The Key West Citizen

Navy Wives To Open Art Show
Tomorrow
At East Martello

Navy men and their families may travel much and far, but this is no deterrent to Navy wives who find themselves dedicated to an art or hobby.

Two Navy wives - Lyn Doely and Bette Beckwith - are showing their paints in a "two-man" art exhibition that runs from December 23 through January 11 at East Martello Gallery and Museum on South Roosevelt Boulevard.

Formal opening for friends of the artists and members of the Key West Art and Historical Society, which sponsors East Martello Gallery and Museum in East Martello Tower adjacent to the airport, is Tuesday evening, December 23, at 8 p.m. The general public is invited to view the four galleries of watercolors and oils from 9 to 5:30 daily excepting Mondays when the old fort is closed.

Both artists are from the far West. To quote watercolorist Lyn Doely is to show the fervor with which she paints, and paints so that the fervor of the creative mind is transferred to paper.

She says: "I was born on Kootenai Indian Reservation in northern Idaho; so the first time I saw the ocean and the tropics I went out of my mind." Mrs. Doely paints landscapes, seascapes, figures and still life.

Bette Rambeau Beckwith paints portraits, landscapes, and still life in oils. Asked if she also painted in watercolor she answered: No, I have tried to concentrate on one medium and to become competent in that."

Both artists have consistently stuck to their art. Lyn Doely took her Bachelor of Science degree in Fine and Applied Arts at Montana State College, then worked toward her Master's degree in Art Education at the University of Washington, Seattle.

She has worked as a commercial artist and technical illustrator for Hughes Aircraft, North American Aviation, and Convair, and for military manuals.

When she came to Key West a little under two years ago, she began painting the tropical life and times around her. She has exhibited her work at the Little Gallery in Key West, at East Martello Tower, at Sea Island, Ga., at the University of Washington and at the Museum of Art in San Diego, Calif.

Lyn is the wife of Irving Doely who has but recently been transferred by the Navy Department to duty at Great Lakes, Ill., where the family will move after the middle of January.

Bette has lived most of her life in California, chiefly at Carmel-by-the-Sea. She attended school in San Jose then began studying art with Abel Warhawsky, famous European portrait painter whose work hangs in museums and art galleries throughout Europe and the United States. She exhibited her work in portraiture, landscape and still life around Carmel and Monterey.

When she arrived in Key West early last summer, she became a member of the Little Gallery and of the Key West Art and Historical Society, and set to work to paint local subjects with a possible one or two-man showing in mind. She has traveled in Hawaii, Europe, Mexico, and Newfoundland where her husband, Lt. Reynolds Beckwith, now with VX-1 in Key West, had Navy duty.

The prospect of a two-man art show by these two Navy wives is indeed a winter event to which to look forward. Both artists are radiant, sparkling, vivacious young women and their art reflects their lives.