The Marcophile: Betty’s art brightens Marco

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of Chris Curle profiles of the men and women who are taking part in the Dancing With the Starz charity gala August 11.

Betty Newman has painted just about every surface imaginable in her decades-long love affair with art —- including her own body.

“Hey it was the ’70s after all, the flower power years,” Betty explains with a grin, recalling one of the “moments” that make her life and career a work of art itself.

These days, Betty’s art —- on canvas and on the dance floor —- is well known here on Marco and in a lot of other places around the country. She has been dabbling and dancing, drawing and doodling and generally being creatively expressive most of her life.

I mention dancing because Betty not only expresses herself in her art, she moves and grooves with physical arts and disciplines, teaching yoga, pilates, dance and line dancing at venues including the YMCA, Healthy Body and the Island Country Club.

“I love the flow of paint as I love the flow of dance,” says Betty. “Art can be faux painting, it can be colors, interior design, anything that’s part of our environment, not just a painting in a frame.

“I love all media and it’s frustrating sometimes. Many artists have a specialty, but I love oils, watercolor, working with sand in a painting, so many things. Sometimes I don’t now where to start.”

Betty’s work here and elsewhere includes painting on canvas, of course, but also faux painting, columns and walls, caricatures, graphics, and greeting cards.

“At Tara’s Steak House, I did the interior, the faux painting, both bathrooms and a brick wall in the private dining room.”

I think Betty could paint something interesting on the side of a barn or the head of a pin. She also teaches workshops at the Art League of Marco Island, which is the charity Betty is dancing for in the Starz event.

“The Art League is a wonderful facility that some people just aren’t aware of,” she observes. “You don’t have to be Picasso to be involved. It keeps your mind active. You can’t just look at sunsets.”

Betty has been arty since childhood.

“I was an only child and my parents often took me to their social outings. I would nestle myself in a corner and begin to draw whatever I could find. I was amazed. The time passed so quickly.

“My first exhibition was in second grade, a painting of a girl in a movie theater with her hand over her mouth. I must have seen too many scary movies that year.

“The art instructor said my painting was good enough to hang in the main hall at school. I was hooked, seeing that people actually enjoyed my work.”

They still are, on Marco and in homes of snowbirds around the country who discovered Betty’s work here. One gets the feeling that we could take Betty Newman to a garage sale or the Guggenheim, to a roller derby or a dollar store and she would find something interesting to paint or sculpt and also find the media with which to work.

Sometimes, however, she is traditional. Or daring.

“I love to do nudes. I don’t do a lot of them because people don’t want to take their clothes off for me. But the Art League does have nude painting classes. Yes, with a real live nude person up there. On Marco! Lordy!”

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Chris Curle is a former news anchor for CNN and for ABC TV stations in Atlanta, Houston and Washington, D.C. E-mail: chris@chriscurle.com.