Beverly Diane Beyers was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as the third child of William Everett Beyers and Mary Louise Lightner on May 2nd, 1951.

She grew up in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, where her father was Director of Student Teaching and Placement at Shippensburg University, and her mother was an active Girl Scout Leader and Reading Specialist.

Bev started with creative pursuits early, learning how to sew evolving from crafting clothes for her Barbie dolls to hand knit presents for family and friends. In high-school, she was often ‘chained to her sewing machine’ and couldn’t come out to play.

After high-school, she started at Shippensburg University but transferred after 2 years to join the first co-ed class at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. At F&M, she completed a Bachelors Degree in Psychology and met Richard Ryan from New Jersey. They married in June 1974, and then went separate ways as he started flight school in Pensacola, FL, and she completed her Masters in Science at Columbia University, NY.

After her Masters, they reunited and moved to Whidbey Island, Washington for Richard’s Naval commission. There she worked as an audiologist and their daughter, Emily Jane Ryan, was born in October 1979.

Bev, Rick, and Emily moved back to the East Coast in 1982, settling in Springfield, Virginia. Bev stayed home to raise Emily and continued her creative focus of textile design, setting up several looms in the house and weaving fabric for all types of clothing. Joining artists in the community, she became a member of the Potomac Craftsman Gallery at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, and juried fiber arts conferences in the area such as Capitol Convergence ‘92.

In the late 80’s, she began experimenting with printing and machine embroidery on fabrics (art-to-wear) and eventually started creating her own prints (Monotypes, Collagraphs). Bev began painting in 1994 in search of a more direct and spontaneous expression of her ideas. She studied at the Corcoran College of Art and Design from 1996-2003 under William Christenberry, William Willis, and Steven Cushner.

Beverly became a full-time resident artist at the Torpedo Factory Art Center of Old Town Alexandria Virginia in 2000. From then on, she was a prolific painter incorporating new media as she pushed boundaries. She held solo shows across the region, at Gallery Plan b or Studio Gallery in Washington DC, to international shows in Darmstadt, Germany (five across 2012-2018). Most recently, her shows ‘Drone Zone’ received wide acclaim.

As a teacher, she began instructing for the The Art League School in Alexandria, VA from 2003 until her death. She also instructed at Arlington Arts Center from 2004-2007. Expanding her scope, Beverly became an Adjunct Professor in the Art Department at Montgomery College in Germantown, MD, in 2007, and taught several levels of art history and art appreciation until retiring in 2017.

She was always a continuous learner and did several art residencies at Vermont Studio Center (2000, 2014). In 2015, she completed two semesters at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, a low residency MFA. Other notable ways she continued her artistic education were a Drawing Marathon at New York Studio School in 2016, and a hand-printing workshop with Dennis O’Neill in 2017.

After a 5 year battle with cancer, Beverly passed away on January 20th, 2023 in her home and is survived by her daughter, Emily, and her siblings Mary Ann Reeser, Bill Beyers, and Jane Beyers.

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