As a son of Oliver Wendell Haselroth, a classical and country western guitarist, landscape artist and lithographic printer from Missouri, my inspiration for expressing myself through the arts largely stems from a desire to reflect through media and musically as a child.   My appreciation for the visual arts began when I was quite young and began drawing stick figures, then thought to expand them to include a semblance of shape and form.  One particular day, I presented a request in prayer to our Creator, that He would help me draw with increased skill, then immediately drew a replica of a sculpture in our house that my mother had placed on a table called, “Devotion”.   Even by standards for a child my age at that time, the drawing seemed to incorporate elements that were unfamiliar to most children.

As I approached high school, my focus for the visual arts was to select subject matter that began as a result of paid requests from my art teacher, Ms Patricia Jones at Jefferson City High School, to draw her relatives.  At the time I knew very little about the world around me and I was told that making living in art was very difficult, so I resolved to enter the service, but it was through a scholarship that I was able to pursue the arts.  In my first year at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, I continued drawing basic still lifes, then moved on to the University of Missouri, Columbia where I received a degree in Art Education.

In art school, I adapted to using mainly oils.   I expanded my horizons to include Italian landscapes and an appreciation for reflected light.  My interest in doing so highlighted the contrast offered through the ethereal quality of light against the more ephemeral reflections found in buildings and bridges.  

 In the late 1970’s, I had decided to enter seminary school and in 1982, I accepted a position at Southwestern Oklahoma State University as Director of the Bible Chair Department.  Soon, I found myself expanding my horizons through the reception of a fellowship with the Department of Health and Human Services.  Then, in 1984, I began a career in Healthcare Administration attending the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and Oklahoma University during which time I served as a healthcare administrator in McAlester, Oklahoma.   In 1985, I was invited to become a Healthcare Administrator for the military and was commissioned in the U.S. Navy in 1987.   Throughout my career in the U.S. Navy, I lived and served in a variety of places in the world, but the highlight was serving as a medical planner and Acting CATF Surgeon aboard the USS Saipan during the onset of the war with Iraq in 1991.   

Following retirement from the Navy, I was given the pleasure of sharing my skill and appreciation for the arts with the young people of Greene County, Tennessee.  Some of the students came with an appreciation for the arts, still others develop it in the classroom.  Either way, sharing one’s skill provided me with another raison d’etre et de vivre (reason to be and to live).   in July 2015, upon retiring from teaching, I was given the honor of Cum Laude with the Tennessee Arts Academy Alumni Association.

In summary, art has provided a platform to formulate and conceive visual avenues for design, then present a perception about it; with this, art provides the means to study, analyze and project one’s perspective even about life, itself.  Perhaps this time in my life serves as an accumulation of previous engagements.  Currently, I enjoy thinking about the next work of art, then laying it out by lacing it together through my understanding of the principles of design.