Beth Cataldo is a photographer working with a digital camera and Photoshop. She has a background in film making, as well as drawing and designing jewelry. Her style of art consists of a crisp focus towards natural settings, usually evoking the viewer’s emotion towards its portrayal. Beth’s works are known to have an underlying sense of humor as well as a connection to our own realities.
An art tool that Beth can not live without is her digital camera. With a camera, she is always able to take a picture immediately, capturing the split second of a glance into a form that can be viewed forever. With photography, Beth is able to portray what she sees through her eyes onto the viewers. Like most professionals, Beth was constantly blocked with office work, immune to the seasons and never having time to stop and take in the atmosphere that was around her. Many people miss out on the interactions with nature by staying inside, unaware of the changes in the planet. Now that she is the one behind the lens, she wishes to expose the beauty that the Earth provides to its people, hoping to improve relationships between nature and humanity.
Beth’s favorite personal art piece is Endurance, an image of bison standing in the snow at Yellowstone National Park. The pack is unfazed by the blizzard, inspiring her to mark and save the eliciting scene. This piece relates to her overall message of endurance through adversity as she presents her exhibition regarding GAIA and the age of climate change in September at SFWA. There has been a plethora of discussion over the weather anomalies and record breaking temperatures around the Earth, and whether humans are the cause of such patterns. Beth sees herself as an optimist, knowing that we will push through with global warming. She believes that in the far future, humanity will eventually mitigate its excess as living systems go through evolution in adaptation of the environment. All we can do is endure and live through with resilience within this small frame of time.
Beth decided to join San Francisco Women Artists, a nonprofit organization, due to her experience with meeting supportive artists at the gallery. Teaching at City College required her full concentration, leaving her busy and unable to create art. After her retirement, Beth believes that the gallery is a good place to hone her skill and focus on enhancing her artwork. Beth’s volunteering roles in the SFWA gallery are the Secretary of Board, and in communications.
Interview summary by Jiawen (Karmi) Xie, 2018 SFWA Intern.
