Artist Biography

Growing up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on the shores of Lake Superior, Beth Alice Rubenstein, nee Peterson, began her love of art as a young pupil attending Northern Michigan University Normal School where student teachers were being trained to teach elementary school. During the 1960’s no curriculum was without art and music.

She deviated from her mother and sisters’ chosen field of professional teaching and instead graduated from this same hometown university during the 1970’s with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing.  In 1990, as an adult living in Wisconsin with her husband and son, (encouraged by a sister a pastel painter) she enrolled in drawing classes at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Her first solo art show, “Woman Gone Wild”, was granted in 2005 at the Sierra Art Foundation Gallery in Reno where the family had relocated.  Since then, her passion for acrylic painting on wood has developed by painting still life, landscapes and portraits depicting happy times with child-like whimsy.

She is a prolific and versatile artist who paints almost daily, traveling between two studios since 2007 in Reno, Nevada and Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. She sells her work at galleries in Nevada and California and continues to love the challenge of a deadline by donating work to charitable events and silent auctions.

Her dream is to open a studio gallery of fine art that has hands-on opportunities for making art along side an artist. Perhaps she will teach painting one day, so she can take the mystery out of being an artist and encourage anyone to jump right in and try.


Artist Statement

My father was a cabinetmaker and I’ve always loved the smell of freshly cut lumber. As a child I would watch him lather on a thick coat of paint for a new cupboard. He always said there was nothing more beautiful than painted wood. I agree wholeheartedly. I’ve stumbled onto wood because it is so familiar to me. It is inexpensive and readily available at local hardware stores. I love how wood grain gives a textured imperfection to finished work. I intentionally weather & age my wood panels for Old World Scandinavian charm.

Please visit EVENTS at www.bethsgallery.com

Visual Art Experience
 
1996-2010 Charitable Donations

California:
Michael Bolton Charities Annual Fundraiser, Ojai, CA 2010
Monterey County Vintners & Growers Annual Fundraiser 2010
Carmel Valley Garden Association Annual Festival 2008-10
All Saint’s Day School Fundraiser, Mid Valley, CA 2010
St. Dunstan’s Episcopal School, Auction, Carmel Valley, CA 2010

Reno:
KNPR Annual Television Auction 2004-2008
Saint Mary’s Foundation- Annual Celebrities take a Bough 2000-2005
San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles 2004 Quilted screens
UNR Library “Chair”ity Auction, “Sitting Pretty”
VSA Arts of Nevada 1996-2005
 
1999-2010 Galleries & Shops

SPCA Benefit Shop, Carmel, CA
North Tahoe Art Center, Tahoe City, CA
Media Mundo Gallery Women’s Art, Reno NV
La Bussola - Quirky gifts, art and furniture, Reno, NV
River Gallery/ BleuLion Gallery - group shows, Reno, NV
Esoteric Coffee House & Gallery- painted table toppers, Reno, NV
 
1998-2010 Professional Memberships

American Association of University Women (AAUW)
Creative Quilters of Nevada
Sierra Artist’s Network, Tahoe City, CA
SAQA Studio Art Quilt Associates, National Art quilt assoc.
Sierra Nevada Decorative Artists, Reno, NV
Portrait Society of Reno
 
1972-1976 Education

Northern Michigan University,  Marquette, MI -  BSN, Nursing
Graduated Cum Laude
 
2005 Solo Shows

Sierra Arts Gallery - “Woman Gone Wild”, Whimsical Dinner party/cardboard figures
La Bussola - “Out of Place, Out of Time”, Travelogue “Post-card” Paintings