Abby Rose Bettencourt has always been a maker. Born in California to a creative mother, she was raised in a home where art was ever-present. Polymer clay on the table, knitting in progress, multiple projects unfolding at once. Creativity was not something separate from life. It was a way of understanding and shaping the world.

For many years, Abby moved through paths that felt misaligned, like swimming against the current. Over time, she came to recognize that fulfillment would not come from others’ expectations or inherited ideals, but from fully claiming her identity as an artist. Choosing this path has been both grounding and expansive. A practice of returning to herself, again and again. Through making, she has found confidence, calm, freedom, and a sense of truth.

Her practice moves fluidly across materials, guided by a belief that creative diversity deepens both skill and perspective. She works in watercolor, oil, fiber, and metal, allowing each medium to teach her its own language. Its freedoms, its resistances, its quiet demands. Her current focus is small-scale metal fabrication and jewelry design, a medium she is drawn to for its intimacy. Jewelry exists in relationship to the body. The canvas is alive. Each piece becomes a point of exchange, where her creative energy transforms into another person’s self-expression.

Abby’s work is rooted in connection and conversation. She is interested in adornment as a catalyst for storytelling, recognition, and shared presence. Her pieces are meant to be worn, lived with, and felt, carrying meaning beyond their material form.

Alongside her studio practice, Abby is an adjunct instructor in the art department at Monterey Peninsula College, where she teaches metals and jewelry and mentors students as they develop both technical skill and creative confidence. Teaching is an extension of her artistic philosophy. She values curiosity, experimentation, and access to material knowledge, and is committed to creating learning spaces where students feel supported in trusting their own voices and creative instincts.

Abby is also deeply invested in arts advocacy and community. She serves in leadership and volunteer roles with the Monterey Bay Metal Arts Guild, a nonprofit organization supporting metal artists through education, exhibitions, and shared resources. Her involvement reflects a belief that creative practice thrives within community and that sustaining those spaces is an essential part of the work.

Through making, teaching, and service, Abby Rose Bettencourt’s practice centers on relationships. Between material and body, artist and student, individual and community.