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 Statements

2021

Grandma Rose had a green thumb for growing African violets. Mom had a knack for finding four leaf clovers under the clothesline. I have neither the patience for tending a garden nor the observational skills to identify plant species.

Like the bumper sticker says "I'd Rather be Painting"…or is it Playing Tennis? I paint from my photos and am inspired by sea birds on the Monterey wharf or fresh cut flowers at a farmers market. Trendy chalkboard menus at local restaurants are the inspiration for my posters and blackboard art.

I work in many mediums, acrylic to oil pastel on canvas or wood. I adore colorful folk art and paint lighthearted topics to keep you smiling.

Past

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.

Visual Art Experience