Betty Hayzlett was an inspiration to me back in elementary school when she was an “Art Mom” for her son Stephen and my 6th grade class here in Boise, Idaho.
Betty showed us how to make homemade paper, my first experience with fiber art. Betty’s encouragement of my artistic direction was extremely positive. This article is all about Betty’s work, plus an upcoming show she’s featured in called Felted Fusion.
Who is Betty Hayzlett?
Betty Hayzlett is a fiber artist living in Boise, Idaho. In creating her art, she works to make things if not of beauty, then at least things that are attractive and interesting in ways that draw viewers in.
Now in her seventies, Betty has been creating with fabric since she was a little girl and a friend’s mother taught her how to make her own doll dresses.
Betty majored in fine art at the University of Colorado, and in her final class at the end of her senior year, she once again turned to her favorite medium, fabric. The last project she created in that class was a six-foot tall, three-dimensional structure made of fabric covering a metal framework. At the suggestion of her professor, she stayed on for the summer and produced a series of smaller fabric-covered wire structures, which still reside in her garage decades later.
After getting a master’s degree in Special Education, Betty worked in that field for several years, raising two children. She then returned to fabric, this time taking a weaving class. Having always loved three-dimensional and organic forms, Betty started weaving in ways that were more free-form, and three-dimensional.
She explored needle-weaving with a wide variety of textures and colors, and learned to weld the structures that supported her creations. It became clear that organic forms and rich colors were important elements in her creations!
Untitled
Untitled is a piece that Betty made for her sister. It is hand-woven onto a welded structure. The form was to relate to her sister’s husband’s work in physics.
When Betty took a wet-felting class, it triggered a whole new direction for her work. After needle weaving, felting seemed miraculously fast. She also discovered that the process could easily be used to make three-dimensional forms that did not require a sub-structure as her woven pieces had.
But the “matteness” and flatness of felt asked for more exploration. Therefore, many works in subsequent years have incorporated woven elements, giving her work more texture and contrast.
Elegance
Elegance, created in 2023, is an example of weaving attached to felt.
Landscape of the Heart
Landscape of the Heart is an example of a woven piece embedded directly into a felt piece in the wet-felting process. It has needle-felted details and is supported by a metal structure attached to the back. This was created in the early 2000s, and Betty considers it one of her best examples of this process.
Betty has also included some work with wood – from twigs to carved surfaces – and in one case, bronze, enabling her to create contrast between the hard and smooth surfaces of the wood and metal, with the soft and more textured surface of felt.
River Through Desert
River through Desert has a woven piece felted into a felt, and then hung between two hand-carved panels, and is one of the examples of combining wood and felting.
Autumn Tree Line
Autumn Tree Line is one of Betty’s examples of including wood (twigs) in a work, but it also is an example of a woven piece embedded in the felt.
Most recently, Betty has taken up ceramics and is very excited about these new pieces that combine felt with her ceramic creations, once again contrasting hard and soft, smooth and textured.
Leaves
Leaves was created in 2022, and is one of Betty’s first felt and ceramic fusion pieces. It also includes twigs.
Everblooming
Everblooming is another of Betty’s botanical fusions of felt and ceramic, created in 2023.
Evergreen
Evergreen, 2023, felt and ceramic.
Mutant Blossoms
Mutant Blossoms, 2024, is one of Betty’s most recent works, a fusion of felt and ceramic.
Featured Artist In Felted Fusion
Betty is scheduled to be a featured artist in Felted Fusion, a show at the Crossroads Carnegie Art Center in Baker City, Oregon on March 1-31, 2024. The show will include wall pieces and free-standing works that highlight the contrasts that are created by combining her felting with her weaving, her woodwork, and her ceramic work. (The previous four pieces, above, are highlighted in her show.)
Each of these new additions of techniques and media, along with the rich colors of Betty’s work, create the richness that is integral to her work!
Betty has always encouraged my art directions and has given me countless gems of advice about being an artist, specifically in Boise. Her example as an artist emboldens me and gives me a viewpoint of insight into our community and beyond. Betty has been loving to me throughout my life’s peaks and valleys with her knowledge of human development and compassionate way of acceptance. I experience her art partly as her language of ingenuity and nurturance.
See Betty’s Work
Please visit Betty’s professional website here, and consider experiencing Felted Fusion in person, on March 1-31, 2024 at the Crossroads Carnegie Art Center, located at 2020 Auburn Ave, Baker City, OR 97814.
See Gretchen’s Work
I will also have a small series in a show put on by the Treasure Valley Artists Alliance, entitled “Inspiration.” This show will be at the Nampa Civic Center from February 1 to May 16, 2024. On Saturday, February 3, there’s an Artist’s Reception from 5:30-8:30 pm. Nampa Civic Center is located at 311 3rd St, Nampa, ID 83651.