In a rare posthumous tribute, six Bellingham businesses will display Tammy Zlotnik's paintings this August, a testament to her impact on the local arts community.
Zlotnik died of cancer last July. She was 43.
Zlotnik didn't exhibit her own art all that much, but her work on behalf of her fellow artists and for the at-risk teen girls she worked with as an art therapist left a lasting impression on everyone who knew her.
"She put a lot more energy into promoting community artists rather than promoting her art," said Carol Oberton, a friend helping to organize the series of exhibits. "It wasn't a good idea for her work to leave this community without the community having the opportunity to see it."
Wade Marlow is co-owner of Blue Horse Gallery, one of the six locales showing Zlotnik's work. He'd seen a few examples of her work over the years, but didn't fully appreciate her as an artist until he went to her studio after her death to assess her thousand or so paintings.
"I was stunned by the amount of work and the quality of her work," he said. "I wish I could have told her how much I admire her work."
Friends of Zlotnik uniformly describe her as honest, humorous and compassionate, someone full of ideas and the oomph to pursue them.
She approached life with zeal, from playing basketball and riding her bike everywhere, to remembering to send birthday cards to friends. From being open about her thoughts and feelings, to promoting the work of the other artists at the Waterfront Artists Studio Collective in Old Town.
"She was such a go-getter," said Amanda Tysowki, who worked with Zlotnik in the Visions art therapy program at Sea Mar Community Health Center. "She was always on fire."
Zlotnik grew up in Cleveland. She earned a master's degree in fine art at Miami University, studied in London and taught art to children in New Hampshire before moving to Bellingham. She later earned a master's degree in art therapy in Boston.
At Visions, she helped raise money, donated art supplies and took girls to visit her studio. At the Waterfront collective, she managed the artist studios for building owner Bob Bray and got the artists to show their work during the downtown gallery walks.
All the while she painted her abstracts, many of them large.
"She had to spread her arms to pick them up," Oberton said. "She was a small gal."
Her paintings are full of the same energy that propelled her in life, Marlow said.
"She could apply what she knew about art to what she knew about herself," he said. "What came out is a very personal but very professional painting."
Such paintings - large, abstract, full of emotion - typically sell better in larger cities, where museums and art collectors abound, Marlow said.
"She had the potential to be widely recognized," he said. "She was fearless."