20221015 Bethan Watkins Interview
Bethan Watkins is a Jersey Channel Islands-based artist. Her abstract oil and acrylic painting focuses on nature, and it's many forms.
Kacy (K): Hi Bethan, thank you so much for having me in your studio! I think I will start the interview with what’s your name, what you are currently working on and what your art is trying to say or trying to achieve.
Bethan Watkins (B): My name is Bethan Watkins and my art is mainly painting and poetry. Painting, I’ve been doing for a long time, since I was at school, but poetry, I’ve only done within the last year and a half. So, it’s kind of a new medium, but I really love it. What I’m trying to achieve is to open up people’s awareness, and open up people’s hearts, and exaggerate the beauty and the hidden realms in life. That’s why my art’s quite abstract. I used to be very detailed when I was at school. These two new works are informed by my experiences with Ayahuasca and different hallucinatory plant medicines. They represent our consciousness, yet abstract nature and the beauty of the hidden realms that we don’t see very often, but we sometimes can glimpse when we’re in those hallucinatory or in spiritual places. I do a lot of meditation and yoga. My art is like a mirror to my spiritual practice.
Bethan was making me a cup of tea in her kitchen.
A corner of Bethan’s kitchen.
(K): It’s really amazing to see how your personal life merge with your practice- you are trying to free yourself from the restrain of outside world by doing yoga, meditation and herb practice while in your art, you are also trying to free yourself from all those details, rules, and superficial surfaces to reveal something hidden inside. It’s such an interesting link. Can I ask, how do you find art to be your calling? Is that starting from your young age?
(B): I did art at school. It was the one thing that I was really good at. I wasn’t really that good at maths, English or all the other subjects. But art, I was really getting all the A’s and I really enjoyed it but I didn’t think I was going to do it. I went to UNI for a year for illustration, and from that year, I was like, “No, I don’t want to work as an artist. I’ll just do it for fun.”
(K): Why was that?
(B): I don’t know. I just kind of thought, “Well, you know, I like it, but I don’t want to work in the art world. I just want to go home, go work with horses, and go traveling. I’ve always worked with animals, horses, and outdoors. It’s only been this year when I came back from Costa Rica. I went on a big trip to Central America, and where I did my Ayahuasca and a strong journey. When I came back, I decided “No, I’m going to quit my farm job. I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m going to focus on my art and my life.” I don’t make all my money from art yet. So, I work with the Art House and I’m going to be doing a little bit of dog walking soon. In Jersey it’s very hard to just make your money from art, because it’s quite expensive here. I’m lucky that I have a house. Some people, they’ve got a lot of bills and rent. So, I’m not a full-time artist, but I do spend a lot of time on it to make it progressing. It’s only been like less than a year that I’ve decided to do this. I did an exhibition this year with the Art House and that was like my first big one, but I’ve been painting for years, but I just haven’t had the courage to show it until recently. So, now I’m like, “Okay, that’s good.”
(K): That is wonderful and congratulation on your debut! Can I ask, where did you get that house from?
(B): Ah! From family. Inheritance.
Bethan walking towards her home studio.
(K): Can I ask more about your art education background?
(B): So I did year 12 to 13, the A level. It’s like qualifications before you go to university. I did photography, A level art and sociology. After that, I did an Art Foundation in Bournemouth in the UK. After that I decided, “No, I don’t want to do a degree. I’ll go work with horses because I really miss them. I had a job at a riding stables, where I was a riding instructor and looking after horses for four years.
Interviewer: What’s a typical track for people get into horse instructor as a career? Is there any courses or do they teach that at school here? i Bethan Watkins: What I did was when I was 10 or 11, I’d go there and volunteer every day after school to get free rides or just be there. So I learned up until 14, and then they started paying me a little bit. Then I went to UNI for a year to do the art, when I came back, I got a job at another place, because I grew up with the experience, and also because I was there all the time
(K): That’s so interesting! When you grow up, do you feel there’s a social pressure tries to push you to do certain jobs rather than what you have been doing? Like if you go to ride horse, your parents will tell you, “No, just go study. Do the maths and science?”
(B): Yeah, so my dad was like, “Do whatever you want,” but my grandad, he said to me once, he was like, “So, when are you going to get a real career?” I said to him once, I was like, “Gramp, I’m not being pushed by you. This is what I love. I’m enjoying myself and I will not do a job that I don’t enjoy,” and he hasn’t said anything since. Now he’s realized that it makes me happy.
So, I’m not just going to do a job, because it makes me lots of money. I could never work in an office. I can never work in an office. After my job at the riding stable for around four years, I realized it was a time for me to do something else. So, I was like, “Okay. Now it’s time for me to take a step back,” so I did some traveling. I went to Cambodia, Thailand. I also went three months around Europe, like Spain and Italy, and I then went to Hawaii for a couple of months. So, I did a few longer trips while I was working with the horses and riding, and then, my next job, I was like,
“Okay, I don’t feel like this is for me anymore, I want to do something that’s more valuing me, making a little bit more money.” So, then I started work at a therapy farm for kids with disabilities. We have horses, ponies, donkeys, pigs, cows, goats, sheep, dogs, and chickens. We’d get clients with their carers and kids with disabilities. They would come and spend time with the animals. I move my horse up there. So I had two and a half years there. Loved it. But it was just getting to a point where I could feel like my body was getting really sore on my shoulders and everywhere. So, I was like, “Okay. It’s time for me to quit that job and do something else.” I was feeling the call to focus on my art and see where life takes me. So, I spent the whole summer, just didn’t really have a job. I was surfing, riding my horse, and painting.
And then, I did this exhibition when I came back from Costa Rica, got some work with the Art House, helping with the exhibitions, and a little bit of dog walking soon.
(K): I noticed that you are very responsive and present to how you feel about your current state and also how you are gonna do next to resolve the problem. I mean, I think there is a problem where I grew up (Taiwan), and also my social circle now in United States, is that, a lot of the decisions people make are driven by fear. They need enough money to retire, they need to have a long term goal, a plan, or they feel they need to climb the ladder, all that kind of mindsets push them away from quitting the jobs they don’t like or having a job that they don’t like. Is that a problem for you? Do you need to fight back for that kind of mindset? In general, is that a problem for people here?
(B): I think less so, but I think it’s more about my social circle. Like my friends don’t pressure me. They’re also just living life as it comes. They’re not thinking too much about the future. No, it’s not a problem for me. I think some people over here might put pressure on it, but not me and no one that I know. My dad and my family, they don’t say, “Oh, you need to save your money to be retired. No. I think over here it’s maybe less so, but some... I think some people might maybe, but I don’t know them.
(K): Is this how in general people think here in Jersey, or in general, UK, or in Europe?
(B): I don’t know. I think probably some places. I think it depends on the person, because you could be surrounded by people that like think a certain way and you could be like, “Wait a minute. I don’t want to think like that. So, I don’t... I’m not going to worry about the future. I’m just going to live in the moment and like go see where life takes me and trust that it’s going to be fine.” I think it depends on the individual. There probably are some people that worry about it, but then, there are also people that are like, “It’s fine,” and I’m like, “It’s fine.”
(K): I do feel it’s important to live at the moment and be present and I think that’s related to my second question. Compared to a lot of my friends I know, you travel a lot. May I ask what’s the most exciting part for you for traveling and what travel means to you?
(B): That’s a good question. Good question. Travel means I get to experience myself and the world in a different way. I really noticed that when I’m traveling it’s like I’m able to see like different parts of myself and go on this inner journey. Every time I go away, I expand. I learn a lot, I see new things, I meet new people, and I get inspired.
“Oh, I’ve got these ideas for things I want to create, or I want to do this to the house or in my life, okay, let’s bring that back home and then ground it here. So, every time I go away, It feels like I get an upgrade. It looks like an outer journey of physically going to these places, but what it really does is putting me through an inner journal. So much comes up for me to heal, to learn, to work with, or to expand in myself by being in these new situations.
(K): Yeah. Let me see. I know you mentioned this a little bit but I want to finish our interview with this question: what art means to you?
(B): What art means to me? Art means expression and like freedom to create what you want. I think when I see a blank canvas or a blank piece of paper, it’s like I could create anything I want on this. I often don’t really plan that much. It’s like I become almost a channel for the art just to be made through me. It’s a really beautiful, a creative outlet, and informs a lot of our life. Art is everywhere. Isn’t it?
(K): Yes. Indeed. Thank you so much Bethan for sharing your art with me.
(B): Thank you for having me.
Bethan Watkins
Website |
Instagram | @bw_artwork
