Betinna Schroeder

Bettina Schroeder

Speaking of working more in textiles.....

I came across this artist while wandering around Totnes when i was there in February, and I completely fell in love with her work. I meant to blog about it, but totally forgot.

I love the way her work is packed with meaning and is extremely thought provoking, and I love love LOVE her use of materials. It is giving me a hankering for getting out my liquid latex again.....

Weston-super-Mare Arts Festival

I am very excited about this years Arts Festival. Firstly, there is a big festival taking place in the Old Town Quarry where I have my studio, with lots of things going on including live painting, open studios and a sculpture exhibition. I am planning on spending as much of the day there as I can, whilst hoping that people don't assume that me breastfeeding Ruby is public is some sort of strange performance art as they wander round the open studios!!

Also, Camilla whose blog I follow is organising three different events throughout the town which I am going to try and get to. There is the other Art in the Quarry event which I hope to get to, where local artists and performers have been asked to create site specific work, an exhibition at Frou Frou of contemporary embroidery and plasterwork, and The Mythical Beast Sweet shoppe, which is open on weekends during the Arts Festival, and is only round the corner from where I live!

I am hoping for good weather so I can get out and about to as many events as possible, and induldge Ruby and (more importantly) myself in some interesting art from local talent. I am particularly looking forward to seeing the embroidery work, I've been looking at some of the exhibits as shown on Camilla's blog. Some of the work is edgy, humorous and RIGHT up my alley, particularly work by this lady I am DEFINATELY a fan!

I am hoping for lots of inspiration. I love to work in mixed media when I paint, and am thinking about how to use textiles, embroidery and texture more in my work, but I am scared at starting as I am lacking in technical skill. hopefully i will be inspired to just start anyway!

My Creative Manifesto

With less time on my hands to be creative lately, I decided to focus my mind and come up with some thoughts on how to nurture and encourage my creativity.

And thus was born...... MY CREATIVE MANIFESTO!

I endeavour to.....

1. Stop living my life remotely through Facebook.

2. Set up a "creativity corner" in a quiet area of my flat. Make it entirely MY space. Equip it with inspiring books, postcards, trinkets, pens, journals sketchpads and chocolate. Make time to use this space daily once ruby has gone to bed, even if that is only to sit in it and breathe deeply for a few moments!

3. Have a pad in my creativity corner entirely for the purposes of doodling.

4. Plan my next solo exhibition, even if the reality of it is quite far off!

5. Get up to my studio once a week with Ruby in the sling.

6. Write more letters to friends.

7. Research exhibitions and gigs that are happening locally, and plan to get to some. daydream about the ones I can't get to.

8. Be entirely in the moment with Ruby when I am on my own with her. Be entirely in MY moment when I am alone with MYSELF

9. Make links with local artists.

Belly Casting

It seems like an eternity ago now, but I forgot to blog about this when I did it.

Heres my belly cast from the end of my pregnancy.


I have some vague ideas of an art piece around this. A couple of years ago I did a scultural piece for the Open Exhibition with Studio Upstairs which was around body image and the media's skewed perception of what is and isn't beautiful or acceptable.




My thoughts are not clear, but I think I want to revisit these ideas, incorporating something to do with my pregnant form. I have never been so comfortable with my body as I was when I was pregnant, and I want to work with ideas around this.

Its always interesting when my work takes me in different directions other than painting. My ideas for my next solo exhibition feel a bit like this. I want to do something that is less about canvasses with the appeal for people to buy, and perhaps more about the content of the exhibition. Exhibiting for exhibitings sake, rather than to try and sell. I am much braver now around this and willing to take more risks with what I show. However, I think this next exhibition may take place in Bristol rather than Weston. Much as I like to shake people up, I'm not sure Weston is quite ready for some of my ideas!! I mean, if people can be freaked out or made indignant by some of my paintings (which are, in my opinion, mostly just colourful abstract imagary!) then heaven knows what they would make of some of my more "out there" ideas!

AH! So many ideas, so little time!

6 weeks and reality is returning

So, Ruby is 6 weeks old as of Wednesday this week. Its been a whirlwind of wonderfulness, chaos, adjustment, joy, deliciousness, tears, terror and laughter!

I feel like I am beginning to raise myself back up into the world, blinking in the sunlight, and still feeling a bit dazed and confused. Nothing could have prepared me for this whole experience. Its been crazy-fantastic, full of hard work, worry and unsolicited advice!

I feel like I am in quite a creative mood at the moment, although obviously my time for this is severely limited. I have managed to make it up to my studio to paint 3 times so far, which doesn't sound much, but is a triumph as far as I am concerned! Its interesting to see what having a baby with me has done to my creative practice. An interesting development has come out of having to put Ruby first.... usually I find it hard to stop when I am painting, and I might ruin a canvas by not stopping at the point where the painting was interesting. Now, Ruby forces me to stop at random moments when I have to turn away from the work and turn my attention to feeding her or walking with her to soothe her. And the other day, I was sat down feeding her after stopping mid flow, and I had 20 minutes to just stop and look at my work. I had no choice. And it was GOOD, as I actually put away a painting that I may have ruined by over working.

I have a definate sense of not taking anything for granted anymore, be that my time at the studio, my relationship my husband and my relationships with friends. Things seem much more valuable and feel much more special.

It is a rich and creative period, if very tiring. I have a real sense in my studio of needing to clear out the old and make way for the new.

Its a new beginning in so many senses of the word.