I love the challenge of painting the landscape, always outdoors, live, never from photos. My painting is a process of observing and absorbing nature’s hidden colors. I try to keep up with the ever-changing weather of Vermont–especially the sky–changing and reworking the skies in my images constantly. The spontaneity of the weather speaks to the impulsive, yet definitive aspect of my work. I rarely rework a painting later. Each piece is an expression of a particular day, a particular moment. When I look at a painting later I can remember and feel that moment, having worked so hard to concentrate on being there and fusing with the landscape.

Bettina Stark is a native New Yorker and lifelong artist. Bettina has a 30-year long association with Shelburne, where she met her husband, who grew up here. She resides in Shelburne part time and owns and runs the Willow Pond Farm B&B. Willow Pond is the setting of her current images on display. Bettina holds an M.A. from the Yale School of Art and Architecture, where she studied Architecture and took courses at the art school in landscape painting. Previously she graduated from the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan. She has studied art at the Brooklyn Museum, Nessa Darren Pottery in New York City, the Hudson Guild and the Frankfurter Kunstakademie. Her work has been shown at the Yale School Art Gallery, the Penn South Annual Art Exhibit in New York, the Werkschau of the Frankfurt Kunstakademie, and the juried art show of the Frankfurter Sparkasse.