By Anna Patrick
Rosalie Haizlett was trying to have a cohesive show.
A culmination of her yearlong Emerging Artist Fellowship through the Tamarack Foundation for the Arts, Haizlett began planning what her final exhibit would look like almost as soon as the fellowship’s curriculum framework was revealed.
At the end of 2016, Haizlett, then a student at West Liberty University, and Hannah Lenhart, then a student at Fairmont State University, were chosen out of 17 applicants from across West Virginia to be the 2017 Tamarack Foundation for the Arts’ Emerging Artists, the first class to serve in the program’s inaugural year.
Lenhart (left) and Haizlett (right)
The program is designed to support two budding Mountain State artists by providing tools, resources and guidance from master artists to help both fellows launch successful careers as creative entrepreneurs in West Virginia. Shortly into their fellowship, Haizlett and Lenhart began planning a yearlong, statewide tour, which would take them to five artist communities across the state. In every place, the pair would stay with a host artist and meet with artists living and working in each community. They’d get to see what other artists are creating, ask questions and gain insight into what it takes to make a living in the Mountain State through art.
At the end of their fellowship and yearlong tour, the pair would create a final exhibit to serve as a culmination of the knowledge they gained through the fellowship and their travels. Haizlett and Lenhart met with rug hookers and glass blowers, painters and even a botanical illustrationist.
A Constellation of Work
Early into the tour, Haizlett thought she had a well-crafted plan already figured out. Specializing in graphic design and illustration work, she would make sketches and illustrations from every place they visited, and at the end of her journey, she would design five posters, one for each place. Lenhart had a similar plan. A ceramicist by trade, she would design a tea set for every city visited.
Over the course of the year, Haizlett and Lenhart visited Huntington, Wheeling, Lewisburg, Elkins and Thomas and the Martinsburg and Shepherdstown area. With each visit, Haizlett’s plans slowly began to dissolve.
“As we’ve been exploring the state and meeting people, I’ve also been exploring my personal style and just playing,” says Haizlett. “My art this year is different from what I’ve made before.”
She made sketches, writing down in her journal what she saw and the nuggets of wisdom artists shared. But then she also started dabbling in rug hooking. And she played around in more abstract forms. And she started painting illustrations of the natural world, something she hadn’t done in years.
“When it comes to the work I created, I feel like this year was really an exercise in seeing for me,” she says.
Haizlett made a rug hook of an aerial view of Huntington’s train depot and another inspired by a design she noticed in a porch railing in Shepherdstown. She even painted a series of mushrooms native to West Virginia.
The connections to place might not be as obvious in Haizlett’s work as she originally planned, but there’s still cohesion in the sense that every person and place along her journey encouraged the young artist to test out new roads of creativity.
“I also realized this year, and I think it shows in my body of work, that creativity doesn’t just come out of nowhere. It’s really a constellation of things that you’re pulling,” she says.
A Mastered Plan
For the culmination exhibition, Lenhart is sticking with her initial plan. She designed, threw and hand-painted five tea sets inspired by every town she visited this year.
Lenhart’s tea set inspired by Wheeling, WV.
Since graduating from Fairmont State University, Lenhart is now working as a full-time ceramicist out of a home studio she and her parents built. For the young business woman, lessons came from trying to balance the demands of entrepreneurship—on average, she spent anywhere from 8 to 12 hours a day working in her studio—with allowing space for creativity. Lenhart had to balance creating the pieces that she’ll be showing and selling in the Emerging Artist Exhibit with making sure all of her regular orders were met.
During her fellowship over the last year, she has been busy, but she’s grateful.
“I don’t think I would be doing art right now if it wasn’t for the foundation,” she says. “Not only was there exposure but also just having that name behind me—Tamarack Foundation Fellow—meant galleries and retail places weren’t nervous to take me on. Now I’m able to sell in stores across West Virginia.”
Taking the Next Step
Beginning in March, Lenhart’s work will be sold at Tamarack: Best of West Virginia, a cultural center showcasing artists from across the state. Haizlett is currently working full-time as the media producer at the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition, and she’s doing art and design on the side.
The Tamarack Foundation’s Emerging Artist Exhibit will be showing at Taylor Book’s Annex Gallery, located at 226 Capitol Street in Charleston, from February 16-March 31. The show will open on Friday, February 16 at 5:30 p.m., followed by an artist talk moderated by Tamarack Foundation’s Executive Director Renee Margocee at 6 p.m.
For more information about the Emerging Artist program, visit TamarackFoundation.org.
This article is the final installment of a three-part series. Click here to read parts one and two.
About the Author
Anna Patrick, a native of West Virginia, studied communications at West Liberty University. Following graduation, she interned at the Charleston Gazette, where she fell in love with feature writing. She currently works as a freelance writer from her home in Canaan Valley, WV.
