Today we’d like to introduce you to Hannah Bludworth.
Hi Hannah, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My story is complicated (whose isn’t, really) and full of twists and turns. I’ve had many false starts in my life and as a child I had many interests and so it’s taken me a couple of decades to narrow in on what my life’s focus should be and to find my direction. Despite myself and a milieu of moves and changes I’ve put myself through over the years I think I can say that at 36, life is finally settling into a shape that makes sense.
I’ve always been involved in the arts. I sang in regional choirs in Dallas as a child and then began private classical voice training in High School, eventually going on to study Vocal Performance and Opera at the College of Charleston. I completely flailed in my music theory classes and as it turned out, hated performing on a stage. So I then did a direct pivot, back to Texas and decided I would pursue my other love, visual art and painting. I studied painting at Texas Woman’s University and graduated in 2015. Since then I’ve trained as a Montessori teacher and have been doing that for roughly ten years in Texas, Massachusetts and now Oregon! My husband wooed me up to Portland in 2024 and we now live here with our two cats and I’m able to paint in something of a home studio in our backyard.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth is definitely not the word that comes to mind. It feels like I am just now coming out of a six year cycle of so many trials and changes. As I mentioned, I’ve made many pivots in my career, and moved across the country on a whim, not once, but several times ! It’s felt like I was starting over repeatedly to go after a new or recycled dream, only to see things not work out or meet some big disappointment. But I needed to learn things about myself and become a stronger individual and learn to stand on my own two feet.
The last two years have been the most difficult midwifing my husband through a really really horrendous cancer battle. We discovered the cancer four months into us dating, after we had already planned for me to move up to Portland where he lived. He went through just about every kind of treatment, including two major surgeries, first in 2024 and then for a recurrence in May of 2025. The second surgery lasted over 24 hours, spanning over 3 days. It is unbelievable what he’s gone through, I mean the most physical suffering I have ever seen anyone go through or even thought possible, and the care-taking tested my resilience in every way. Heart-breaking and soul-breaking. The core of me has been changed by the journey and we are now both in the process of unpacking life beyond cancer. Throughout it, we miraculously managed to still get married and are building a home and a life from love and true strength.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I paint abstract landscapes that come about through an indirect, stream of consciousness process. The paintings take shape as I’m working. I’m currently trying to take my practice to a different place working on larger canvases, but I love the intimacy of small-scale work. It really is about the sultry-ness of the oil medium that delights me and makes painting so enjoyable to me. It feels like my inner child is getting to play in the mud and make a mess without any inhibition at all.
I’m a very private person and can be quite shy, so I’m still learning how to put myself out there with my work and self-advocate but it isn’t always easy to do when one is more introverted. It can all feel a bit self-aggrandizing. I found the Dallas art scene to be largely quite vapid, and ultimately not for me. That being said I am grateful to still be quietly producing work despite not having gallery representation, and the time and effort I give towards teaching Montessori, which I have needed to do to stay financially afloat. However – it hasn’t been entirely a sacrifice. Teaching has also provided me with the altruistic meaning I seem to really need from a job. I consider teaching to be the rent I pay to be a citizen on this earth. Plus there’s just so much joy working with children.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
What matters most to me is freedom, and authenticity. I’ve gone out on a limb in major ways for both of those things many times in my life. I believe we all want to feel like our life is a story we ourselves are writing, as our true un-masked self, and not something we are just pegged into by default.
Pricing:
- Available through direct inquiry through my website
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hannahbludworth.com
- Instagram: @hannah.bludworth
