Rochelle Hartman

Unapologetically Midwestern, Rochelle Hartman has spent most of her life in Central Illinois, with a 13-year side quest to Wisconsin’s Driftless area. She landed in Springfield in 2019 to become the Director of Lincoln Library. An early retirement from her 25-year career in public libraries in 2021 gave her a year to breathe, reflect, and expand her ideas about what she thought possible. Having always thought of herself as a writer, she suddenly found satisfaction in the meditative practice of cutting up and remixing high school yearbooks, print ephemera, and vintage texts. She is a farmer’s market fanatic, documenting her gratitude in a photographic series tagged #bikeucopia on Instagram @tinfoilraccoon. Now employed as a reasonably contented state bureaucrat, she lives with her two adult children and four cats, including her studio apprentice, Dr. Anthony Meowci (Tony).

An untrained intermittent art dabbler, Hartman’s work is informed by an almost morbid nostalgia for the Atomic Age aesthetic she grew up with: Tom and Jerry, Technicolor, Dick and Jane, Photoplay, and her aunt’s basement fallout shelter. She aligns herself with the Dadaists, delights in the absurd, and finds beauty in decay.