Meet Beth Ames Swartz

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Beth Ames Swartz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Beth Ames , so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.

Probably for all creatives, building self-confidence and self-esteem is a lifelong endeavor. For me in particular, being the youngest in a family of three children, I didn’t start out with either self-esteem or self-confidence. Doing well in school allowed me to get into the High School of Music and Art in New York City, which was a competitive free institution with a full academic program plus two hours of art, music, or dance every day. Then, at Cornell University, working hard paid off with good responses from professors. As far as advice, I still believe in finding mentors who believe in your vision to support and advise you along the way. I also think self-doubt is a good thing that forces us to continually grow, change, develop, and not rest on our laurels.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I have been a practicing visual fine artist for over 65 years. What’s most exciting and special about it is that I’m constantly moving forward to express new ideas and explore new territory. Many artists have a “brand” so when an audience looks at their work they can tell who created it. For me, the most exciting part of my art practice is the fact that I work in series and each body of work can look very different from past series. This often can be difficult for the audience, but it’s exciting for me to have a vision and a concept and do the background study and experimentation until the new series emerges. The challenging part is the uncertainty of not knowing the exact path. Sometimes it takes a year to develop a new style that expresses a particular concept that I’m interested in doing.

It’s interesting to note that in studies on creativity across all fields, the most important attribute of a creative person is the ability to deal with ambiguity. The willingness to hang out with the uncertainty, often I call it “the abyss”, until the new forms begin to emerge.

For the next two years, a large scroll “Arizona Fault Line #1” (fire, earth, acrylic, variegated gold leaf and mixed media on layered paper) from my Fire Work series is now being exhibited at the Phoenix Art Museum in a new installation, “The Collection: 1960 – Now.” I’m excited because my work is in a room with internationally recognized artists.

My Fire Work was based on a ritual with earth that I did in the late 70’s and early 80’s dealing with life, death, and rebirth. The process ritual was a metaphor for the concept that we as humans always have the opportunity to create beauty out of destruction or recalibrate our experiences that might be deemed as negative but often have a kernel of wisdom or opportunity for growth and rebirth.

My daughter, who is a New York sculptor, and I will be having a joint exhibition in January 2026 at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art that will be dealing with the concepts of healing, sound, energy, and various aspects of light. This exhibition will resurrect one of my projects from the 1980’s, “A Moving Point of Balance”. This installation/participatory environment was a 10 year project that was initially commissioned and exhibited at the Nickle Arts Museum in Calgary, Canada where it premiered in 1985 and toured museums until 1990. This exhibition explored the seven chakras and viewers/participants walked through seven colored light baths and got bathed in light as they viewed each of seven paintings that were created from pilgrimage to seven sacred sites in the Southwest and France. Although the audience reactions through the years it toured were exciting and positive, spiritually-focused art was not valued in the art world of the 80s. Now, however, this installation will be resurrected at SMoCA in 2026 because the culture and the art world has opened up to these more esoteric ideas and concepts.

Several works from my new series, “Quantum Light” are now being exhibited at ACA Galleries in New York (529 West 20th Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011) in an exhibition called “Portraits of the Unconscious” that will be up through mid-October. The entire exhibition deals with artists who have spiritually-focused art.v

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I would suggest the most important quality is to work on staying positive and be grateful for what you accomplish and what you have in your life. Albert Einstein, one of our most brilliant physicists, is quoted as saying “The single most important decision any of us will ever make is whether or not to believe the universe is friendly.” I would encourage all creatives to remember this concept and weather the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune to continually focus on hard work and a positive attitude. The final bit of advice I would focus on is that forgiveness cannot be underestimated in this world. Try to keep relationships and behave with kindness to everyone if at all possible. That doesn’t include allowing abuse or dishonesty, and sometimes we need to cut off a relationship, but more often than not people are good. Surround yourself with positive, productive, and gifted people as you can continue your relationships for 40 or 50 years. People will remember how you treated them.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

I think both! I think it’s important to go “all in” in terms of keeping at it and being serious about your creative work regardless of what the outside world says. But, it’s also important to be well-rounded because it’s a big world and there are a lot of interesting things to learn in this world that will inform your work. This leads me to what I would advise for new or mid-career creatives: it is vital to stick with your vision for your own work. It might be the culture at large is not open to what you’re trying to do at the moment, but keep at it and don’t give up because if what you’re doing or creating has merit, I truly believe eventually you will be rewarded.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bethamesswartz.com