We recently connected with Bethany Dobson and have shared our conversation below.

Bethany , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I’ve always known I wanted my career path to be a creative one. At a very young age, I was picking up pencils and sketching things around me. Mostly my pets and things from movies or anime. It always brought me so much happiness and fulfillment. Once I grew up more, I was able to take things from my own mind and put them on paper as well, and it just blossomed into a form of expression that helped me and my mental struggles so much. It was just what I was meant to do.

Bethany , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up in the beautiful Massachusetts in the 90’s, and had a lot of struggle along the way that gave birth to long term issues such as cptsd, dissociation, depression and severe anxiety. This became the basis for my need to express myself creatively, in ways I wasn’t really able to otherwise. At least not in ways that could make sense to others, or to myself. Art was not a full time prospect for me for a long time, but when I became too chronically ill to hold a ‘normal’ job anymore, it became a necessity for me to push through my self doubts and lack of expertise. And it was then that I became a full-time artist.

I work mostly in acrylic paint, but I also dabble a lot in sculpture. I am still an amateur when it comes to clay, though. Stretched canvas is my typical surface, though sometimes I like to paint on wooden canvases, and also paper for smaller projects. Sometimes I will do a commission here and there, pet portraits are something I like to do in particular, but most of my work is personal. I sell these original paintings to my lovely clients, who support me.

My artwork is very personal for me, the bad situations in my life created a very fragmented and frightful reality, yet I was still filled with the shining love for nature and things I found to be beautiful. So I create images of a kind of beautiful horror. Terrifying, but bright and colorful. My inspirations of darkness and beauty, mixing horror with light, has been there since the beginning, and I think that is a more unique feature of my art.

I hope that anyone who likes, loves, and owns my art, can find my love in there. My expression, my hardships and pain, and my happiness there. Everything I paint is a result of my life experiences and thoughts, and I want others who feel the same way as me, have gone through hard things, and have also seen heartbreakingly beautiful things, can find solace in my creations. And I will never stop creating.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A big issue Ive faced is being taught to generalize art. Make it into something more sellable, something a wide audience can relate to. I have to always tell myself in my head, over and over, to be genuine to myself and the vision I want to create. The people I want to connect with are the ones who will be drawn to these pieces of art. People like me who need something deeper than a wider known image. Its a daily struggle, and its something I am told on a regular basis by others. Sometimes peers, sometimes non-creatives. And of course, when you’re a young teenager drawing bloody rainbow people, your teachers can be quite concerned with that. I was sent to the guidance counselor on handfuls of occasions. I dont totally disagree with that, but it can be stifling at a younger age when your decisions arent fully in your own hands.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

For me, it was mostly just not giving up! I’m really not great at handling social media, or the particulars of it. But I just kept posting, kept creating. Consistency helps so much, but can be a hard thing to do when your works can take hundreds of hours to create. Just being yourself, being straight up and not giving your audience a fake view of things can really draw people to you. Dont create a profile of yourself into something youre not. Just be you, and make what your heart wants to make.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/BethAliceArt
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bethaliceartt/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bethaliceart
• Linkedin: https://linktr.ee/Bethaliceart
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BethAliceArt
• Other: https://www.patreon.com/bethaliceart