Betsy Leighton has always been a maker. Her early passion for craftsmanship was inspired by sitting in her grandfather’s woodshop, fascinated as his lathe spun and his deft hands pressed a chisel to the wood, transforming roughhewn maple into a smooth and sinuous table leg. Her early musings in color and shape became more focused as she received her MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) where her paintings were inspired by Fauvism’s saturated color palette and the playful shapes of Henri Matisse’s cut-outs. Her time at MICA and her formal training as a painter began a lifelong obsession with color, shape, and pattern.

In addition to painting, Betsy has always possessed an intuitive understanding of the capacity of beautiful objects to transform their settings. Whether she was curating colorful folk objects from her travels to Oaxaca and Santa Fe, snipping velvety coral dahlias from her cutting garden and standing them in a turquoise vase, placing a jar of patinaed sea glass in soft blues and greens on her windowsill, ladling fragrant saffron infused soup into brightly painted Italian pottery bowls, or arranging a tablescape with pomegranates, wild flowers, and the muted glow of tea candles—for Betsy, colors, textures, and shapes transform our daily routines into joyful and comforting aesthetic experiences. Upon moving to midcoast Maine, her aesthetic expanded in response to the rhythms of the ocean, the sculpted coastline, and the drama of the seasons.

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