Betty-Ann was born in Norway. Later her family emigrated to Canada where she grew up, first in the remote town of Sioux Lookout, Ontario and then in Toronto. She has lived in many different locations in Canada, the U.S. and in Europe. Betty-Ann has also travelled extensively, and these experiences have provided the inspiration for her artwork to this day.

She was influenced by her parents who were both were fiber artists. As a child, she was encouraged to repurpose flour sacks for her earliest embroideries. Betty-Ann studied with a Danish master of Jacobean crewel embroidery. This raised wool stitchery gives an impression of texture and depth. Similar knowledge of mark making can be seen in some of her paintings. 

A lifelong avid gardener, she attended garden classes at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. She later began a career in horticulture at Winterthur Museum, Library and Garden in Delaware as the coordinator of the flower program. Her mission was to give a visitor to the period rooms a sense of a human presence by adding beautiful floral arrangements that complimented a room’s textiles and furniture style.

The same formal elements of design are universal to floral arrangements, painting, and sculpture. She gained important textural knowledge from drying many different types of flowers used to decorate an 18-foot-tall fir tree for the annual Yule Tree installation in Winterthur’s main conservatory. Organic patterns from this, and in general from nature, stimulate her imagination while her highly textured abstract paintings that include mixed media add a sculptural quality to her art. It was from this interest in textures that she began a study of relief sculpture in porcelain. 

In 1999, Betty- Ann moved to Texas and began classes at the Glassel School of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. This Woodlands based artist was selected to be in the first MFAH, Glassell School of Art “BLOCK” program for advanced students in 2014. She received her Certificate of Painting from the Glassell School in 2018 and a Certificate of Ceramics in 2022.