Having received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) as a fine arts major, and having done graduate work at the University, at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Gatlinburg, Tennessee), and the Atlanta School of Art (Georgia), Betsy Worden was first of all a painter. After working for six years as a commercial artist in Atlanta, Worden returned to her native Tennessee, and there began weaving after buying an old loom at a mountain auction. She has said: “I see weaving as painting with yarn.”
Worden currently teaches at the Knoxville Museum of Art and the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. Her work is widely exhibited in Tennessee, and she has received numerous awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arts Council of Tennessee, and the Knoxville Arts Council’s Artist of the Year Award. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Knoxville Museum of Art, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, among others.