Gloria Betlem (Tatlock)

Gloria Betlem received an MFA in painting from RIT. She has taught at universities, colleges and workshops in the Rochester, NY area as well as in Florida. She is an accomplished portrait painter, and also believes in looking inward for inspiration. She has used pastels for years, using the rich color inherent in the medium to "bring forth the radiant light and energy of specific places." Her rich and colorful pastel paintings have also been inspired by the natural world, and she has increasingly focused on the environment, and in particular the Finger Lakes Region and Florida in her artwork. She exhibited a series of works about the environment in 2010 entitled: "Wild Florida: The Preserved, The Restored and the Vanishing" in her studio. Betlem lives in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, and has recently created work that calls attention to the dangers of fracking (using chemicals to extract natural gas from shale) and the potential to harm the Finger Lakes watershed, which is part of the Marcellus shale formation. She has written: "the beauty, health and vitality of this region is dependent on a good understanding of this geology, as we are faced with decisions related to future energy harvest, using technologies which greatly compromise the integrity of the earth."