November 2021 Newsletter
Best in Show Award and Exhibitions
I am honored to share that I won the Best In Show Award at the Plein Air Painters of New Mexico (PAPNM) National Exhibition at Sorrel Sky Gallery in Santa Fe, NM! Thanks to PAPNM volunteers and the staff of Sorrel Sky for putting on such a great event. The best thing to me about winning the award is that my vision was expressed well enough that others "got it" and resonated with that painting. I wrote down a few of the thoughts I had while painting that piece below.
This has been a hard year for so many of us. Thank you for your friendship and support. I wish you peace, laughter, good health, and love through the holidays. The times of grief, loss and uncertainty that we go through are difficult. Our connections can build strong bridges for us so that we have the strength to experience hardship without getting stuck there. Our friendship has built such a bridge for me. Thank you.
From the Bridge, 12×16, oil
Best In Show Award "From the Bridge"
In the words of Jill Carver, Judge of Awards, “From the Bridge“ is: “An excellent piece. Absolutely dynamite. It just glows with light from within. That is really hard to pull off. It is very hard to get the values right when you are dealing with high chroma […] Barbara showed masterful handling and management of what is going on out there. The bridge adds a narrative, and the foreground sets us up in the shadows so the light appears more vibrant. There’s so many things that, as an artist, I know could have gone horribly wrong when you’re painting a scene like this. The difficulty of the scene, the fleeting late, low light elevated this piece with amazing handling. Really strong work.” Jill Carver is one of my favorite artists and her critique of this painting was incredibly meaningful to me.
Shadow Dancing, 12×16, oil is also in the PAPNM National Show.
Musings About "From the Bridge"
Bridges fascinate me. I painted "From the Bridge" thinking about how they are steeped in symbolism. They are about transition. Taking you from one shore to the other. Spaces of transition are called liminal spaces. A space between the familiar and the new, the past and future, the seen and unseen. They are places where you don’t spend much time. You generally don’t live on a bridge. You have to trust the bridge will support you all the way across, that you can face any troll lurking under the bridge that might impede your crossing. Profound wisdom to guide our life choices are embedded in sayings such as ‘cross that bridge when you come to it’—a reminder to take care of today and not to try to solve tomorrow’s problems with today’s tools. Or, ‘don’t burn all your bridges,’ a warning we all understand. Bridges connect. The fleeting light and long shadows in the painting add to the feeling of transition and transformation. Day is deepening into evening. Rivers are the most dynamic of ecosystems, always transforming. We each have our own symbolic meanings for rivers. “From the Bridge” is also a tribute to two dear friends who died of COVID19 this past year. Our lives are fleeting but precious, ever changing. We need courage to keep crossing over, to not get stuck, to unify and connect. And there is the simple magic of just walking over a bridge, a moment of walking over air. A moment to remember.
"Sanctuary Up North", oil, 11"x14" and "Diablo Canyon", oil, 11x14" are two of the paintings in the ArtsThrive Exhibition at the Albuquerque Museum. The show is open until December 6, 2021. It is a great show.
Southwest Art Invitational
Southwest Art Magazine is hosting an art invitational. They showcased my work in their print edition for the October/November issue. You can check out my work in the invitational by clicking on the link below.