By Tara Fischer

Staff Writer

A new exhibit featuring artists from the Worcester County Art League has arrived at the Berlin Library branch.

The exhibit is on the second floor of the Berlin Library, located at 13 Harrison Avenue. It features Barbara Schardt’s acrylics and mixed-media works and Jeanne Locklair’s watercolors and mixed-media pieces.

The artistry can be viewed until May 13 during regular library hours.

Schardt said that she is a painter and has a penchant for “many crafts.” Her work at the library includes a variety of mediums, like acrylics and mixed media, and subject matter, like nature and buildings.

“I just wanted a variety,” she said. “I don’t stick with one thing for long.”

In addition to her paintings, Schardt makes crafts. This skill is highlighted during the holiday bazaar hosted by Holy Savior in Ocean City annually.

For this event, the artist creates whatever is needed, like wreaths or tree ornaments. Last year, she made puzzle pieces into ornaments and brought them to the church’s Christmas market.

Schardt began painting in 1983. Her artistic skills were put to use at a shop where she would paint on wood, tin, and flower pots. She attended conventions and fairs, took workshops, and sold her work.

She expanded her prowess to watercolor, acrylics, pen and ink, pastel, and “anything else [she] can get her hands on.”

Schardt noted that she also took some classes at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland, where she earned an associate’s degree in interior design.

As she’s gotten older, Schardt said that she has slowed down on painting and has been getting more into crafting. Currently, she is working on paper projects, including booklets that she calls keepsake journals.

“I have a base of three pages, and then I add to that,” the creator explained. “I have colored papers with a printed design, stickers, and pictures. I make these so you can give them to someone for a birthday present or something. I make the covers and hand sew them together, but they are all paper. So you can put a picture, maybe a letter you want to keep, and make notes.”

Schardt moved to the Eastern Shore from Tampa in 2020 to be closer to family following her husband’s passing. She said that she appreciates the Worcester County Art League for highlighting the art scene in the coastal area.

“I think [the league] shows the community that we have artists, and we like doing what we are presenting,” she said.

Jeanne Locklair will also be showcased at the Berlin Library exhibit this spring.

Her work featured in the gallery includes watercolor portraits and sea glass.

Locklair said that many of her paintings are of people.

“I love faces,” she said. “I find myself staring at people. I love to look at people, all different kinds of people. I love the unique characteristics of faces of all kinds. I find people fascinating.”

Also showcased is the artist’s sea glass, which she tumbles herself to dull the sharp edges to be used for her pieces.

Locklair said that she was “born an artist.”

“As a child, I was very quiet and very isolated,” she noted. “But I would draw. I had a box of crayons and would sit and draw pictures.”

She added that when she was in kindergarten, her teachers gave her a test to determine why she was so quiet. The evaluation involved drawing a man.

“I drew the man, and it was evidently very detailed,” Locklair said. “The man had a watch, and the shirt had buttons and every kind of detail you can imagine, and I remember the person talking to my mother saying, ‘We’re trying to figure out why she’s so quiet, but this picture she drew is far, far beyond the details of a kindergarten child.’”

“I say I was born an artist because that’s all I did as a child,” she continued.

After high school, the artist, from New York City, was recognized by an agent and was given the opportunity to draw pictures that were sold in department stores throughout the United States.

Locklair eventually went to college and became a professor of literature in Manhattan. When she retired and moved to the Eastern Shore, she said the artist inside her “woke up.”

Currently, she is the Georgetown Public Library resident artist, where she does art programs. She also recently began teaching adult, children, and teen art classes at the library in Milton, Delaware.

“Art is incredibly necessary in everybody’s life,” Locklair said. “It is a way we can express ourselves without words. I work with children. Some of them can’t speak English; some have issues. When they can’t talk, they can create. It’s so rewarding.”