We were lucky to catch up with Bettina Madini recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Bettina thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

It was in 2003 when I chose to take a big risk. Then living in Europe and having a ‘comfortable living’, I left it all behind, quit my career as a financial advisor, sold all my belongings and went to New York City, with two suitcases. I followed my dream.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I entered my artistic life on a winding path that pushed me into knowing, with all my spirit and gut instinct (which I needed later on) that I really desire to be an artist, not in a ‘half-in-way’ but full throttle. So, let me back up a bit. I was born in Berlin, during times of Cold War, walls and political instability. My family, being extremely protective, stirred me into the financial sector, although I had shown great interest and talent in acting and in art and had success as teenage actress. The world of art, from their point of view, was for a few selected and loaded with hardship and danger. So, I learned early that I had to find my own way.

After finishing college, I was on a promising career path in the Corporate Financial World. My inner being, though, was yearning for creative expression, and that inner voice grew stronger with each day. One Friday in 1992 in Luxembourg, late in the afternoon, my trajectory took a new turn when I joined the Conservatory of Music and, shortly after, the Ecole d’Art Contemporain, the School of Contemporary Art. I started studying Fine Art in Luxembourg at the Ecole d’Art Contemporain with Jean-Marc Tosello, in the evenings and on weekends. Via singing and painting, I found my voice and creative expression and doors for future possibilities were beginning to open. Looking back, I can see that it was an artistic breakthrough. I started my journey of becoming me and weaving my own, unique, magical carpet.

In 2003, I leapt again and left the Corporate World in Luxembourg and went to New York City. I studied art at the National Academy of Fine Art and Design with Susan Shatter, Sharon Sprung, Henry Finckelstein and Wolf Kahn. My deep search for expressive color and light has led me on a journey across different painting media that are universes to me. Oil painting, watercolor, pastel, acrylic painting and silk painting, all of them being different languages that allow me to express light and joy.

Currently, I live and work as an artist in the Midwest in the United States, and I’ve been studying with Ronnie Landfield at the Art Students League in New York City, and the journey goes on.

I draw my inspiration from nature, get over-joyed when I see the fall colors, dance when I discover a new flower in my garden and paint hummingbird moths and butterflies into my abstract paintings as they show up on my morning walks. Diving into the world of color has been such a gift to me, and I can say with gusto that color is my world. I always wonder what colors I can mix on my palette and what contrast will compose this satisfaction to the dreamer in me.

I’m a dreamer. I dream of a more beautiful future that I know is possible. And I bring this space of joy and gratitude through with my paintings. Visuals can say so much more than words. And my paintings are spaces alive.

As an artist and visionary dreamer, I never know where exactly I’m going, and how exactly things will turn out, but I know that I’m going, I know my space of creation that is filled with joyful possibilities and a symphony of color, and I trust my gifts and the universe that is going to deliver the steps. This applies to my life and artistic path as well as to each painting. Letting the colors intersect in rivulets of possibilities and flow with the water, free from expectations and conclusions about how the painting has to look, I don’t use sketches but instead start the dance with my palette of paints, my brush, water and canvas. Being present with the painting as I compose it with it and it composes itself with me. This amazing process leaves both of us changed and transformed.

What interests me the most is color. Color and its manifold combinations, mixes and energies, are such joy to me! I started my artistic journey with the desire to paint light. I was very lucky to have always had great teachers who taught me about color. I received a profound education in Kandinsky’s Color Theory and a direct connection with my body, learning to sense color with my body, to know via my body when things are not quite finished and when they are finished. Basically, creating with my body as a sensor, receptor and transmitter.
While I have painted in different mediums, whether it’s oil, pastel, watercolor or acrylic, while I choose different subject matters, whether floral, water scapes, or abstract, color is the main theme that runs through it all like a song. Discovering silk painting added yet another dimension to my body of work, and it allows me to create incredible light, very much like shining jewels.

In 2018, I expanded again and launched my own line of Wearable Art labeled ‘Magical Bodies.’ I design leggings, dresses, silk scarves, skirts and more with my original paintings. Cheers to the joy of embodiment!

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

I had to unlearn judging myself and my art. I had been taught ‘self-criticism’, which is such a sticky concept. As artist, judgment comes with the package, and we all should learn in grade school how destructive judgment is. It kills all creativity and stops the dreamer in the tracks. People will judge our art from their points of view, all the time, whether it’s the juror, art critique, gallery owner, or random people walking past our art and making their judgments about it.

Years ago, I was displaying and selling my art in art fairs, and I found myself getting more and more judgmental, meaning I observed other booths, got upset when I didn’t sell enough and others sold more and I took critique really personal. To the point that I chose to stop doing art fairs and took a sabbatical of several years from it, just painting in my studio and finding out what was going on in me and why I was so upset.

I had to learn not to take it personal. It’s just a story, It’s their point of view. Nothing more than that. It has nothing to do with my painting. The same is valid for positive judgment. When a collector purchases my paintings, I could easily fall into the trap of painting the same style of these paintings over and over and, in the process, lose my creative spirit into reproducing the same. And, by the way, this might be just fine for another artist, no judgment here, but it does not work for me.

So, as artists, we have to find out what works for us and what doesn’t. Would it be fun for me to paint the same painting in blue, yes or no? If yes, ok! Let’s go! If no, why would I choose it? We have to be clear about what is fun for us and what isn’t. Let’s say, if somebody would give me a photograph of a group of people and asked me to paint an exact reproduction of it, I would most probably kindly decline. Say no. From a technical perspective, I could do it, but it might be a lengthy and sort of painful process for me. Why would I choose it? I’d rather send them to a colleague! On the other hand, several years ago, I was asked to paint a painting with crows and poppies, and that was a big ‘Yes!’. It was different from what I painted then, but there was a joyful energy! I accepted the commission, and I had so much fun painting it, and the collector was extremely pleased!

I found out that most of these judgments were not mine, but my awareness of other people’s judgments of themselves, their art, their sales etc. This was a big one to realize! I can pick up inspirations from the universe, so is it possible that I can pick up thoughts and judgments that are flying around me? Yes, absolutely. Asking ‘Who’s head am I in?’ always lifts heavy weights from me, and I find my joy again.

Being free from judgment is vital, and I always stay vigilant! I have to, as, in the art world, judgment is on the daily menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Not taking it personal.
Never let it sneak in.
Never allow me to second guess my paintings based on someone else’s point of view.

As creators, we are usually also great destroyers. And when we run with any negative judgment and we make it real and stick ourselves with it, we will destroy our creations and lose that untainted, joyful ignition, the ‘childlike’ approach to each new canvas. We will start to compare our art to others, especially when their art sells and our’s sells less. We might start to paint like others from the conclusion that they must be better because they just sold this one piece. And we can easily lose ourselves in this tempting downward spiral. We also miss this grand possibility of allowing their art to inspire us.

When I don’t fall into the judgment trap, I can look at their art and allow the spark that inspired them to also inspire me and paint my paintings from that wide open space.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Witnessing a painting being born! With all the joys and challenges, at times feeling lost, uninspired and clue-less and then opening the space again with a new impulse and see it flowing with new energy! It is also very beautiful for me to hear what my paintings have created in collector’s lives, when they find ‘their’ painting and bring it into their space. True joy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bettinamadini.art/ and https://www.bettinamadini.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bettinamadini/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BettinaMadiniFineArt/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bettinamadini/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW26GkezVM_FvX2muAWclpQ