Spotlight on the arts: Hayley Fausett

“Spotlight on the Arts” by The Paradise Center honors and encourages students in the arts by highlighting their talent and acknowledging the support they receive through their schools and teachers.

Becoming an artist is usually a process, starting with an interest, encouragement by friends and family, lots of trial and error, and some inspirational “spark.”

A spark can be seeing artwork that is interesting, seeing something that strikes a chord, or doing something that results in a belief that you have talent.

Hayley Fausett, a 10-year-old 4th grader at Thompson Falls Elementary, says she has been an artist half of her life. At 5 years of age, she decided to become artist. And the rest is history. She does not remember anything in particular that inspired her to begin – she just decided that art was what she wanted to do. She says her mother inspires her to continue.

She likes cats and she loves horses. Both of which are subject matter for many artists. Her cat recently gave birth to seven kittens. Her horses are no longer with her. She sadly states that they were old and died. When asked what favorite drawing is, she happily responds, “The horse picture I did!”

Hayley has been concentrating on free-hand drawing for the past year, and she clearly has a strong sense of line and design. A case-in-point is the artwork photographed for this article.

Students all began with identical geometric backgrounds provided by Mrs. Amy Gilbert, the fourth-grade teacher. Students added a circle and then drew a tree within it. The geometric background contrasts with the organic, flowing shapes of a circle and a tree.

While doing the assignment per instructions, Hayley went beyond the usual approach. Her background squares are unique in color and the direction of lines. Her tree has symmetry, personality, makes a statement, and is unique with the intriguing free-form shapes and symbols on parts of its surface, almost as if several people had carved into the bark and left something of themselves.

When asked what she would say to others interested in art, she immediately responds with “Never give up, always keep erasing and trying again!”

It is unusual for a such a young artist to be so brave in her approach to her art.

Hayley plans to continue her art and learn more about other mediums as she advances in school. If her work to date is any indication, she will be very successful. She recognizes that constantly drawing leads to improvement.