Highlighting SIFTer Bettina Escauriza‘s interview with The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage published June 23, 2026
Was there a moment when you began to identify yourself as an artist?
I grew up around women who gave literal shape to the world around me. My mom is an artist: a painter and a ceramicist, specifically. My grandmother was a practitioner of Ikebana. I was raised to value beauty and harmony between seemingly disparate elements, and I will carry those values with me throughout my life. My mom and my omi are a foundational part of my story as an artist, not only because I grew up around their art, but also because they encouraged me to make alongside them. I learned early on the magic of juxtaposing elements to create a new form and tell a story, and that process remains very exciting to me.
What is driving you to create at this moment?
A devotion to love, possibility, sensuality, and playfulness is driving my work at the moment. It doesn’t feel urgent. It feels true, steady, and fun.
What do you need most to foster your creative process? What are the biggest barriers?
The biggest barriers to my creative process are the necessity of funds needed to do meaningful work, finding time to create while also giving my attention to two full-time jobs needed in order to afford to live indoors and eat food, and a lack of opportunities to show my work. I know my experience isn’t unique at all—most working-class artists are struggling with this reality, and wages seem to decrease daily while the cost of living rises, which means we all need to devote more time to surviving and less time to creating.