You probably know The Bascom Board Member (and Laurel All Star) Barbara Jamison – but you may not know her creative compass was set early, when she attended one of the country’s first Montessori schools.
Montessori’s mission – independence, self-direction, critical thinking, a lifelong enthusiasm for learning – shaped an exceptional human being whose left and right brains lit up at the same time.
While Barbara was building an analytical mind, she was also slipping into an artistic current that still carries her.
Today that current is literal. Barbara works in what I think of as the Land of Liquid – liquefied acrylics and inks she pours, drips, and coaxes across absorbent surfaces. Gravity isn’t an afterthought; it’s her collaborator.
Color slides, gathers, and then – surprise! – changes its mind. The painting evolves in real time as pigment and water swirl, merge, and settle into passages that can’t be repeated, only witnessed.
For years, her abstractions have chased water’s rhythms – its translucency, its constant becoming. Now her newest body of work turns to the waterfalls that define the Plateau. These paintings aren’t postcards; they’re motion. If you’ve ever stood in the mist, you know how a waterfall can feel like a lesson in living: sometimes rushing, sometimes easing, always moving forward.
Barbara says, “Waterfall Abstractions are inspired by the raw power and graceful motion of the countless waterfalls near the Plateau. Their ever-changing forms – at times rushing with force, at others gliding effortlessly – make them an ideal subject for exploring the expressive potential of liquefied acrylics and inks.”
In the studio, that manipulation of water and color becomes a miniature waterfall – created, redirected, and released.
Barbara Jamison
She builds depth with translucent layers, letting each wash suggest atmosphere and movement. Sometimes she’ll use a hair dryer to push semi-transparent paint into feathery edges – those soft borders that water makes when it refuses to stay contained. Drop fresh color into a wet wash and it can shove what’s already there; watch pigments pirouette, then surrender, sinking into the surface. The time window can be seconds, not hours – more like weather than schedule. Better work fast.
Her work is biomorphic abstraction – organic, flowing shapes that echo nature rather than copy it. As Barbara puts it, “It’s to capture not just the image of a waterfall, but its essence – its endless movement, its interplay of energy and serenity. The fluidity of the paints allows the water to move freely across the canvas, much as it does in nature, inviting the viewer to experience its rhythmic pulse, its chaos, and its calm.”
And then she does something that sets the Plateau inside the painting – literally.
“To deepen the connection between painting and place, I incorporate natural elements from the local landscape,” she says.
Watching her process feels like standing beside a creek after a hard rain: everything is in motion, and yet there’s a strange clarity to it. She’ll tilt the surface, pause, reconsider, and then let gravity finish the sentence. That push-and-pull – control and surrender – is where the drama lives, and it’s why the finished work still seems to breathe.
Moss and mica from her land in Cashiers add texture and a subtle shimmer, echoing water’s reflective surfaces. Pigments derived from local soil root the work in the earth shaped by these falls, while imprints of fern and hosta conjure the lush vegetation nourished by constant mist and spray.
These natural materials turn each piece into a physical reflection of place – wild, fluid, enduring.
Barbara Jamison’s paintings live in galleries, museums, and private collections throughout the Southeast; locally, you can find her work at The Bascom and at Art Highlands Gallery, where her celebration of water, movement, and our region’s particular magic continues to resonate with collectors and art lovers alike.
Stand close and you’ll notice how light catches the mica like spray in sun – proof that the Land of Liquid doesn’t stop at the edge of the canvas.
BarbaraJamisonFineArt.com; Instagram: @BarbaraJamisonPaintings
Meet Barbara at The Laurel’s Cover Artist Celebration on Tuesday, June 2, at 5:30 P.M. at High Country Wine and Provisions.
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