I'm Betsy Andrews Etchart, and welcome to ColorWheels.

PROCESS-BASED ART IS KINETIC IMAGINING
Filling a blank piece of paper with what's inside your head is a wonderful thing, but it's not for everyone. The pressure of making art that way, when we have been gifted the world outside our heads and each other as inspiration, is unnecessary. Thinking and learning occurs with fingers and hands. Manipulating materials is a kind of kinetic imagining.  Teaching students to see a bubble wand as the arm of a dog who has a lemon juice container body and a Play-Doh can-nose is giving them the power to innovate--not to think outside the box as much as turn the box into something else entirely.  Something that's useful, or beautiful, or expresses a feeling, or makes them laugh. Art is creative problem-solving: like math but with more right answers. Art connects: one person to another, to herself, to ideas, to the world. 

2026 marks my 10th year of teaching art to students of all ages. Last year, I taught 3D art-making to over a thousand students, mostly elementary, in after-school programs, in-school programs, summer camps where I team up with drama and science teachers, and private lessons. We make art out of EVERYTHING, from kiln-fired clay, paper mache (I spell it without the fancy accents), wire, fibers, household recyclables, old encyclopedias, cotton left in the fields. I've twice been Master Artist for West Valley Arts Council's Gallery 37 program, partnering first with public artist Leslie Scott and then graphic designer Lichen Shepherd, to lead high school students in the creation of large-scale public art installations.

I also teach writing: as a former professional magazine writer with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction, I've taught memoir at the college level and for Creative Aging programs, run poetry workshops, and published poetry for kids in Cricket.

I also teach a workshop called Journaling in Clay, which utilizes a therapeutic daily sculpture practice combined with written journaling to result in a self-portrait in four dimensions. 

I've begun illustrating too, after a lifelong love affair with picture books. I'm the art half of Magic Pebble Speech and Art, and along with longtime speech therapist Michelle Dillion, create fun, effective materials for use in speech therapy, autism education, and early learning. Go to MagicPebbleSpeech.com or our TeachersPayTeachers store  to see our stuff.

I can be reached at [email protected] or 602-291-3457 for information about bringing a workshop of class to your organization.
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Let's make art!
Betsy Andrews Etchart