The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. A listing in the OAR does not confer an endorsement, approval, or verification by the Ohio Arts Council.
For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
2024 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
Jennifer Haglund
Bio
Jennifer Ditlevson Haglund is a writer with a diverse background, having worked in news, education, and marketing.
Ditlevson Haglund was born in Oklahoma, lived in Nebraska, and eventually grew up in Northeastern Ohio. She earned a BA in English and Journalism at Ashland University, and an MA in English at Baylor University. Her work has been published in Refinery 29, Christianity Today, Christ and Pop Culture, and local newspapers.
Although she has written in a variety of genres from narrative essays and news features to academic papers and ad copy, anything she writes has been influenced by a life lived noticing situations where the overlooked and the strange have called for her attention.
Ditlevson Haglund has taught English as a Foreign Language, Spanish, and composition both privately and in schools across the United States.
She resides in Ashland, Ohio, with her spouse and two children.
Artist Statement
No matter where I’ve been in my life, I’ve found myself looking around, taking notes. I’m not daydreaming. I’m watching. Some people get lost in imaginary worlds. What I find most interesting is taking the time to see what is in front of me and explore its origin and direction. Depending on the genre and purpose of the piece, this happens through investigation and research, and at other times, it’s through imagination.
Whether in my role as a writer, journalist, mother, or educator, this practice has guided me and led me to expanding my sense of empathy for people and situations that would otherwise be far from my own experience.
The subjects in which I take most interest have to do with seeing and highlighting unseen and overlooked. To write honestly, it’s imperative to record complexity and tension where you find it, to write it into the characters and landscapes where you find it: flowers growing through animal skulls, convicted murderers practicing mundane kindnesses, the stench of roadkill on a sunny day in beautiful countryside, political rivals grieving over the same injustice. When I create unsettling situations in my writing, I prepare readers to shift their expectations and receive a message.
Through tension, there is hope. There is room for both questioning and rest in the admission that nothing is as it should be, that life continues in moments of unplanned ecstasy, mundane weekday afternoons, and long periods clouded by grief.
My parents, who had so little in common at times, greatly influenced my artistic vision. Although they could seem so different, my desire for people to find healing came from both of them. I watched them talk to anyone, love many who would be considered unlovable or difficult, and strive to live according to their understanding of Christ’s example.