Not Just Ladies Who Lunch: Beth Martin
Getting to know some fabulous ladies who work in the arts!
Welcome to the Monday series Not Just Ladies Who Lunch. This will be an ongoing addition to the blog, meant to introduce you to some arts professionals. Their jobs will vary from freelance graphic designers to music composers, auction house specialists to cake decorators. Be sure to check back every Monday for a new profile. If you would like to be featured, please do send me a note! I am opened to suggestions as this piece evolves. Here goes week eight:
Meet Beth!
Another graduate of Mount Allison University’s Fine Art Department, Beth is now living in Oxford, UK. Our most recent interactions have consisted of how to get prescription renewals when living abroad, and does Kraft Dinner exist in England. You know, the important stuff. She’s working hard to make a name for herself in this big bad world. You can follow her on twitter here, or on Facebook here. Read more about her below.
Beth Martin is a contemporary artist and student, currently residing in Oxford, England obtaining her Masters in Contemporary Art at Oxford Brookes University. Growing up in a small rural village in Nova Scotia, her paintings didn’t evolve much farther than the lighthouse atop a cliff overlooking a rocky shore. Everyone either had one or was waiting for her to paint one. Anxious to break away from what was considered ‘art’ and to grow as an artist, she attended Mount Allison University in New Brunswick where she obtained her BFA in 2010, followed by a three month artist residency at the Toronto School of Art.
“I’m expressing, through my artwork, the everyday struggle of being a woman, a feminist and everything in between.”
Beth currently is creating work with the purpose of exploring gender stereotypes and the ideologies that are practiced in today’s society, while simultaneously challenging her own objectification as a woman. Previously confined to canvas and paints, Beth is now exploring different ways of how to create. She aims to connect her artwork to a wider audience – helping to expand definitions of art while creating social change.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
I remember being in grade three sitting at my desk in school, drawing a picture of a dog, surrounded by all my classmates who were watching in amazement. It was in this moment I realized I wanted to be an artist. I remember thinking, “Hey… I must be pretty good at this” while feeling incredibly proud. My parents were probably hoping I’d be a doctor.
I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I’m no more of an artist now than I was then. My parents are still probably hoping I’ll be a doctor. Julia Cameron said it best when she said that “a rare family, faced with the myth of the starving artist, tells its children to go right ahead and try for a career in the arts” If the arts are encouraged at all, “ children are urged into thinking of the arts as hobbies, creative fluff around the edges of real life.”
What is the best piece of advice you were ever given?
Near graduation in 2010, I was at a fork in the road and I found myself in the office of one of my MTA professors, Dan Steeves, seeking advice. He was subtly encouraging me to travel down a path that scared the hell out of me. There I was, a month away from graduating, trapped in a life that was slowly ripping me apart. I was chosen to do an artist residency at the Toronto School of Art, and I was deciding on whether or not to do it, hung up on all of the cons holding me back. Dan looked at me and said, “Beth, all you have to do is make the decision to do something… and everything else will fall into place.” The moment these words left his lips, a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. I feel that same sense of relief anytime I reflect on those words in any scenario I’ve since found myself in, having to make a difficult decision. Those three months in Toronto turned out to be the most life-changing three months of my life. Everything did indeed fall into place.
Can you name your biggest success and/or failure in your career so far?
Finally letting go of my paint brush, deciding to study at Oxford Brookes University and becoming the artist I’ve become here. I’ve stumbled upon a creative epiphany since I started this Masters programme and have had the freedom to really explore issues that mean a lot to me. Art, to me, has always been more than just slapping paint on canvas but anything other than this is frowned upon where I’m from. I, personally, don’t want to create art with the purpose of selling it. I want to create art that shouts at people – art which provokes thought. I aim to create social change.
Since coming here, I’ve found myself sponging up motivation from everything around me. The way the leaves fall from the trees speak to me. The way shadows dance with people sing to me. The way the crisp cool air stings my face during my morning run inspires me in a new, refreshing way. I find myself constantly grabbing my notebook, my hand not even able to keep up with the ideas that are pouring out of me, onto the pages. With the pressure away from a “final art piece” (paint being slapped onto canvas) and the intense focus in this programme being on exploring, I’ve been challenging myself in ways I never thought possible in the most overwhelming satisfying way.
This small performance act was done with a collaborative partner, Sam Kidel, which was discretely displaying the juxtaposition of his one hairy leg with his shaven leg against my shaven/tanned leg with my newly hairy one.
We presented the work, sharing the experience, in a unisex washroom. First, we invited just the women in, followed by just the men. Rolling one pant leg up at a time but simultaneously, we allowed our audience to engage very quickly with the secret we were revealing in the intimate space before rolling our pant legs back down, again in unison.
A studio space shot. This is an essentially infinite installation I’m working on: folded pages from pornography and beauty magazines into origami flowers, stitched together.
Confined by society’s ideology of beauty. Trapped by the commodification of my own self. Bottled, succumbing to my own objectification.
Name a tool you can’t live without.
My red lipstick. I recognize that I fall victim to stereotypes and this was pointed out to me in class one day while a woman approached me stating she finds it interesting that I identify myself as a feminist, preaching against the objectification of women while presenting myself the way that I do. I was flabbergasted and appalled. Just because I wear lipstick doesn’t mean I can’t be a feminist. Right? Just because I sport false eyelashes and sometimes wear clip-in hair extensions doesn’t mean I can’t be a feminist. Right? Just be yourself, I’m often told, while I cover up my blemished skin with foundation. Don’t you understand? This is myself. Can’t I be a feminist while simultaneously realizing that I fall victim to wanting to attain society’s unattainable definition of beauty. This is who I am – Makeup, false eyelashes, hair extensions. All of my life I’ve worn makeup; so now, if I go out without foundation and lipstick, I don’t feel like myself. This is who I am. Feminist. Red lipstick and all. I wear it, but I’m aware of why I do. I recognize I love wearing it because the larger world tells me I need it to be “pretty”.
I, as a feminist, aim to enlighten men and women, and hopefully kick start critical thinking among their own identities and how they define the identities of others.
I can’t live without my red lipstick.
Do you have a mentor/Who would your dream mentor be?
Sarah Maple is an absolutely amazing feminist artist from England. Her work is incredibly audacious and is really effective in a punch-you-in-the-face kind of way. Her work is inspiring to me; she motivates and shapes my own artwork in a lot of ways. Maybe someday I’ll have the privilege of working with her.
Tell us about your favourite picture/photograph/sculpture/etc.
My boyfriend grills me all of the time for constantly changing what I say my favourite movie is… and my favourite song… and my favourite food.
But this is something I don’t have to think twice about.
It’s not something tactile; it’s a performance piece that really opened up my eyes to what kind of artist I wanted to be.
In 1964, Yoko Ono invited her spectators on stage to participate in her performance piece, Cut Piece. She knelt passively on the floor while members of the audience were invited to cut away her clothing, piece by piece, until she was completely naked, transforming herself into a vulnerable object which she “felt has long been forced upon women in art and media”.
It’s this objectification of women that’s the centre of my artwork today.
