As an exhibiting artist for over 25 years, Bets Cole has achieved success in selling and showing her artwork nationwide. Working for the most part in the plein air tradition, Bets paints with an immediacy and openness that draws the viewer into her personal experience and response to the landscape. Bets Cole loves to explore the new challenge of painting unfamiliar places. She allows the air, the sky, the light and the subject matter dictate whether she works in acrylic, watercolor, charcoal or a combination of these mediums. When not traveling, Bets works from her studio in her home located on an eighty-acre farm in Oregon.
Bets graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. with a B.S. in Design and Environmental Analysis, with a minor in Physics. After working for several years in New York Fifth Avenue firms, Bets was recruited to develop and coordinate a Graphic Design Program at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon. She returned to school to obtain her B.F.A. and Masters of Fine Art in Painting and Drawing from the University of Oregon while teaching at both the University and at L.C.C. Bets taught at the University of Hawaii and Honolulu Community College on a faculty exchange. She has lectured at the Chicago Art Institute, Portland State University, and Portland Community College.
In addition to receiving numerous awards, Bets Cole’s work has been included in many public and private collections including Oregon State University, University of Oregon, M & T Bank & Investment Group, Baltimore, Maryland, Marathon Coach and The Adell McMillan Collection, Eugene, Oregon. A recently published book La Petite Eclaircie, A Journal of Paintings by Bets Cole, ISBN 978-0-615-45104-6, documents over 40 paintings completed on site in France in 2010. Several of her pieces can also be seen in This Bountiful Place, ISBN-13: 978-0-87595-303-8.
In 2001, Bets was selected to participate in an artist-in-residence program at Crater Lake National Park in celebration of the park’s 100th anniversary and her work consequently was exhibited at The Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, Oregon. In 2010 she traveled to Brittany, France where she painted for five weeks in the Isabel Klots Artist Residency Program awarded by Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland. In 2012 Bets participated in Art in the Open, an international plein air event in Wexford, Ireland. Bets has been commissioned by The Oregon Arts Commission percent for the Arts Program to design and execute ceramic tile murals for new building sites on four different occasions.
Bets Cole currently paints full-time in the plein air tradition, traveling to locations throughout the United States.
2012 Selected Events and Invitationals, Awards & Recognitions:
Art in the Open, Wexford, Ireland
Paint Snow Hill, Snow Hill, Maryland Chincoteague Plein Air Event, Cincoteague, Virginia
Cannon Beach Plein Air Festival, Featured Artist, Cannon Beach, Oregon
Sitka Art Invitational, Portland, Oregon
Art of the West Invitational, High Desert Museum, Bend, Oregon
Womens Works Fine Art Invitational, Woodstock, Illinois
Escalante Canyons Plein Air Art Festival, Escalante, Utah
Strokes of Genius 4, Featured Artist, The Best of Drawing, Rachel Rubin, North Light Books
American Art Collector, August 2012, The Art Lover's Guide to Collecting Fine Art in the Pacific Northwest
2011 Selected Events and Invitationals, Awards and Recognitions:
Zion National Park Invitational, In the Footsteps of Thomas Moran, Utah Purchase Award
Pacific Northwest Plein Air Festival, Hood River/Columbia Gorge, Oregon, Award of Distinction
Expressions West Juried Show, Coos Art Museum, Coos Bay Oregon. Award of Distinction
Vistas & Vineyards Plein Air Show, Corvallis, Oregon
Best of Show
Eugene Mayor’s Art Show, Eugene, Oregon
Director’s Choice Award
Une Petite Eclaircie, A Journal of Paintings by Bets Cole
ISBN978-0-615-45104-6
2010 Selected Events and Invitationals, Awards and Recognitions:
Isabel Klots Artist 5-week Residency Program, Rochefort-en-Terre, Brittany, France. Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Md.
Art in the Governor’s Office Exhibition Award, One Person Show, Invitation by The Oregon Arts Commission, Salem, Oregon.
The Wetlands Invitational Show, Grays Harbor College & The White Sturgeon Gallery, Aberdeen & Vancouver, Washington.
Vistas & Vineyards Plein Air Show, Corvallis, Oregon.
Juror’s Choice Award 2009/ ChaTeemawi Award 2010
Au Naturel Invitational, The Nude in the 21st Century, Clatsop College Art Center Gallery, Astoria, Oregon.
