Carnegie Hall invites the community to experience the imaginative, richly textured world of West Virginia needle felting artist Liz Haley, whose work is now featured in the Auditorium Lobby Gallery as part of the ongoing March/April Art Walk. Visitors are encouraged to explore this vibrant exhibition, purchase original artwork, and support both regional artists and Carnegie Hall’s mission to champion creativity in the Greenbrier Valley.
Haley’s three-dimensional felted works are deeply rooted in her upbringing in Robinhood, West Virginia, where the forests, hollers, and quiet resilience of the natural world shaped her earliest sense of wonder. She grew up a coal miner’s daughter, spending her childhood learning the land – what plants could heal, which mushrooms were safe, and how tree bark could be brewed into tea – knowledge passed down from her grandmother, a local healer. These formative experiences continue to guide her artistic voice, infusing her pieces with a sense of grounding, memory, and reverence for the woods she once called her playground and classroom.
Working with raw wool from sheep, alpacas, llamas, goats, and rabbits, Haley incorporates silk, bamboo, viscose, and sari fibers to create luminous surfaces and intricate textures. Her process blends wet felting and needle felting, beginning with pre felted wool and evolving through hours – sometimes weeks – of layering, rolling, sculpting, and detailing. The result is a collection of vivid landscapes, whimsical creatures, and narrative rich scenes that unfold slowly, inviting viewers to step into a world shaped by imagination, memory, and the healing power of nature.
Haley is a self-taught artist who discovered felting by chance and quickly found it to be the first medium that fully allowed her to express her inner world. She is an active member of the Allied Artists of West Virginia, the Tri State Arts Association, and the Tamarack Marketplace community, and she continues to create from her home in West Virginia, where the forests remain both muse and sanctuary.
This exhibition offers audiences an intimate look at an artist whose work is as heartfelt as it is imaginative, an invitation to reconnect with the natural world and the quiet stories it holds.
The exhibit is free and open to the public, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and runs through the end of April. For more information, visit carnegiehallwv.org, call 304-645-7917, or stop by Carnegie Hall at 611 Church Street, Lewisburg.
Carnegie Hall programs are presented with financial assistance from the West Virginia Department of Tourism and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.
