Artist of the year

Sheril Symonds

The PebbleCreek Art Club is proud to announce Betty Jean Kennedy as its 2014 recipient of the Carole Christiansen Memorial Award for Most Improved Artist. This honor was announced at the club’s annual holiday party held on December 12 in the Tuscany Falls Ballroom. The winner of this award is selected by past recipients.

Betty Jean is a very active member of the PC Art Club. She readily volunteers although many times she does this quietly in the background. As the room committee chairperson she made sure we had cleaning supplies on hand, organized the annual room clean up and personally straightened up the Coyote Room weekly. Betty Jean is also the club’s membership chairperson. She maintains and updates the club’s roster (150 plus members) of email addresses and phone numbers. She also helped with the big responsibility of cataloging our large volume of library books, dividing them into categories and making them available for check out by club members. Because of these efforts and many others, Betty Jean has previously been recognized by the Art Club as an outstanding volunteer.

Betty Jean is a faithful member of the open studio group who meet Thursday and Friday afternoons in the Coyote Room. She excels at drawing and does wonderfully realistic renderings of photos she has taken. When Betty Jean came to PebbleCreek she focused on working in acrylics. Always pushing herself to grow, she has since taken up colored pencils and pastels. Not only has she attended workshops offered by the club, she also does independent lessons in these challenging mediums. Her paintings will be featured in the large display case in the Creative Art Center during the month of February. This is a wonderful reason to visit the facility and possibly meet this lovely artist.

Please join the Art Club in congratulating Betty Jean Kennedy for receiving this Artist of the Year award. Her pleasant personality and willingness to help others embodies the persona of this memorial award.