Marybeth Hekman loves flowers. Her garden shows the striking results of tender loving care and her watercolor depictions of flowers in natural settings convey the sense of wonder she has gained for their simple beauty. She paints to honor their Creator and to interpret the wonder of God’s love in all aspects of life. Her talents have grown as naturally as the subjects of her paintings. Although she was originally trained as a nurse, her focus for the past forty years has been caring for her husband and three children as a homemaker. She pursued her instinctive interests in art all through that time by experimenting in multiple mediums. She settled on watercolor as her favorite, and works at using the fluid medium to convey even the smallest details in her paintings. Marybeth is mostly self-taught, but art classes and workshops have supplemented and affirmed her talents along the way. She has displayed her works at private shows and galleries in West Michigan. She won the Purchase Award at the Tulip Time Holland Friends of Art show in 2004 and the Loeschner Award at Meijer Gardens in 2005. She was in the top 20 for the Tulip Time Poster competition in 2017, and also placed third in a New Jersey Watercolor Society show in 2023.
After 35 years in West Michigan, Marybeth now lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey with her husband, Ken, a retired healthcare consultant and poet. The Hekmans lost their first child in a car accident at the age of 17 in 1998. Artistic expression and international service have become part of their healing.
Marybeth can be contacted by email. Her works can also be found on Redbubble.