Barbara earned a BFA degree from the Philadelphia College of Art and an MFA degree from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. Her paintings are widely exhibited and she received multiple-year Artist in Residence awards from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and the California Arts Council. She was chosen as a Teaching Artist Fellow for VSA Arts, an affiliate of the Kennedy Center for the Arts.
In 1992 she co-founded Art Options, an arts education program that served hundreds of Los Angeles inner-city teenagers through 2007. Currently she is a professor at Columbia College Hollywood, School of Film & Television in Tarzana, CA.
“When I was diagnosed with a retinal degenerative disease I had already been trained as a professional fine artist. I had to re-think my whole approach to making art.
I am now inspired less by what I see, and more by what I hear, remember and imagine.
My paintings explore the weaving of words and symbols. I utilize texts quoted from a variety of sources such as songs, news headlines, junk mail, fortune cookies and works of literature, as well as original texts such as alphabet poems, haikus, reflections of personal experience and streams of consciousness.
The viewer is invited to create his/her own poetry.”
