La Conner Weekly News - Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper

Dennis Strong and his family began spending summers in La Conner in the mid-1950s, as did Clayton and Barbara James. They met through Ruth Pennington's Fidalgo Allied Arts summer art school, where James found his calling in ceramics and Vera Strong was teaching weaving.

Their relationship and those made with others were nurtured over many summers spent in La Conner.

As Peter Strong, Dennis' son, recalls, "I remember walking down the middle of First Street in that quiet town, taking art classes from Clayton James, Joe Petta and Guy Anderson. It was an idyllic place for a boy like me and my sibl...