Bettie Ward: my life as a flower

Bettie Ward my life as a flower

Life As A

my life as a flower

Bettie Ward (b. 1947) is one of those artists whose creative practice defies neat categorization. Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she is a painter, textile and multimedia artist, and sculptor. But at the heart of her wide-ranging work is a singular sensibility: an intuitive, emotionally vibrant, and unapologetically imaginative vision that draws from the deep well of personal experience and spiritual insight. Her paintings are luminous testaments to life’s mysteries— narratives without edges, where fantasy and feeling bloom in equal measure.

Ward’s art spans Neo-Surrealism and Magical Realism, but she forges these genres into something uniquely her own. Her work is not simply fantastical—it is a lived fantasy, born from a biography as vivid as her palette. Raised in the American West as the “cowgirl daughter of an old-world rancher,” Ward began riding horses at a young age and became one of the country’s top ten competitive Saddlebred show riders for six years. This intense physicality and kinship with animals continue to inform her process. As she writes, “Even now, in the making of objects, they are like talking to my horse, urging him to go on... it is ever magic—not analysis but intuition, streams of consciousness, poetry and embraces.”

Her process is as important as her product. Ward paints as a mystic dreams with fluency, freedom, and a willingness to surrender to the image. Her work is not overly cerebral but arises from a stream of consciousness approach within the framework of a well-planned conceptual context. It is art as mainly intuitive expression, or as she puts it: “I guess that’s where they come from, that magical place in me.”

The influence of craft is another essential strand in Ward’s artistic tapestry. During the 1970s, she immersed herself in traditional embroidery, Pima basketry, and textile arts. Often associated with women’s domestic labor, these materials became powerful vehicles for her storytelling. Her embroidered paintings, where she first gained notoriety, weave personal interest in various mythologies into pattern, pigment, and thread. In Preciosa, for example, floral motifs unfold alongside embroidered details and gold leaf birds, creating layered compositions that evoke both the ancient traditions of weaving and the timeless cycles of nature.

Nature, in fact, is central to Ward’s practice. Not the mere scientific nature of textbooks, but a spiritual, mysterious, almost animistic world of blossoms, birds, vines, and rare creatures. Albino deer, owls, pheasants, wildflowers, and leafy labyrinths recur throughout her narrative paintings—works that blur the line between dream and reality, fantasy and autobiography. These paintings, while populated by recognizable forms, are not depictions of specific places but rather fantastic spaces—psychological or spiritual interiors rendered through the language of the natural world.

Ward’s embrace of magical realism connects her to artists like Frida Kahlo and Leonora Carrington— figures who also painted the spirit-world into being with imagery that blurred the lines between self and cosmos, pain and beauty. Her paintings, reminiscent of Henri Rousseau’s lush dreamscapes, conjure fantastical realms brimming with flora and fauna. In the spirit of Matisse, she uses color as more than a tool for representation—it becomes a vehicle for joy, lift-

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

ing the spirit through bold, expressive choices. Her works become portals: exuberant, mysterious, and emotionally charged spaces that invite you to linger, or perhaps even imagine yourself living within them.

In the exhibition, my life as a flower, Ward’s metaphorical title suggests life like flowers—her guiding symbol— is fleeting. Flowers are emblems of both life and death, blossoms that radiate beauty for a moment and then fade. The poignancy of this cycle is central to her vision. To see the world through Ward’s eyes is to see it always becoming—always on the edge of transformation.

When asked what kind of flower she would be, Ward responded without hesitation: “a Bettie flower!” Indeed, there is no other quite like her. Unique among contemporary artists, Ward is not chasing trends or following formulas. Her art, like her jazz performances as “Queenie and the Bumble Bees,” is improvisational, joyful, and deeply personal. Her sultry voice can be heard even in her brushstrokes, which seem to hum with harmony and rhythm.

Ward’s work has been exhibited at institutions including the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, TX (Womanish: Audacious, Courageous, Willful Art, 2023), and is included in the permanent collection of the University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Art Collection. She is also a co-founder of the Artists Foundation of San Antonio, a testament to her lifelong commitment to the creative community.

Her paintings are not simply art objects—they ar talismans, evidence of an inner life rich with symbolism, play, and profound feeling. “My paintings are

– Anaïs Nin

proof that I exist,” she writes. “They are evidence of my personal energy. Art is what keeps me feeling the wind in my hair. It teaches me about the fragility of life, the benevolence of mankind, and the divine voice that lives in all things.”

To stand before one of Bettie Ward’s paintings is to enter a place where the spirit speaks in color, time bends, and nature sings back to us in symbols. It is to feel, for a moment, the strange and splendid truth of being alive.

- Alison Johnson

Always and Everything 2022-24, oil on canvas, 53.25” x 53.75”

Cooing and Surprisingly Real 2024, mixed media on paper, 59.75”

Lucky 2025, oil painted monoprint, 59” x 42”

My Life As A Flower 3

Favorite, can we have a lifetime of summers 2023, mixed media on canvas, 44”

Grid (Resonance)

Bettie Ward (b. 1947) is an American artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A painter, textile and multimedia artist, and sculptor, Ward is known for her dreamlike, color-driven work that explores transformation, intuition, and the deep interconnectedness of nature and humanity. Her art bridges Neo-Surrealism and Magic Realism, and is a spectacularly imaginative blend of fantasy, whimsy and the use of visual language to express internal mythologies and landscapes of the spirit.

Bettie Ward | b. 1947 | Resides:

Education

1991 San Antonio Art Institute, San Antonio, TX

1965 Saint Mary’s Hall, San Antonio, TX

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2025 “My Life and a Flower” exhibition August LewAllen Galleries in Santa Fe, NM

2025 Trinity University Press, San Antonio, TX

2009 ”Optimism and Horror”, Blue Star Contemporary Art, San Antonio, TX

2008 Koelsch Gallery, Houston Texas, embroideries

2007 The Marvelous Hysterical, School of Southwest Arts and Crafts, San Antonio, TX

2005 Paintings 2005, Saks Fifth Avenue, San Antonio, TX

2001-3 “Never Give Up”, “Hope”, “Circ”, Koelsch Gallery, Hou ston

2001 “A Limb in the Garden”, Flatbed Press in Austin, TX

2000 “ Tender” Joan Grona Gallery, San Antonio, TX

2000 “LeapFrog: spirit/flesh”, Koelsch Gallery, Houston, TX

1999 ”Soul Intent”, Koelsch Gallery, Houston, TX

1996 “MO-BETTIE” Milagros Contemporary Art, San Antonio, TX

1995 “I AM BEING”, Flatbed Press, Austin, TX

1994 Color Works, Adams Middleton Gallery, Dallas, TX

l993 “Walk The Earth”, Milagros Contemporary Art , San Antonio, TX

1992 “More Amor”, Estes Design Intl., Santa Fe, NM l99l-2 “Fragile Spirit”, Milagros Gallery, San Antonio, TX

l990 “Artemis Bakes Sweet Potatoes”, Blue Collar Gallery San Antonio, TX

Selected Group Shows, Awards, and Invitationals

2023 McNay Art Museum, “Womanish” Curated by Rene Barrilleaux, San Antonio, TX

2006 Nominated for the ARTHOUSE Award, Austin, TX

2006 McNay Musuem San Antonio, ALA program. Curated by Rene Barrileaux

2005 Blue Star 20, Curated by Tony Smith (from Chicago Art Institute) San Antonio, TX

2003 Blue Star 18, Curated by Terrie Sultan,( from Blaffer Gallery) San Antonio, TX

Santa Fe, NM

2002 San Antonio Museum of Art, 10 x 3, Curator Kathryn Kanjo (director ARTPACE)

1995 Moderator for Spirituality panel National Womens Caucus For Art

1992 Faculty California Summer School of the Arts, Cal Arts, Los Angeles, CA

l992 Laguna Gloria Art Museum, “New American Talent 8”, Texas Fine Arts Association, Austin, TX

l989 “San Antonio Sculpture ‘89”, Curated by Dave Hickey

l988 “Student Exhibition”, San Antonio Art Institute, 1st and 2nd prize

l976 “Stitchery ‘76”, American Embroiderers Guild, Pittsburgh, Pa.

l975 Folk Art Museum, “Competitive Exhibition”, Santa Fe, NM

Selected Collections

San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX

University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX

McNay Museum, San Antonio, TX

Caneel Bay Resort, St John Virgin Islands

Hotel Emma, San Antonio, TX