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Name: Betty Fox

Please contact me if you are interested in a commission. For portraits or a rendering of your home, I work from photographs.

Type of media you prefer:

Working primarily in pastels, I have done commissions of buildings and people.  Other mediums I like are pencil, charcoal and watercolor. Though my work is based in realism, I have been called an Impressionist and Expressionist.
What training (formal or informal) do you have in art?

I am self-taught and love art that grabs the eyes and won’t let go! I believe daily efforts to produce art and beauty is as necessary to the artist as food, sleep and love.

If there’s one thing we should know about you or your art, what would it be?

I love shadows, which is very apparent in almost all my work. I especially like portraying people and buildings. My favorite artists are Vincent Van Gogh and Andrew Wyeth. I prefer realism and have done copies of Renoir and Van Gogh.

Type of media you prefer:

Pastels, Watercolors and Oils

I’ll try anything once

What got you interested in art?

My grandmothers;  One was a frustrated artist and one was an amazing artist who had her own one woman art show at 53 after learning to paint in her 40s.

What training (formal or informal) do you have in art?

I am completely self-taught.  I’ve taken the one day here and there art classes that the Topeka Art Guild offers plus similar courses when we lived in Dallas and Chicago.

Why did you decide to join the Topeka Art Guild?

I wanted to join in on the classes and to participate in Topeka’s Arts culture.

How long have you been a member of the Topeka Art Guild?

Since about 2004.

If there’s one thing we should know about you or your art, what would it be?

I paint for stress reduction and am always pleasantly surprised when someone likes my work enough to pay real money for it.

A quote that you love is:

“What is, is.”

Unknown

“There is only one you…Don’t you dare change just because you are outnumbered!”

Charles Swindoll

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Type of media you prefer: 

I love oil paint, the way it works, the way it mixes, the way it feels on the brush and the canvass or board, the smell. All of it. But I’ll paint with anything.

 What got you interested in art?   

I was Born interested in art. I was drawing before I could talk.

What training (formal or informal) do you have in art?   

Basic art, design and interior design in school. Eight years study with the wonderful, nationally known artists of the Denver Art Students League. I worked with Kim English, Emanuel Martinez, Doug Dawson, Don Sauli, Teresa Vito, Mark Thompson, and many others. It was a great experience; I took a little from each, but find that I am still working on my style. Like my hair, I like to try something different each time.

Whenever I came to Topeka to visit my Daughter we would go to the Art Galleries, I was intrigued by the Topeka Art Guild Gallery as none of the very old and very impressive Artist Guilds that I belonged to had their own Gallery. We had to scramble to find space to hang. The Colorado Artist Guild (started out as the Denver) used to have a national show each year at the Colorado History Museum Gallery; they have it booked for that time forever I think. I always had a painting or two accepted in that show and won many good awards. I loved it, but it wasn’t like having their own gallery. So when I decided to sell out in Denver and move here I knew before I got here that one of the first things I must do was join the Art Guild. What I did not know was that three major surgeries were on the top of my list of things to do. So it was awhile before I could become active and then I jumped in with both feet

Why did you decide to join the Topeka Art Guild?   

I joined in the fall of 2001 when I moved here.

If there’s one thing we should know about you or your art, what would it be?   

When I am painting I do paint for myself, to please myself but I always paint with a viewer in mind. I try to tell a story, project a mood, or suggest a feeling. I want my art to be seen and appreciated for its own value; which is always in the eye of the viewer. Please look at our beautiful art. We do this. I think this when I am staffing. Knowing that we can share our labor brings me joy. It is one of the reasons I paint. Teaching and sharing what I know with other artists is another.

A quote(s) that you love is:

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world–this makes it hard to plan the day.”

E. B. White