Making an Impact: Bethy Was Horta

By Chuck Cascio, author and former South Lakes teacher

Her grandparents ran flower shops in Warren, Ohio, that were eventually passed down to other family members. Her mother is a teacher who has an inherent love of flowers, and her father is an architect. So when Bethy Was Horta says, “Flowers and art are in my genes, and design was a part of my childhood,” she is not exaggerating.

A 1991 graduate of South Lakes High School, Bethy says her love of nature’s art was enhanced by growing up in Reston. “Terraset Elementary, Langston Hughes Middle School and South Lakes High School were close to the homes we lived in,” she says. “My brother, Ben, and I walked most years, and I can still recollect trees en route to Terraset, the school set in the earth.”

Exploring her surroundings and observing nature impacted Bethy deeply, fueling her creative instincts. She recalls taking “nature walks and biking the paths that run like veins and arteries connecting Reston’s neighborhoods. I adored the freedom those forest bike rides offered. Creating was a happy habit for as long as I can remember. I loved visiting my dad’s office at the Reston International Center and getting to color with a vast collection of architectural pens and markers.”

Bethy also cites her summers from ages 10 to 13 as influential. During that time, she took art classes in the basement of renowned Vermont artist Anne Cady, who was living temporarily in Reston: “I would walk to her house in an adjacent neighborhood and create works at her direction. I loved those classes and retain the friendship with her to this day.”

Not surprisingly, Bethy’s life has led to a career in floral design, artistry and decoration, talents recognized early: “I won first prize in a Bloomingdale’s drawing contest when I was seven years old, and I received an honorable mention in the Washington Regional Scholastics Art Awards exhibition in high school for a painting of a tree with deep roots.”

When she was 15, Bethy’s parents took her to the Georgia O’Keeffe retrospective at the National Gallery of Art’s East Wing, where “I was captivated by her organically expressive flowers, bones and landscapes. The 8-foot-high by 24-foot-wide ‘Sky Above Clouds IV’ had me spellbound as I walked up the stairs and was greeted by it in the exhibit.”

Bethy carried those experiences with her to Arizona State University in 1992, where she studied painting and studio art. En route to her BA cum laude degree, Bethy explored the uniqueness of Arizona and surrounding areas.

“I was in the Southwest and felt akin to Georgia O’Keeffe’s organic terrain and painted my own mountains and lemons,” she says. “Flowers beckoned, and I began working in flower shops. I couldn’t get enough.”

After graduating from ASU, Bethy crisscrossed the country, working in shops and studios. She also took her fascination abroad to India, France, Mexico and elsewhere, exploring art while “teaching and helping create the floral story in weddings.” She has chronicled those travels in her blog, titled Sweet Sabelle, on her site, sweetsabelle.com, named after her daughter, Isabella, who is a college student in Paris.

In 2001, Bethy took a brief sabbatical from her job as the in-house florist for the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Laguna Niguel, California, and traveled to New York City. “I was there for 9/11 and fled the next day with a friend to her mom’s home on Long Island,” Bethy says. Her father and brother drove to New York to pick her up: “It was such an uncertain time for all. I didn’t want to be in California and so far from home again. Six months later, I moved back to New York.”

Since then, Bethy has lived in New York, where she and her husband, Marcelo, have raised Isabella and their son, Thiago. She says New York’s artistic energy and the city itself impact her daily work: “Walking and biking to essential places are part of my daily routine, so my choice of living in New York replicates Reston in that way.”

She also embraces the city’s access to the arts: “I felt lucky to visit the Lois Dodd painting retrospective three years ago at the Bruce Museum just north of New York in Greenwich, Connecticut. I wrote about it in a blog post, ‘Lois Dodd: Natural Order at The Bruce Museum.’”

The impact of the many art-related influences in Bethy’s life is clear as her dedication to floral design and other artistic endeavors continues: “In an age where we’re unsure of humanity’s path with the advent of AI, it feels pertinent that we continue in our drive to create. I want to be Lois Dodd with a retrospective at age 95 of a life spent recording the world in painting form. It is a dream of mine to return to capturing the trees and flowers that were planted so naturally in my youth in Reston.”