Bettina Clowney

 BETTINA CLOWNEY - 1946 - 2020

Philadelphia artist and spiritual director Bettina Clowney died peacefully at home on February 22, 2020. Her husband David and sons Peter and Matthew were with her when she passed; she also leaves behind a brother, Craig Scull, and two grandchildren. Bettina was cremated as she requested. Memorial services will be held on March 21, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. at the Church of the Holy Spirit, 2871 Barndt Road, Harleysville, PA.
Bettina was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1946, the daughter of Air Force colonel Stewart Scull and office manager Helen Balmer Scull. She fell in love with painting and art history as a child. She graduated from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and went on to  exhibit new work almost every year of her adult life.  Bettina often said she painted because she had to. In mid-career, she spent 14 years studying iconography from a Russian master, and subsequently created traditional and modern icons for churches and collectors alike. Her work is in collections around the globe.  A selection of her masterful and expressive paintings, including some of her icons, can be seen at www.bettinaclowney.com.
Clowney’s paintings are alive with spiritual energy, strong, beautiful, accessible and profound, playful and startling, deeply rooted in tradition and traditional skills yet plainly contemporary, and uniquely hers. She exhibited the same qualities in her practice of spiritual direction, which she began with studies at the Shalem Institute. Bettina saw many dozens of directees over the past decades, always focusing on each person’s individual needs, and their own vital relation with the holy. As a wife, mother and friend, Bettina was loving, loyal, friendly, funny, full of humor and wisecracks. She was also particular about style and manners, shy, insecure, and, as she herself put it, “often wrong but never in doubt.” She both enriched and challenged those who loved her, and we would have had it no other way.
In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the Center for Emerging Visual Artists, https://www.cfeva.org