Leaving Covid
By Bette Ann Libby | November 22, 2020
My studio is filled with a curious assortment of raw materials, finished sculpture and mosaics, works in progress, notebooks of drawings, clippings, books and photos of places, and objects that fascinate and inspire me. Mosaics are created when fragments are united in a new order. Many of these narrative sculptures and mosaics embody my own mythology, which explores well-being, womanhood, and passages, using irony, humor, and metaphor to create the unexpected. Leaving Covid is part mythology, part coping and part wish fulfillment.
Bette Ann Libby, “Leaving Covid,” ceramic shard mosaic, 37”x17” 2020
Here our hero, Mother Nature, is confidently standing on the corona virus molecule, hands held aloft, while rescuing planet earth from danger! Masks fly free and we are saved from the pandemic!
In times of stress and life’s out-of-control circumstances, we need to create super heroes or mythology to rescue us when all else fails. If we can imagine this, perhaps it will happen. Working in the studio during the pandemic has brought piece/peace of mind, and touching color brings happiness.
I am grateful to have a studio as an outlet. I hope that Leaving Covid brings a smile to the viewer and a glimmer of optimism!
Copyright © 2020 Steve Bennett
Since 2011, Bette Anne Libby has created over a dozen community mosaic projects in schools, libraries, hospitals and synagogues in Vermont and Massachusetts. In her ceramic shard mosaics, balance is restored from chaos; often meanings are intentionally elusive or ambiguous. Libby’s work evokes memories of the familiar, which lead to improbable realms of the mind. In 1998, she founded the award-winning artists collaborative Studios Without Walls, which annually brings site-specific environmental sculptures to Riverway Park in Brookline, a free exhibition open to the public. Her recent painting series Hello Earth celebrates the natural beauty of the planet. She maintains studios in Brookline, Mass., and Waitsfield, Vt. (Learn more about Studios Without Walls on Facebook and Instagram