Artist Statement

I started out in art painting landscapes which always have 2 parts – what you see and what you feel. When I began a landscape, I always started with the inherent abstract design in that landscape.  I picked my palette based on the feelings I had when I looked at the scene and what I wanted to interpret to the viewer about the scene.   When I began painting abstracts, I found that I was painting the landscapes “in here” as opposed to “out there”.  These are not always seen by others but uniquely lived in by each of us.

After 40 years in psychiatry and medicine, I find that my art mirrors the processes of both living a life and recovering a life.  I try to express the personal and universal feelings that life evokes in us all.  The forms I work with reflect both the organic (reflecting my love of nature) and the manmade, the natural and the industrial, basic raw nature and the nurture, or lack of, that is applied to it.  The effects of light on color and form and the feelings that are evoked fascinate me and I use a slant of light, an unexpected color,  or a complex “gray” to evoke those feelings in the viewer.  Although the feelings may sometimes be difficult, I try to temper it with a touch of whimsy and humor.

As I have aged, my interest has increased in the effects of time on shapes and surfaces and these are expressed in my treatment of surfaces with increased wear and tear, rust, imperfections, creases, wrinkles, and fading or patina.

Biography

Although medicine was her career, art has always been her avocation since childhood.  Presently she is making contemporary silver jewelry, and painting landscapes/plein aire in oils and abstracts in acrylics, oil and cold wax,  and mixed media. She used to paint Chinese watercolor on rice paper but currently uses the rice paper in her contemporary mixed media works.

She studied jewelry making with Charles Newton-Brain at MICA and Beth Carey and Debbie Weaver at the Delaplaine Visual Arts Center.   She studied painting with Skip Lawrence, Lori Putnam, Walt Bartman, Claire Carnell,  Robert Burridge,  Calvin Edward Ramsburg, Tara Grim, Tony Couch, Robin Jacobs, Eloise Bralove, Robert Burridge, Mark Brockman,  Paul Gallo, Paul Flurry, John Kachik ,  and Quing Huang,  Phil Starke , and Pamela Caughey and extensively on her own for many years.

She currently exhibits at CALC in Carlisle, and the ACAC gallery in Gettysburg.  In the past she exhibited at Just Jennifer’s, The Artists’ Gallery in Frederick, The Hagerstown Art League Gallery,  Spirited Ladies,  Gallery 30 with both present and prior owners and the Delaplaine gallery in Frederick, Md.  and  at Andalusia in Carlisle.   She was juried into the ACAC juried show in 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2018 as well as several Delaplaine Visual Arts Center shows in Frederick, MD. Solo shows include the Parrot in Gettysburg (2014 and 2024), the UCC in Gettysburg, and the ACAC main gallery in Gettysburg,

She is a juried member of Oil Painters of America.  She belongs to the Adams County Arts Council where she served on the Board from 2014-2016, the Delaplaine Visual Arts Center, the Susquehanna Valley Plein Aire Painters,  and the Carlisle Art Learning Center.

Barbara loves working in all media and tends to pick whichever one will most accurately depict what she wants to express in the piece she is creating, whether that is the sculptural or graphic expression  in her jewelry or the misty quality of a watercolor on rice paper.  Most of her landscapes and still life, both studio and pleinaire, are done in oil while her abstracts are usually acrylic and mixed media.   Most her landscape work centers around the effects of light on form and color and she enjoys trying to elicit a particular mood or feeling in the viewer, whereas,  when she wants to express some universal human situation or her own emotions she works in acrylics and mixed media or cold wax.