Inside the Studio: Betty Cox
From the concert stage to the delivery room and eventually to the intricate world of bead embroidery, Betty Cox has followed an artistic journey shaped by discipline, curiosity, and personal experience. A former professional cellist, registered nurse, and certified nurse midwife, Cox now dedicates her creative energy to bead embroidery, mixed media, and wearable art.
Her work is colorful, elaborate, and often delightfully unconventional. Faces, animal eyes, prosthetic eyeballs, and unexpected materials become the starting points for compositions that move between beauty, humor, theatricality, and the macabre. Each piece reflects her fascination with unusual forms and her willingness to let the creative process lead her somewhere unexpected.
After beginning her bead embroidery practice in 2009, Cox continued to expand her techniques, experiment with materials, and participate in international beadwork competitions. Since retiring from nursing and midwifery in 2020, she has devoted more of her time to creating, exhibiting, and teaching.
In this week's Inside the Studio, Betty Cox speaks with Art Dealer Street about the influence of her earlier careers, her attraction to the macabre, the techniques behind her intricate creations, and her experience exhibiting at Clio Art Fair.
Read on to learn more in an exclusive interview with Betty Cox:
Your creative journey has moved through music, nursing, midwifery, bead embroidery, mixed media, and wearable art. How have these different chapters of your life shaped the way you create today?
I've had a very full life, and I feel like I still have more to accomplish.
Each chapter of my life has allowed me to be disciplined and creative with each experience, and that has led me to where I am today.
Many of my pieces are themed, and life experiences have allowed me to reflect on each one.
You began beading seriously in 2009 and have since developed a very recognizable style. What first drew you to bead embroidery, and when did you realize it could become your main artistic language?
I began bead embroidery more intensely after a good friend from labor and delivery and I began creating our own shows at our homes and at local shows.
My friend and I began going to bigger bead shows, such as the one in Tucson, every year. I became more educated in stones, artists, and techniques.
Later, in 2014, I started participating in the Battle of the Beadsmith, an international contest that definitely pushed me to create work in a short period of time. My last year of competing was 2025.
I also dabbled in polymer clay and resin. Those pieces are sometimes seen in my work.
Bead embroidery offered such an elaborate amount of flexibility for me, and I chose to really focus on it.
Faces, animal eyes, prosthetic eyeball cabochons, teeth, and unusual focal points often appear in your work. What attracts you to these striking and sometimes macabre elements?
I tend to be drawn to the dark or macabre side, which I believe stems from exposure to the old 1940s and 1950s black-and-white movies with Abbott and Costello, Bela Lugosi, and others.
One particular bead artist influenced me with her prosthetic eyes in her beautiful beadwork. That was also the beginning of my interest in the macabre.
I enjoy freaking people out.
Your work has been described as recognizable, personal, Venetian, whimsical, and macabre. How do you balance beauty, theatricality, humor, and darkness within a single piece?
The Venetian theme stems from a few big mask-like faces that I created and are included in my photos.
One is All Knowing, and the other is Affair with Dracula.
I believe that those pieces demonstrate my personality in a sense, always with a sense of humor or the macabre in me.
Many of your pieces are deeply connected to your life experiences, including your time as a cellist and as a certified nurse midwife. How do memory, identity, and personal history enter your compositions?
Coming from the medical world of nursing, I went on to get my master's degree in the Science of Nursing with a specialty in Nurse Midwifery.
I had more autonomy and practiced for 23 years in a large HMO in Southern California.
I retired a bit early in 2020 and knew that I'd be pursuing more and more opportunities with exhibiting and teaching.
My music career started early in my youth, and I dedicated all of my time to getting into small chamber groups, then the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, and later as a permanent substitute with the Detroit Symphony.
Both pieces, My Life as the Midwife and A Cellist's Dreamworld, are shown in my photos, and they reflect my previous careers.
Your process involves detailed techniques such as bead embroidery, peyote stitch, backstitch, right-angle weave, and mixed media. How do technique and intuition work together when you are building a piece?
Once I've decided what my theme will be, I usually have collected focal pieces, colors of beads, different types, and thought about what I want to say or how I can make my piece one of a kind.
Techniques such as backstitching, peyote, and freeform peyote often dominate how I pull my work together.
I do use intuition a lot when I'm pulling pieces together so there is harmony.
Some of your works exist as jewelry or wearable art, while others feel closer to sculptural embroidery or mixed-media objects. How does the relationship between the artwork and the body influence the way you think about form, movement, and presentation?
When I start a piece, I have a vision, but it's incomplete until I begin experimenting with placement, colors, and bead stitching.
A lot of my work is created as an evolution.
It's the process of bringing it all together that inspires me, and sometimes I'm not sure where a piece is going, but the process of creating is what encourages me to continue.
Sometimes I'm surprised at the end.
You have participated in Clio Art Fair alongside independent artists from different backgrounds. What was that experience like for you, and how did it feel to share your bead embroidery and mixed-media work with the Clio Art Fair audience?
I enjoyed meeting and talking to the other artists.
I enjoy hearing and seeing how their work and various techniques evolve into their style.
I felt comfortable in their presence, knowing that I'd probably be the only artist who created with bead embroidery and mixed media.
For Betty Cox, creating art is as much about the journey as the finished piece. Her practice brings together the discipline of music, the experiences of a career in healthcare, and a fascination with materials that can transform an ordinary object into something extraordinary.
Whether drawing inspiration from old horror films, reflecting on her years as a midwife and cellist, or experimenting with new combinations of beads and mixed media, Cox approaches each work with curiosity and a willingness to embrace the unexpected.
Her creations are personal, theatrical, intricate, and sometimes unsettling, but they also reveal an unmistakable sense of humor. Through her evolving practice, Cox demonstrates that creativity does not have to follow a fixed direction. Sometimes, the most interesting discoveries happen along the way.
You can learn more about Betty Cox and her work via these links: Facebook: Betty Cox Beading Designs Instagram: @iltbe1956
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