In this article, I investigate the mural-making experience of Mabel Spofford, an early 20th-century art educator from Massachusetts. Spofford designed and created a mural titled "Gloucester and the Friendly Sea" while attending a Pennsylvania State University Summer Arts Institute course with Viktor Lowenfeld in 1947. By placing archival documents, such as the written mural plan, in relation to relevant historical, social, and cultural contexts, a story emerges about the personal and social motivations of Spofford as an art educator whose life was inextricably intertwined with place. The story I tell is of a woman who had a deep connection to the local and whose experience in the mural course served as a pivot point (Ellsworth, 2005) in her own becoming--one which brought her lifelong experiences of place into relation, allowing her to see the known anew.