An inspirational artist parent interview @artist_parent with Caroline Rudge @rudgeoriginals, an artist from Wiltshire, UK.
Tell us about yourself?
I’m a full-time artist, illustrator, animator, printmaker and mum of one, working from my studio in Wiltshire.
As an artist, I work in the traditional medium of egg tempera. Through this, I explore themes of motherhood and fertility with realistic portraiture, and use natural objects such as taxidermy, eggs & nests as metaphors.
The natural world also features a lot in my printmaking and illustration work.
Much of my animation work is client-led, and touches upon subjects as diverse as FGM, feminism, refugee stories and food insecurity.
How has being a parent had a positive impact on your artistic practice?
Becoming a parent heralded a sea change in my work. My daughter has had a profound inspiration on my art making - my work is bolder, braver, more purposeful and meaningful. As a character, she features strongly in my recent output, and her influence on my intentions and voice has changed my work for the better. My journey to motherhood had many challenges, and being able to process this in my art has been invaluable.
I also love the play involved in my art-making with my daughter - this allows me to have genuine fun in messy exploration, with no preconceptions. Watching her love and enjoyment of art making is joyful.
What are the challenges you have faced in your artistic practice being a parent?
The obvious challenges are time-constraints and the pressure of earning a living.
There is never enough time to experiment or ‘indulge’ in art for arts sake. The life of a working artist is multi-faceted, and most of my artistic output is client-led, or writing applications, running workshops, markets or networking - this has to take precedence over other personal projects I want to explore. My technique of painting and especially animation is a massively time consuming process, so my voice as an artist has been slow to develop and progress. Also, making sure my work life doesn’t impinge on family time is a juggle too, especially when working to a deadline.
It’s a constant graft and balancing act.
Any advice for other Artist Parents and how they can continue to nurture their practice?
During my daughter’s babyhood, I gave myself permission to draw for pleasure, and sketched her while she was sleeping or being held by others. This helped me feel I was not abandoning my art, and helped me have small but achievable goals in those amorphic early months. I also embraced art making with her at every opportunity, and my studio is a space where she has been welcome. Now she is at school, managing work time has become easier and more structured (at least during term-time), and I endeavour to ring fence some non-negotiable time each week to make my personal creative work, which feeds my soul and makes me a better artist in my work life.
Is there anything else you would like to say, share or promote?
On January 18th, I’ll be doing a talk about my work @chippenham_museum and I’m looking forward to a show of my printmaking project, #100daysoftetrapaklepidoptera this May @poundarts
Thank you to Caroline for sharing her story and thank you for reading. If you would like to read more stories or for your work to be shared then follow and tag @artist_parent on Instragam.
Uploaded 16th January 2025