Artist: Briden Schueren
Medium: Mixed Media on Canvas
Size: 36” x 48”
About This Piece:
The year before covid19, I quit my corporate job to fully focus on my art. Prior to covid19, I had shown my work at multiple markets and galleries, and was commissioned to paint murals for schools and large organizations, around the US. 
The summer of 2020, I had already signed up for over 20 different events, including gallery showings, and markets for the spring, summer, and fall months. These markets all eventually cancelled-causing me to not be able to make any in person sales, which I depend on to live and keep my business operating. 
I began doing odd end jobs to make ends meet, and then I started working at my friend’s embroidery business. I was creating designs with a medium that I had never worked with before. I felt inspired and happy that I could still be creative. One item we use is a sticky paper that helps to attach thread and fabrics together, and I started collecting the scraps to use in my art. 
I decided to use this material to block off a shape on my canvas to see how it would effect my painting and I noticed the paper reacting to my pigments in a way that added depth and a different texture. Creating the textured pot you see in the painting.
This painting is about the struggle that was the reality many of us faced during the covid19 pandemic-isolation, lack of support, death, despair, grappling with economic stress.  
The red tree represents the death around us, the house represents feeling isolated-literally and figuratively. The small ladder shows the narrow and insufficient path that was laid before us, the mental health crisis we were expected to find our way through this chaotic, stressful time. The tree is rooted in a big broken pot, which is the state of this country, and shows the cracks in the foundation. From a far, there is the beautiful façade of life is going to be fine-things will get better soon (in two weeks, like they said). But it is far from that.