Inslee's Sketches Go to Campus
Heather Almond, a member of Washington and Lee’s Class of 2017, is interested in a career in fashion, and one of her favorite fashion artists is Inslee Haynes, a member of W&L’s Class of 2008.
So when Heather arrived in Lexington from her home in Houston, she put two of Inslee’s sketches on the wall of her room, on the third floor of Graham-Lees. Coincidentally, W&L photographer Kevin Remington was prowling the halls, looking for move-in day photos. He snapped one of Heather and her father hanging one of Inslee’s sketches.
That photograph appeared in Scene on Campus, the popular photo gallery on W&L’s website.
A friend of Inslee’s brought it to her attention, which led to this tweet:
That tweet led to Inslee’s blog, where she wrote: “Omg! I’m so excited to see this picture on the Washington & Lee website of a girl hanging her Roman Memory print in her dorm room…A friend of mine just happened to stumble upon it while browsing the site. How wonderful is that?! My sketch gets to go back to my alma mater. What a glorious endorsement from the world of a bright young freshman. I remember how important it was that I select just the right things for the coveted space on my dorm walls when I arrived at W&L, so knowing that ‘Roman Memory’ made the cut for this girl’s room is quite a feather in her cap.”
Heather had been a fan of Inslee’s work for some time before she realized, over the summer, that she was headed to Inslee’s alma mater. “I had seen her sketches on Tumblr and other fashion blogs, and I wanted to learn more about the artist. I went onto her website and read her ‘About Me’ section. As soon as I saw that she’d gone to W&L, I sent her an e-mail letting her know that I was going to be a freshman there in the fall and how much I loved her work.
“She has been very sweet and helpful! She encouraged me to seek out internships in fashion from the beginning.”
In addition to “Roman Memory,” the sketch that Inslee spotted on Scene on Campus, Heather also ordered “Ankles.” Both are on the wall above Heather’s bed, “Roman Memory” on the left and “Ankles” on the right.
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