art and Drama at Rowe Middle School in Clackamas, Oregon until 1974 when she settled down at Barlow High School in Gresham teaching art and drama. During this time, she continued illustrating children’s books, cookbooks and commercial art illustrating fruit and vegetable labels for local processors. She was also chosen to illustrate the Portland Symphony Calendar 2 years in a row and from that exposure her demand as an artist and illustrator quickly grew.
She retired from Barlow High School in 1992 and started teaching water color painting for Mt. Hood College and several private galleries. All the while continuing to illustrate books, calendars and any other jobs that came her way. She was hired to design Nutcrackers that were manufactured in Germany then imported and distributed in America. In 1990 she started writing and illustrating her own how-to books, “Bet-chu-can-do-it Snowflakes”. All five volumes were written, designed, printed and distributed by her with all proceeds going to women and children’s homeless shelters in the Portland Metro area. She held many one-woman shows with her watercolors of flowers, portraits and landscapes. She specialized in teaching her own method of painting clear glass and had a large following of students.
Polly is survived by four children; daughters Cindy (Jim) Stewart, Michal (Hobbs-Bodey) Grey and sons Bill (Terri) Hobbs and Matthew Hobbs along with eleven Grandchildren, thirteen Great-Grandchildren and three Great-Great-Grandchildren. She is proceeded in death by her husband, Bill Hobbs, sister Peggy Casey and brother Dick Blaydes.