About the Artist

Barbara has been drawing since she could hold a pencil in her hand.  Possessing a deep desire for creative expression, art has been her passion since childhood. Growing up in her hometown of Remsen Iowa there was little, if any, exposure to art, other than the family's set of encyclopedias. They helped to inspire the fantasy of travel, expansion through art, and her creative spark.

When Barbara was thirteen, she traveled to Chicago. There, she had a chance to visit the Art Institute of Chicago. This experience confirmed Barbara’s yearning to express feelings and emotions through art, fueling her childhood dream of becoming an artist. She attended two years of college, where she majored in art, alongside studying her other interests, such as anthropology. Barbara then married, and worked part-time as an interior designer for several years. After having two amazing sons, Ben and Andrew, she then settled down as a full-time stay-at-home mother.

Later, when Barbara's youngest son, Andrew, was a junior in high school, she was afforded an opportunity to audit a drawing class with Mary Lonergan, at Briar Cliff College, in Sioux City, Iowa. Auditing this drawing class changed her life, and helped to facilitate the realization of her dream.

With her boys almost grown, Barbara began again, pursuing her art career, at Briar Cliff College, through the guidance of Bill Welu, and Mary Lonergan. Since her graduation in 1996, she has been painting, in between traveling, and going to major art galleries, all around the world. Barbara loves traveling, especially to new places. She considers this as motivational, and inspirational, as the gallery visits. It is this participation, and interaction, with the beauty of the world, that instructs and yields more of her artistic expression.

Barbara's art expresses time and space, the journey of life, in the interior and exterior worlds. It is a spiritual expression of the passion for life. The use of color, texture, and form, exudes the spectrum of human emotions. Barbara is one who is highly sensitive, extremely passionate, with a great love of beauty, and a lust for life. Her creations are about being alive, truly feeling from the depth of her soul. As Barbara describes, "My art is my poetry, my paintings are my music"