From Shane McAdams, Curator in Residence at Saint Kate:
The legacy of Byrd Bettis (1941–2014) inspired this exhibition. His nephew, Heskeith Flavien, is the head chef of Saint Kate — The Arts Hotel, and from a casual conversation in the galleries on a winter afternoon, an amazing chain of events was set in motion. That interaction ultimately led to the late Byrd Bettis’ partner, Lloyd Johnson, in rural Iowa, and a conversation that moved me deeply and that I’ll never forget. It also led me to the extraordinary work of Mr. Bettis and endless reaffirmations about how art embodies the deepest connections between time, space, experiences, and people.
Byrd was born in Dayton, Tennessee, and loved to draw as a boy, hoping his talents would take him around the world. And in many ways, it did. After graduating from San Francisco State University with a degree in rhetoric, he lived and worked for a year in Ghana before returning to the West Coast, where he returned to school to study drama and poetry. He took a position at Monterey Peninsula College in 1968 as Chair of the Ethnic Studies program before moving on to Reed College in 1970 to create a program in Black Studies and to teach African Thought. While there, he also taught drawing and photography, while directing Portland’s Albina Art Center, and later spent a summer on Warm Springs Reservation documenting life there in photos.
From there, Byrd relocated to Guayaquil, Ecuador, studying painting with artist Enrique Tábara, before moving on to Bogotá, Colombia, to draw and paint. After showing at several galleries there, he returned to the United States in 1978, where he continued to pursue painting and teaching. As he matured as an artist, his work evolved to include memorial installations, mixed media assemblages, boxes, abstractions, and objects, several of which are on display here. We only hope the work included in this show might provide some hint of his wit, charm, and love of life’s variety that was legendary among his circle of friends.
