Beth Hird, Founder and Director

Beth has a Master of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute and has been teaching art to children, teens, and adults since 1986. She most enjoys nurturing the creativity in each student.  She exhibits her work professionally and her art appears in many private and public collections. Beth creates paintings of sea life observed on Maui and in Tonga. Her painting of a whale and calf was selected by the Whale Trust to represent the 2023 International Whales Tales Conference at the Ritz Carleton, in Kapalua, Maui, Hawaii.  Previous to that, for several winters, she has traveled in Uganda, Botswana, Zambia,  South America, Senegal, India, Nepal, Thailand, Madagascar, Mauritius, the Seychelles, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Borneo, Burma, Laos, Indonesia and West Papua New Guinea, practicing traditional art forms, dancing and filming dance and nature. She brings photographs and art making techniques from these experiences back to camp for inspiration!

See her art online at www.ElizabethHird.com.
Contact Beth at Bethpaints@gmail.com, or at 510-604-0036.

Emma Gobler, Former Assistant

Emma has been a Berkeley resident since the age of 2. She graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles. She loves to draw and has taken art classes at UC Berkeley’s ATDP program and at Occidental. She has taught at Mocha and enjoys working with kids and helping them explore their creativity through art.

Kana Matsumoto, Former Assistant

Kana was born and raised in Yokohama, Japan.
She lived in St. Paul, New York (B.A. in Studio Art from Hunter college, CUNY, and studied sculpture and B/W Photography), Cambridge, Yokosuka (Japan), Brighton (UK) and Hanoi (Vietnam).
In Hanoi, I taught art to elementary school children for four years.

Lyle Simmons, Former Assistant

Lyle has attended Dancing Paintbrush Studio since he was 7. Enrolled in his second year of college, Lyle brings years of experience in the studio, and his current studies and interests to camp. Lyle’s beautiful graphic design expertise, excellent sense of humor and playfulness and his kind attentiveness to the needs of each child makes him an essential addition to our camp!

Chessie the Dog

Chessie is no longer with us – she was our adorable Golden Retriever and camp mascot, who has been the subject of many drawings and paintings for the last 16 years. We adored her and miss her!

“Chester-Noodle”