Barbara's art education began when a teacher encouraged her parents to send her for formal training at John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis, Indiana. Thus began an artistic journey that took her through many states, outside the country and back again, and finally to Atlanta and collage/mixed media.

"After taking my first collage class and experiencing a connection with the medium, I was immediately drawn to magazine pages. It was exciting to be able to take this discarded, ordinary material and make fine art. My inspiration came from the colors and textures in the magazine advertisement backgrounds. Using a painterly style with an impressionist twist, I used this everyday, ordinary paper to create landscapes and abstracts that fooled the eye.

With more instruction and experimentation, I added paint, gels, pastes, old papers and envelopes, oriental papers, found materials, sand, eggshells, etc. The list of potential materials constantly expands and affords me tremendous freedom. I am bound only by my own creativity. I truly make art to feed my soul.

Today, my art journal is filled with inspiration gleaned from all things external translated into collage/mixed media terms. The idea is then joined with the internal creativity to form the impressionist and abstract collages I produce. My goal is to create with collage elements a visually elegant story that is mysterious and makes the viewer yearn to search beneath the surface."