When Ramsgate artist Abbie Ziegler’s aggressive breast cancer returned she was told, bluntly, she had six months to live without treatment or 12 months with.
As she once again underwent chemo a nurse noted it ‘wasn’t her first rodeo’ and Abbie replied “but it will be my last.”
And that exchange, which provoked some tears at the time, has become the title of her ‘first and last’ solo exhibition of works from across the last five years – My Last Rodeo at the Wooden Box Gallery in Ramsgate next month.
Abbie, 62, moved to Ramsgate from Bognor Regis in 2020 after retiring from a 33 year career as an English teacher.
The mum-of-two took the opportunity to unleash her inner artist with bright and wacky creations made from debris she cleared off the streets during covid lockdown walks.
She made dozens of tiny tin can artworks, from an eerie Punch puppet, African masks and a butt-kicking Red Riding Hood (there’s a gun in her basket) to a mini Edvard Munch The Scream and a tribute to Magritte’s Son of Man.
Her quirky sense of humour has shone through her art but it is also a tool to stop her being ‘just a statistic.’
Abbie was first diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in 2022 but was given the all-clear the following year. Sadly, at the beginning of 2025 she was given the news that it had returned and this time it was terminal.
She said: “The oncologist was quite brutal. I said, in a cheeky way, ‘so, how long have I got?’ and they just said ‘with no treatment 6 months, with treatment, a year.’
“It was quite shocking.
“It’s strange, I came to Ramsgate, got cancer, then there was the relief of the all-clear and then the horror of it coming back again.
“I think I’ve broken the oncologist though. I was just a fat, bald woman and that’s all they see all day long. So, I went in, asked questions, made jokes so they’d laugh and now I get treated as a person. I’m the funny one. I’m not just a statistic, I’m not prepared to be a statistic, I want to be seen as a human being.”
Abbie says My Last Rodeo is a celebration of her art with the exhibition featuring a huge 40 paintings plus a creative assortment of painted bedpans and sick bowls, knitted banners and hats and crows, a knitted Ramsgate lighthouse and all manner of brilliantly bonkers objects.
Crows feature as Abbie says: “I see my cancer as a crow, ready to swoop in and take me away.”
She said: “It’s celebrating my art and also exploring art I made in response to having cancer but not in a sad way, it’s more funny and cheeky.
“I put something up about the last rodeo on Instagram and it took off with one million views. When I spoke to Rebekah Sunshine, from The Wooden Box Gallery, she said I had to call the show My Last Rodeo. She is providing the space for it which is very kind and I am very excited.
“The painted bedpans and sick bowls are because my cancer has been complicated and I have been in and out of hospital. In hospital you get given the bedpans and sick bowl and I decided they would become part of my art, I even made a hat from one.
“All the art will be affordable, from £10 to £100. I’m not going to be here long so I want to clear it all out.”
Abbie is receiving treatment through steroids, chemo and radiotherapy. She said: “The cancer keeps spreading so they are zapping it to keep me going.
“There’s nothing you can do about it so you have to just get on with it and try not to despair. I do have moments of despair, my children are in their 20s and I won’t see them grow up but I try not to get down..
“I can see the decline and I know I am not the same person I was a year ago but I am here. I could sit at home being sad but instead I’m creating and making stupid things.
“Last Christmas one of my children bought me a calendar and I cried as I won’t be here but I am going to try and outlive that calendar.”
My Last Rodeo opens at The Wooden Box Gallery in Ramsgate High Street on Saturday 2nd May from 4pm-7pm and then every day from 11am-3pm until May 9th (inclusive).
Awesome approach Abbie! Really enjoyed seeing your work here and will go to see the real thing in Ramsgate.