Betsy Davis
Betsy Davis
Betsy Davis was an artist living in Ojai, CA.
She is particularly well known for her "Whipped Cream Portraits".
In 2013, Betsy was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease.
In 2016, she became the first Californian under the state's new law to have a Doctor Assisted suicide for the terminally ill.
Betsy's work has been featured at The Getty, University of Edinburgh, The National Museum of Scotland, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, The Torrance Art Museum, Conflux at NYU, An Lanntair Arts Centre, The Huffington Post, InSpace gallery, Bank gallery, and Anna Helwing gallery.
Background
She was an artist from San Diego, California.
Assisted Suicide
On the weekend of July 23-24, Davis worked out a detailed schedule for the gathering, including the precise hour she planned to slip into a coma, and shared her plans with her guests in the invitation.
More than 30 people came to the party at a home with a wraparound porch in the picturesque Southern California mountain town of Ojai, flying in from New York, Chicago and across California.
One woman brought a cello.
A man played a harmonica.
There were cocktails, pizza from her favorite local joint, and a screening in her room of one of her favorite movies, 'The Dance of Reality,' based on the life of a Chilean film director.
As the weekend came to a close, she was taken to a canopy hill where she was given the combination of morphine, pentobarbital and chloral hydrate prescribed by her doctor.
Her friends have promised to meet again on the day of her death next year to scatter her ashes in Joshua Tree National Park.