Beth lives in San Francisco where she maintains a studio, and works on the stage crews of the SF Opera and the SF Ballet. Since 1995, she has been one of the artists working at The Clay Studio, a group space in the SOMA district of San Francisco. While living in Providence, RI, she worked as studio assistant to sculptor Constance Leslie from 1985-94. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI.

Some thoughts:
I like to work for a time with a very limited palette, both in terms of color and of form. Then, something will pop out, a shift will happen, often in just one piece, and I’m on my way down an entirely new path. It’s endless. I love when my own work surprises me.

Several years ago, I began working primarily with the figure, mostly in the form of busts and heads. The early series has a particular personal energy: as a body of work, it feels quiet; there is a sense of stilled breath.

Lately, various birds and other allegorical images are finding their way into the figurative pieces. The quiet of earlier work has returned. I have been using subtle gestures, specifically hand positions of holding or grasping, to explore the relationship of the body to more hidden, inner aspects of “self.”

Some of the figures have become quite understated; they take on a quality I think of as shadow, or ghost. The birds themselves, starting as only delicately visible, have begun taking flight away from the human form altogether, to stand on their own.