Belonging through Art with Bettina Byrd-Giles Part Two (Episode 9)
Charlotte Donlon talks to Bettina Byrd-Giles about art and belonging.
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Why It Matters: Belonging is about being able to show up as your full self, express your history and culture, and pass those gifts on to the next generation. In this episode, Bettina Byrd-Giles reflects on how art weaves through everyday life and parenting, helping us process identity, nurture connection, and celebrate the many ways we can belong.
Art becomes a tool for processing change, healing wounds, and finding connection in times of transition or challenge.
>>> Bettina shares how exposing her son to a wide range of artistic experiences—from museums and live performances to music and dance at home—planted seeds of appreciation that last a lifetime. Even when met with resistance, these experiences become part of a family’s legacy and shape how future generations understand and express belonging.
>>> Through candid stories about her own upbringing and her son’s journey, Bettina illustrates how art helps us navigate the complexities of identity, including race, culture, and “hidden” backgrounds.
>>> Bettina’s insights offer practical inspiration for parents, artists, and anyone curious about how art can be woven into daily life—not just as something we observe, but as something we live.
After Listening to This Episode, You’ll Walk Away With:
A deeper appreciation for the many forms art can take in everyday life—from museum visits to family dance parties to the clothes you choose each morning.
Ideas for nurturing belonging in your own family or community by making art accessible, joyful, and personal.
Encouragement to embrace your full self and express your story through whatever creative forms speak to you, knowing that art can help you—and those you love—belong more deeply, wherever you are.
This second mini-season features conversations with three individuals who are doing significant work in ways that promote ideas connected to belonging through art. I hope you enjoy hearing from them.
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About Bettina Byrd-Giles
Bettina Byrd-Giles is a leading expert in intercultural communication, implicit bias and health equity. She is a dynamic speaker and author.
Bettina is the founder and CEO of The Byrd’s Nest LLC, a consulting, professional development, and social entrepreneurship company. She led a non-profit health clinic for 10 years that promoted health access to medically under-served communities. She shattered paradigms regarding the role of healthcare institutions in transforming the quality of life of residents in communities they serve. The clinic served as a catalyst for Ensley Alive, a movement to improve the built environment and perceptions in a small industrial community through capacity building, cultural arts, social and traditional media.
Bettina is a leader in addressing health inequities. She is a Culture of Health Leaders alumna. The CoHL program is committed to eliminating health inequities and building an equitable playing field for people from all cultures and backgrounds. The CoHL program is sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CommonHealth ACTION, and the National Collaborative for Health Equity. Bettina is also a member of the National Advisory Group for the Robert Wood Johnson Culture of Health Prize. Bettina was an RWJF sponsored Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar in 2017.
Bettina has been recognized on both local and international levels. She served as co-chair of the Martin Luther King Conflict Resolution Conference in Malawi sponsored by the Fulbright Foundation, University of Malawi, Miles College, and Diversity University. She was honored by the Greater Birmingham United Nations Association for founding Diversity University, a cross-cultural program involving six colleges and universities.
Bettina is the author of Tales of a Formerly Unhappily Employed Liberal Arts Major: Embracing Your Meandering Career Path. As the book’s title indicates, she coaches individuals looking to find or change career paths. Though she coaches mostly liberal arts majors, she works with anyone looking for a transition.
Bettina holds certificates in intercultural communication from the Intercultural Communication Institute. She is a qualified administrator for the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). Bettina has a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Bachelor of Arts in international relations from the University of Virginia.
Episode Transcript:
Charlotte Donlon (00:01):
Welcome to all of this and more. I'm so glad you're joining us for part two of my conversation with Bettina Byrd-Giles, a professional interculturalist community activist, and someone who lives and breathes the idea of belonging through art. If you caught part one, Bettina and I explored how art shapes our sense of home and connection, whether that's through family traditions, museum visits, or creating spaces for new voices in our communities. We talked about how art can be both a sanctuary and a bridge, helping us feel seen and inviting others to belong. In the second part of our conversation, we discuss how art weaves its way through everyday life and parenting. Bettina shares stories about raising her son with the arts, taking him to place museums, and even making sure he's exposed to the Mona Lisa in Paris. She reflects on how music and dance filled their home and how those experiences, even if sometimes met with resistance, planted seeds of appreciation and understanding that can last a lifetime.
(01:06):
Bettina's insights remind us that belonging isn't just about fitting in. It's about being able to show up as our full selves to express our histories and cultures and to pass those gifts on to the next generation. She opens up about the complexities of identity, showing how art can help us process, heal and connect in times of change and challenge. If you're a parent, an artist, or someone searching for your own sense of place, I hope this conversation inspires you to notice the art in your life and the ways it helps you and those around you belong. Welcome to all of this and more. I'm excited to talk to Bettina Bird Giles about belonging through art. It's good to see you, Bettina. Will you tell us a little bit about you for those who may not be familiar with you and your work?
Bettina Byrd-Giles (01:57):
I'm a professional interculturalist, which means I facilitate cross-cultural interaction. I'm a tennis mom, I'm a wife, I'm a daughter and community activist.
Charlotte Donlon (02:09):
Let's see. So, how do ideas connected to belonging through art and whatever that phrase means to you, work their way into your role as a mother? You've mentioned it already a little bit, but I'd love to hear more if you'd like to share.
Bettina Byrd-Giles (02:29):
I'm chuckling to myself because the last time the Alvin Ailey company came to Birmingham, my son asked me not to take him. He says, mom, you have exposed me to the arts, live stage plays dance. He says, but I'm just not interested. I was just like, no, this cannot be. One of my friends said she thought it was interesting that he felt comfortable being honest with me and saying, Hey, I don't want to go to any of these productions anymore. So I feel that I took James to every possible production that I type of production. His elementary school and his preschool were on the south side of Birmingham walking distance from the Alice Stevens Center in Birmingham. The kids were invited to the dress rehearsals. They were able to walk so they wouldn't have to get a bus pay extra, and so he was exposed quite a bit outside of us, but it's definitely something that I wanted for him.
(03:51):
He played an instrument briefly because all of us, my dad plays saxophone, my mom plays piano. My brother and I played clarinet, and so he never took piano lessons. We took piano lessons. He never took piano lessons and I felt badly about that, but we started playing tennis at eight, played year round, and we just didn't have as much time for the arts. As I said, I felt really bad about that, but when he told me that he felt that he had been exposed to it and if he was an adult, if his partner wants to go see something, he has been exposed, and I don't know why I'm thinking about this. At the Alice Stevens Center, they had this group and I think it's called Bandaloop, where the production was on the outside of the building and you sat in the grass and had a picnic and the kids could run around, and so there were a lot of different ways that, or different venues in which he was exposed to the arts.
(04:56):
We definitely took him to museums so that he could see visual art. When he went to Paris, he called me on, is it WhatsApp? I think? Yeah, called me on WhatsApp and he says, Hey. He said, people keep knocking me down. I'm trying to look at this lady that's smiling. And so he was looking at the Mona Lisa. He just said it was crowded and I know that his teacher had given them information ahead of time. I know the teacher really well, and she runs some of the projects through Bare Hands Gallery, so I know that she informed them of what they were going to see, and so I just thought that was funny. I'm like, are you talking about the Mona Lisa? I've never seen the Mona Lisa in person, but you're over there and they went to about five galleries, so he's been exposed because I think that's important. He knows about the murals in Ensley. He's taken pictures in front of the murals. He's done everything. So it was definitely part of my parenting because it was part of my parents' parenting and I have calmed down and cut back on trying to make him go to things with me.
Charlotte Donlon (06:09):
What about music, like music that y'all listen to at home or in the car or where's some crossover in your musical taste and where has he been like, I don't like that Mom, you may like that, but I don't like that.
Bettina Byrd-Giles (06:23):
You mean when he is not listening to whatever with his headphones on When we're in the car, we used to dance around the house to the songs that I really liked. They're high energy electronic music songs, and we used to just dance around the circle. I could take 'em to the playroom when I'd go to the Y, but sometimes I didn't feel like it, so to exercise at home. So we used to dance around the house and we liked the same music. There's always music on in my car, but there's one song that he would request and it's called Take a Look Around by Limp Bizkit, and it's a theme song from one of the Mission Impossible movies, either one or two and am preparing his song list for graduation party, and he's looking at the song list, oh yeah, you got take a look around.
(07:21):
And so I thought that was interesting. And then he requested TNT by, I can't think of the name of the group, TNT. Anyway, he requested the song, and that's from the classic, it's now classic rock, but it's from the hard rock phase of when I was in high school, so I find that to be interesting. The same group did Hell's Bells and all kinds of things, and I don't know why I can't think of the name of it right now. So music was definitely something that we shared. My husband and I have various songs through our dating life that we listen to and on Sundays at 11, we listened to an old school r and b, we stationed and so James, it's all over the house. We have the radio on upstairs and downstairs, and so he doesn't have any choice. He used to go to church with my mom, my mom's church musician, and so he was exposed to a lot of gospel music, more of the traditional gospel night, like the Kirk. My mom predates those genres of gospel music at this point in time, contemporary gospel music. So she considers herself someone who placed the standards from the hymnals, and so that's what he's been exposed to from her. Okay.
Charlotte Donlon (08:48):
I feel like I could talk to you about this for hours, but I'm going to ask one more question, and I know you said you have a complicated answer to it, so I'm excited to hear it. Which film would you recommend to people if they want to understand more about you and why?
Bettina Byrd-Giles (09:04):
I said the answer was complicated. I don't think there's a single film. The Great Santini came up first because it's a military brat film. It's a military film told from the perspective of Pat Cony in life as a military brat. But my dad was not like the great Santini. My dad was like the M.A.S.H., and I think I've mentioned this at the beginning of the conversation, my dad was more like Hawkeye and his friends in Mash during the Korean War, but I was born during the Vietnam War, so we were in Japan during the Vietnam War. So it was pretty cool having friends that within your family because you're moving around so much, so that's who you become closest to. I also think that the film saved the Last Dance, describes my move to Birmingham, though I am not white. I was dancing and about to go on toe before we moved to Birmingham.
(10:11):
And so Julia Styles plays this character, her mom is killed, she ends up moving in with her dad. It's a very different lifestyle. So we moved from Marin County, California, though we were on a military base. It was a very wealthy area. And when I started going to Birmingham City Schools, I showed up. I didn't have any supplies or anything, and I asked, where's the supply drawer? And they're like, did you bring any supplies? Because everything was provided for us when we were in the Marin County schools. I had never had a Black teacher prior to that time. So Julia Styles ends up going to a predominantly black school, and then she ends up making friends with various people. I had some negative encounters with other women because of being light-skinned, and I had never had that kind of encounter when we were living in California because we were in, as I said, Marin County, which didn't have, I think one black family had moved in to Marin County to Novato where we lived.
(11:21):
And my mother was the first Black teacher, so we were just black and didn't have the colorism issues that I faced when I came into a predominantly black setting. So that was something that Julia Styles, people were complaining because she had taken the best, most successful guy at the school. And so I ended up dating someone who was highly and so had run-ins with people. So there were a lot of parallels in that show that I thought about the other day when my son had his last tennis match, Julia Style's mom was killed while she was trying to get to a performance, and I was rushing down Highway two 80 for those who are listening that are not from Birmingham, it's always backed up. And at the time that the Match, and this was the final, so this is the sectional, and my son's coach was calling because he said, James is wondering where you are.
(12:32):
And I was nowhere near the tennis courts, but I still got there in 10 minutes driving like a crazy person. And I was like, I'm going to end up like Julius Style's mother getting into an accident trying to rush to get to this final, that's another film. And then they just had this film about the Samurai or a series on Netflix. And because of my hidden Japanese identity, when I say hidden somebody first meets me, they're not going to know that I have a Japanese identity. So understanding my hidden Japanese identity, I think those would help someone understand me a little bit better.
Charlotte Donlon (13:18):
Thank you for your thoughtful answer, and I'm so glad that you made it to his match and getting a wreck on Highway two 80. Yes.
Bettina Byrd-Giles (13:30):
And there are many wrecks on Highway 280, so it's not unbelievable or unfathomable.
Charlotte Donlon (13:36):
Is there anything else that you'd like to share about belonging through Art before we wrap up?
Bettina Byrd-Giles (13:43):
I think something that I didn't mention is that I wear a lot of wearable art, so I express myself through my jewelry, through my shirts, and I think that's another art form that I take for granted. And some of the clothes that I choose are definitely very artistic, so it's another way that some people belong and express themselves through art.
Charlotte Donlon (14:08):
Yeah, I love that about you, and I think we need to have a separate conversation about that.
Bettina Byrd-Giles (14:15):
We have a lot of subtopics to talk about in our next conversation.
Charlotte Donlon (14:20):
Yes, definitely. Thank you so much for joining me on All of This & More. And thanks to everyone who's listening or watching. Please visit allofthisandmore.com to learn more about Bettina and her work. And I'll add some links to some of the things she mentioned in our conversation.
Bettina Byrd-Giles (14:39):
Thank you for including me, for helping me belong even more.
Charlotte Donlon (14:44):
And thank you for helping me belong. I appreciate it.