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Bettie Haller

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Local artist Bettie Haller grew up in Temple, Texas, under the instruction of her father. A well-known, successful painter himself, Dr. Palmer Chrisman told his daughter at a young age to find her own subject matter – something other than the Hill Country, his specialty.

“Daddy said, ‘I don’t want you to compete with me, and I don’t want to compete with you, so until I die, don’t paint any blue bonnets or country scenes. You find something else,’ which I did,” she laughs.

Bettie realized she inherited her father’s artistic hand at an early age. In the third grade, she was asked to help other classmates as they painted a dinosaur mural, and by high school, she was painting portraits of Elvis and Ricky Nelson, along with sketching boys in art class per the request of friends. Bettie enrolled in Texas Tech University for a degree in Advertising Art, and it was there where she finally found her niche.

“Texas Tech was a real cowboy school, so that’s what I started doing – rodeos, cowboys, and horses,” she says. “I really loved it and it was different from what Daddy painted.”

She married her husband, Fred, a chemist, in 1972, and soon moved to Houston, where she painted mostly commercial art for the Livestock Show & Rodeo. A year later, Bettie sold her first painting in a local gallery, a scene of a man on a horse looking into the distance.

“My dad’s wife’s brother-in-law started working for Daddy and he’d drive his paintings all over the state selling them,” she says. “He started selling my work, too, so I kind of had an agent.”

The couple moved to Lubbock, where Bettie decided to start painting fulltime. They moved again – this time to Atlanta – and her career continued to expand. By 1979, Bettie and Fred settled in Amarillo, where they raised their two daughters, Katherine and Rachel.

“We just took a gamble moving here. I’d already sold a lot of paintings in Lubbock, so I knew we’d do well in West Texas. Plus we had friends in Amarillo, so we figured, why not?” she recalls. “We decided to see if there was a bank that would back us if we needed help, so Fred flew back here with paintings and sold nine to Bill Attebury and several to First National Bank. They wanted them for their lobby. We took that as a good sign and moved.”

For a brief two years, they owned Setting Sun Gallery. Bettie painted while Fred ran the place. After realizing they sold more paintings through magazine advertisements, they let the gallery lease run out, and Bettie set up shop at home.

Since painting fulltime, Bettie has been a featured artist in Southwest Art magazine, and six of her paintings were made into greetings cards by Leanin’ Tree. True West magazine featured a painting on one of its 1988 covers, and much of her work can be seen in various doctors’ offices, banks and restaurants, as well as a few at WTAMU and Xcel Energy. While Bettie sells much of her artwork outright, a lot has been used as trade.

“I’ve traded for half a swimming pool, cars, piano and tennis lessons, and we ate at Santa Fe Restaurant for three years,” she laughs. “I’ve never paid for dentistry.”

Now Bettie paints more than just western scenes. When her daughter, Rachel, came home from a mission trip to Africa, Bettie was inspired to try her hand at animals, such as elephants, lions, and cheetahs. She also enjoys Italian street scenes, and now that she’s allowed, Bettie paints a Texas landscape on occasion.

“Daddy passed away in 1984, and I actually have a lot of his old brushes,” she says. “He used to keep journals with sketches and notes, so I have those too. It’s really neat to look through them.”

A typical day for Bettie will often include more than just painting. To date, she’s written five suspense novels and is working on another. Friend and local author Jodi Thomas often gives her advice on how to get published.

“Jodi said it takes three things to get published: talent, luck and perseverance. And if you have perseverance, then you only need one of the other two,” says Bettie. “Well, I have perseverance, and getting published is the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do.”

Bettie does take requests when painting, and often it’s as simple as customers requesting she paint their particular horse or add their barn in the background. She’s quick to let a customer see his painting in the early stages just to make sure she’s heading in the right direction.

“The hardest are portraits, but that’s only because how I perceive a person may not be how they perceive themselves,” she says. “My favorite pieces to paint are those with emotional quality. I like cold, dark, snowy scenes, like train depots with lights in the windows. I love to evoke emotion.”

by Jennie Treadway-Miller

Jennie was a columnist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press for eight years prior to moving to Amarillo in 2008. She is an avid reader, runner and writer.

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