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

Making art is an act of creative problem-solving: like math but with more right answers. It's a process of choice-making, managing consequences, growing skill sets, and constant learning. Making art deepens our awareness of the physical world, increases our awareness of our own bodies and minds, and connects us to others and to our environment. Making art, sharing it, witnessing it, and interacting with it enriches our human experience by connecting us to joy, awe, wonder, laughter, grief.

2026 marks my 10th year of teaching art to students of all ages through my small company, ColorWheels. In 2025, I taught 3D art-making to over a thousand students, mostly elementary, in after-school programs, in-school programs, Creative Aging workshops, Professional Development courses, and in a summer camp where I teamed up with a drama and a science teacher. We make art out of so many materials,  from kiln-fired clay, polymer clay, and paper mache (I spell it without the fancy accents), to wire, cardboard, and fibers, to household recyclables, old encyclopedias, DVD cases, and cotton left in the fields. 

I'm a two-time 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.

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. My essays can be read on wow-womenonwriting.com and in A Little Something Press's 2026 Motherhood Anthology. My classes on Journaling in Clay teach how I use a therapeutic daily sculpture practice combined with written journaling to heal, grow, and learn. 

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  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