On three alternating rows of MRI film, the portholes are painted with smaller circular painted holes. These represent looking inside oneself. From portholes to portals - looking from within, looking inside, looking out and looking at a reflection - by framing them on the barrier fence, we see the world around us in a new and different perspective.
Bette Ann Libby, “Portholes: Looking Out/Looking Within”
Bette Ann Libby has worked in clay since 1972 and has been inspired by her sojourns in Samoa, Asia, India and the Middle-east. A studio potter in Waitsfield, Vermont from 1975-86, she ran the Mad River Valley Craft Fair from 1985-1989.
In 1999, she founded the sculptor’s collective, “Studios Without Walls”, which has received 12 consecutive Massachusetts Cultural Council grants for environmental installations in Brookline. In 2009, Bette Ann began creating “lanterns” out of MRI film which were exhibited in “Nature and Artifice” along the Longwood Riverway path.
Over the past 12 years, she has organized numerous mosaic workshops and public installations involving from a dozen to more than one hundred participants. Most of the installations are permanently located in hospitals, schools and libraries. She has worked with art consultant Betty Bothereau, L’Attitude Gallery, Boston.
In 2008, she was awarded an MCC grant for the Brookline Town-wide Mosaic, which was permanently installed in the Coolidge Corner Library, Brookline, MA in December, 2011. In June, 2011, working with students at Yestermorrow Build/Design School, Libby created a 32 x 8’ wall on the campus in Warren, VT. In October, 2012, working with the Boston/Haifa (Israel) Connection, she created “Peace/Shalom” Mosaic for Temple Beth Avodah, Newton, MA and also created a community mosaic “Tree of Knowledge” through a grant from the City-Wide Friends of the Boston Public Library. Her work will be included in the “Art of Mosaics: Piecing it Together” at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, July 7th- October 27th 2013.