Meadow Lakes resident Betsy Ashton’s exhibit, Portraits of Immigrants: Unknown Faces, Untold Stories, has been shown in several venues in the New York area. Now it is on display at Meadow Lakes until mid-August.
Through the art exhibit, she introduces viewers to the lives of people she has met from different countries who have immigrated and now live in the United States. The portraits depict real people with real lives that come from a variety of different cultures.
The inspiration for the art exhibit came to Betsy during the 2016 Presidential elections when she was hearing rhetoric about immigrants that was not accurate and was filled with hate. This inspired her to learn more about the life experiences of immigrants she had met and befriended while living in New York City.
“The real reason I created this exhibit was to say let’s just foster kindness and understanding instead of slinging around hate,” said Betsy. “The things I was hearing about immigrants were inaccurate, so I decided to interview the people I see and interact with daily.”
Betsy’s career was as a CBS News correspondent, and she used her journalistic skills to interview the people in her portraits and to write the bibliographic captions accompanying each one. Betsy hopes the viewers will better understand who these people are, what sacrifices they made to come to this country, and all their contributions to our society.
Betsy is an experienced artist whose portraits are displayed in art exhibits and collections around the world. Her official portrait of former Ambassador Philip Lader resides in the collection of the US Embassy in London, United Kingdom, and her portrait of actor Hal Holbrook is in the Hall of Fame collection of The Players in New York City. Her portrait of author Louise Erdrich is displayed in the collection of the Kenyon Review at Kenyon College.
One Response
This beautiful and thought provoking exhibit is now on display at Stonebridge at Montgomery. Thank you to Betsy for sharing it with us.
Doreen