Beth Rose Hibbard

Beth Rose Hibbard

is a multi-media artist and educator rooted in the outskirts of Petaluma, California. Self identifying as a painter at a young age helped shape her early education and subsequent career in arts facilitation and advocacy. As a teenager, mural work became a bridge between community and the isolating reality of being a visual artist. A brief stint at the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago only further clarified a growing sentiment — that creative power is not reserved for an elitist subgroup, but rather a universal resource accessible by all. The next 12 years of Beth’s career was spent working as a teacher and curator in studios for Artists with developmental disabilities in and around Sonoma County. Her work as an advocate for art is driven by Beth’s singular belief that art can heal both the maker and the viewer.

When she is not engaged in her personal painting, Beth seeks out ways to be of creative use to her surrounding community. Projects include giant puppet works for Petaluma’s El Dia de Los Muertos procession, paper mâché crane instillation at 2018 Rivertown, and wood cutout native butterfly mural at Loma Vista Immersion Academy. Beth’s most recent paintings can be seen as apart of a group exhibition she curated for the Petaluma Arts Center’s annex gallery. For this year’s Rivertown Revival, Beth is collaborating with Margaret Kuffel on a wire and textile instillation illustrating the theme of borders between communities. This will be an interactive instillation meant to instill a sense of belonging to a human collective for the participant.