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Artist Mother Podcast Interview
An act of defiance can mean many things – like squeezing time in at the end of the day to create when you are the most tired or getting up early to keep certain rituals sacred. Even saying “no” to certain activities to make sure your creative practice is not disrupted takes a great amount of strength and perseverance. The artists interviewed in this panel discussion are finding time in the margins to make beautiful and meaningful work. Beth Welch, Stefanie Zito, and Tai Lipan all have pieces juried into our 2nd annual “Painting At Night” juried exhibition at ArtLink, and we had an amazing time together talking about goals, dreams, and, of course, motherhood.
We also took some time to discuss their specific pieces juried into the “Painting At Night” exhibition. Stefanie’s large suspended soft sculpture hangs down and puddles on the floor – a long list with holes punched out – speaking to finding time in the margins to create. As she talks about the color of her piece – almost a yellow legal pad color – she discusses how using turmeric played into her content since it is a dye that fades quickly – much like her time. Beth explains how the materials deeply influence her content – the charcoal used for the mother, fading and not taken as seriously in contrast with the pen and ink used for the children, painstaking work with permanent marks. When Tai opens up about her work, she discusses how the pandemic shaped this wooden painting in particular – the warm light emanating from inside the flushed, warm colors… a family in tight constraints, but feeling and growing together.
It was interesting to hear the different phases of motherhood that each of these artists are currently experiencing. Stefanie has 2 very young kids and mostly constructs her soft sculptures during nap times, while Tai has 3 older children and while she might have more freedom, still admits that being a professor on top of being an artist and a mother definitely eats into time that she wishes she could be investing in a thriving art community. Beth, because she works full time as the Exhibitions Coordinator at the Louisiana Art and Science Museum, only has time after her 3 year old goes to bed to do a deep dive into her meticulous drawings. Each one works so differently, and brings meaning and value to not only their art practice, but motherhood as well.
“Don’t feel guilty for taking care of yourself”, Beth points out. If we, as a society, took the time to really value the labor that mothers take on, then maybe we would have more time with them… more time to laugh, to pass on wisdom, to share in life’s joys and sorrows. Tai also points out the importance of being authentic. We should not be afraid to show who we really are with all our beauty marks, scars, and experiences – simple or complex as they may be. Art is something we HAVE to do, as Stefanie exclaims – the life blood that allows us to not only pour into others we care about, but also fuel the passions that keeps our engines running – if we give it the time it deserves.
55th Mother Lode Show
juried competition, voted Best in Show, Sacramento Fine Arts Center, Sacramento, California
Oct. 26 - Nov 13, 2021
Painting at Night
juried competition at Art Link Gallery, Fort Wayne, Indiana
Create! Magazine
I have the great honor to be included in Create! Magazine’s Issue 20, The Woman’s Issue curated by Liezel Strauss.
To order, go to Create! Magazine.
Members Only
Shell Gallery at the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, Louisiana
The Cary Saurage Community Arts Center’s debut exhibition in the Shell Gallery, Members Only will celebrate our visual artist members and the inspiration they bring to the Arts Council’s 11-parish region.
Exhibition Dates: September 9 - October 21, 2021
Exhibition Location: Cary Saurage Community Arts Center, 233 St. Ferdinand Street, Baton Rouge, LA 70802
And Now for Something New Vol. 3
LeMieux Galleries, New Orleans, Louisiana
LeMieux Galleries is excited to host the third installment of AND NOW FOR SOMETHING NEW, VOL 3.
In 2018 the gallery took its first venture into putting together a juried exhibition with "And Now for Something New, Vol 1". The result was a wonderful show, jurored by artists Jan Gilbert and Michael Deas, including 60 artists from all over the US that opened during White Linen Night.
We skipped 2020 due to the pandemic but are pleased to have Lee Deigaard and John Barnes, Jr. jurying the 2021 show.
The Growing Edge
Casa Otro Gallery, Las Cruces, New Mexico
The Growing Edge is a group exhibition of nine artists who formed an online community of critique, care, and support during the COVID-19 pandemic. While this group of women began conversing initially due to their shared role as mentors in the Artist/Mother Podcast Crit Group program–a podcast and online critique program with international reach–their dialogue quickly expanded and deepened. Near daily video chat conversations cultivated a remarkably intimate ongoing dialogue about studio practice, ideas prompting the creation of work, and the specific challenges of being an artist and a mother during a global pandemic. Paradoxically, in a time of social separation, these nine women found themselves deeply enmeshed in a rich and nourishing community of artists, their conversation undeterred by pandemic or time-zones.
Many of the artists will travel to New Mexico to be present for this one-night event and will be meeting for the first time in person. The exhibition’s title, pulled from the writing of philosopher, theologian, and civil rights leader Howard Thurman, speaks to the complexity of discovering connection amidst seclusion. What is found when a limitation, a boundary, a border, or an edge expands, breathes, or grows? What is gained? What is lost? What emerges? Such questions flow between the studios of these nine artists, linking their range of exploration in painting, video, collage, printmaking, textile, and sculpture. The Growing Edge is a conversation between nine works from these artists/mother made during a season of contemplation and recovery while processing the COVID-19 pandemic, inviting reclamation and restoration of space, time, and growth.
Living Memory, Solo Show
Firehouse Gallery, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Published in 225 Magazine
“Beth Welch’s “Living Memory” exhibit at the Arts Council’s Firehouse Gallery is turning into as much a technological feat as an artistic expression.
The concept for the series began as a tribute to Welch’s mother, who had a severe stroke when Welch was in high school and who now suffers from dementia. As the collection developed, Welch increasingly explored the universal theme of identity and motherhood: Who is the woman behind the mom? What are her passions, dreams and history? Many children never know. The distance between a child’s perception of their mother and the woman’s true self takes the form of a detailed pen-and-ink rendering of a child on cloud-like, translucent vellum paper that overlays a charcoal sketch of a mother figure on a separate sheet. The intuitive choice of media echoes the nuance and haziness of childhood memories.
“Once you have a child, everything is focused on that child, and you lose so much of your identity,” says Welch, the mother of a 2-year-old son. “By placing the mothers in the background, I hope ‘Living Memory’ brings them to the foreground of the conversation.”
At age 28, Welch is a collage of modern mom and Old World master. She has studied classical technique in Italy, mastered media ranging from photography and oils to charcoal and pen-and-ink, won the best-in-show and juried an exhibit at the Dallas Metro Arts Contemporary Gallery, recorded mother/artist podcasts, and mentored women artists.
The Monroe native jumpstarted her career by declaring herself an artist at age 5. She drew on any surface that wouldn’t land her in time-out. She has yet to stop. By high school, art already meant more than finishing a masterpiece. “It has been the way I process all things in life,” she explains. “There’s a definite quiet that your mind gets to whenever you’re making something from nothing on the paper.”
Despite the high-tech methods used to create one of the gallery’s most virtually accessible exhibits, that sense of calm pervades the show. “[The pieces] don’t scream from across the room. They’re not big and red and naked,” she explains. “They are layered and subtle—almost like whispers.”
But Welch hopes those whispers get families talking. That’s why she titles each piece with a question. An interactive board at the exhibition also encourages the community to contribute questions they’d like to be answered by the women in their lives—and serve as a reminder to ask those questions while we still can.”
Published in The Advocate
Baton Rouge News Paper
“Local artist Beth Welch will open her exhibit "Living Memory" on Feb. 1 in the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge’s Firehouse Gallery, 427 Laurel St.
The show explores the concept of motherhood and child-rearing. It runs through Feb. 26.
“I think it is fascinating that each experience we have immediately becomes a memory,” Welch said. “My mother had five children and sacrificed more than I will ever know. Now, being a mother of a 2-year-old child, I find myself trying to sift through all of my childhood memories to find the ones that might teach me how to be a mother.”
A socially distanced opening reception is scheduled for 6 p.m. Feb. 6.
For more information, visit artsbr.org.”
NOTE FROM THE CURATOR:
There are undercurrent of themes throughout Her Weight in Gold. The main body of the exhibition comprises strong and figurative work. During such an isolating time, perhaps this choice developed from a desire to be intimate, and close to people again. There is a closeness and proximity to the way a lot of the works are composed; up close and personal. Often further inspired by various degrees of lockdown and isolation, many of the artists have submitted works based in the domestic environment.
The submissions drew me to brightness, interesting use of colour and contrast. We have punctuated the busy figurative works with robust abstract pieces. They allow a breathing space of deep thought. Nothing feels unfamiliar, even in satirical and humorous pieces.
When reviewing submissions, the selected pieces had an overarching promise of hope, light, humour, nostalgia and togetherness while apart, so needed during this time. Even the abstract works are tight-knit, pulling together or addressing the viewer directly.
—Mollie E. Barnes, Founder of She Curates
Is it safe?
Baton Rouge Gallery
Flat Curve Gallery - Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Interview with the Artist in Residences Program Episode 3 with the Baton Rouge Gallery.
In this interview Jonathan Perrin discusses the artwork of Eleanor Owen Kerr, Beth Welch, Chloé Marie (of Alabaster Stag). They discuss their art practices, thought processes, and quarantine creations.
I Like your work summer JURIED show
Congruence juror Bridgette Mayer
CONGRUENCE juror’s statement:
To be congruent means to be in harmony, agreement, and compatibility.
“What do you dream about?”
The artists I selected from this recent call for I Like Your Work Podcast juried online exhibition had a high degree of personal congruence that stood out. I found that many of them had a harmony in their portfolios and how they presented their work for the call to art.
Being an artist is a lifetime process. It means constant evolution and honing of one’s skillsets for the mediums and methods of artmaking. The 500+ applicants gave me the challenge to call out who was meeting that challenge now as a creative.
I got to review portfolios from around the United States and abroad, see wonderful ideas and processes in action and appreciate the incredible amount of diversity that is available in how someone decides how to make art and what their artwork is really about. I saw many refreshing ideas including weaving with street posters and working with color and color combinations that were stunning.
Many of the artists had ideas that were energizing and thought-provoking and some of them literally took me away as I wondered if they were exploring imagery from memory, imagination or their backyard or hometown.
-Bridgette Mayer
Stay Home Gallery
Holding On curated by Kaylan Buteyn and Pam Marlene Taylor
Are you asleep yet?
Curator’s statement:
Many of us were already stressed, tired, and worn before the global health crisis landed. Some of us were already worried about our finances, already feeling isolated at home with our children, already sick. We were already womxn existing in a system designed to leave us out. The order, need, and choice to stay home only compounded the burdens we already bore. Now we are here: inside our bodies, inside our homes, carrying the same things we held before.
Nashville, TN
Alexandria Museum of Art - July 7 - October 24, 2020
33rd September Competition juror Kristen Miller Zohn
Did I Bring You Enough Joy?
WinnerThe 33rd September Competition is an annual juried exhibition highlighting the work of contemporary artists in all media and styles created within the past two years.
Alexandria, Louisiana
See the interview with Kristen Miller Zohn, juror for the 33rd September Competition.
Women’s Work.Art
Shown From Afar: Art during the Pandemic
Is it safe?
This exhibition features works that have been created during and in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, exploring all aspects of the consequences of the world's reaction to this historic moment in contemporary history, as well as our own personal triumphs and struggles dealing with self-isolation, loneliness, family togetherness, and the new definitions of community and commerce.
Poughkeepsie, NY
Gallery 114 June 4 - June 27, 2020
TEXT/ile Exhibition
Can I Hold Your Hand?
Fiber, needle, thread, paint, wood, word, rock, canvas, paper, charcoal, thought, belief, ink and brush: that which weaves us together. In this very uncertain and deeply isolating crisis, Gallery 114 is encouraging artists to share their work with the community through the process of weaving together our thoughts, feelings and spirit.
Gallery 114 is an artist collective that has enriched the Portland, Oregon community for thirty years from our location in the city’s arts and entertainment district, The Pearl.
Cultural Center of Cape Cod
Just Like a Woman showcases artwork that speaks to the layers of what it means to be female: a woman’s value, her mystery, her complexity, her beauty, and her possibilities. In this exhibit, artists celebrate woman from all over the world in their strength and vulnerability … all ages and stages that reveal aspects of the feminine core.
Visit the Virtual Gallery Here.
I am honored to be included with these amazing artists.
Where Are We Going?
Drawings listed left to right: Where are we going? and Can I Hold Your Hand?
Dallas Metro Arts Contemporary
2D National Juried Exhibition - Awarded Best in Show
Both “Can I Hold Your Hand?” and “Where are We Going?” will be included in this exhibition in June of 2020.
Artist/Mother Podcast Instagram TAKEOVER
I had a blast taking over the Artist/Mother Podcast instagram for a day. If you would like to watch the takeover, head over to their instagram highlights, or you can view it on my instagram highlights as well.
Do You Feel Forgotten?