Pushing the Boundaries

Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: July 2023

Is it possible to go-with-the-flow while pushing boundaries?

Barbara Jamison, accomplished businesswoman and fine artist, would answer with an enthusiastic “Yes!” She believes if you don’t take a risk, you risk everything. Art is her playground where risks lead to magic.

When Barbara was looking for her perfect medium, she chose acrylics.

She says, “I wanted a distinctive medium that reinforced organic imagery. Acrylic paint spoke to me; it does things that only it can do. Its fluidity and my style united in all the ways I hoped for. It gave me ultimate versatility.”

To create a commission or showpiece, she begins with a large canvas laid flat on a table. On it she brushes a shallow sea of water. The artist’s power is a bit like that of an ancient storm goddess – the canvas is her planet.

Think of breezes, squalls, and rain, all swirling on the surface. The rise and fall of the liquid is controlled by the artist, air blown through a straw or hair-blower or blasted with a blow torch. Atomizers of rain feather the edges of forms. A tilt or vibration of the canvas mingles the wet pigment. In a matter of seconds, acrylics claim their space and bond to canvas and each other.

It’s difficult to say which part of Barbara’s process is more engaging.

Is it watching her move colors around a shallow sea, like growing a tiny storm or generating a fern frenzy? Fern-ing is the term she uses for growing tiny fingers of pigment, as they dance, reach-out, and fringe the image’s edges.

Or maybe it’s welcoming the organic magic when pigment, within seconds, claims its space, thus creating a unique world. As many as half a dozen canvases are worked side-by-side, all in various stages of evolution.

Barbara says, “You never know what you’ll discover when you’re living in and loving the Land of Liquid.”

It’s said the most successful art is that in which the artist and materials become one. Barbara’s work is evidence of that and she would have it no other way.

That applies to anything she does – as a devoted parent, or a pioneering female American Express Vice President trailblazer or a board member for The Bascom or a seeker/securer of sculptures for the Cashiers townscape. She jumps in with both feet and a full heart.

No matter which way the day flows and the wind blows, she’s willing to take risks and push boundaries. She says, “I do things because they are hard, not because they are easy.”

Barbara Jamison

You can see Barbara’s work at The Bascom’s Member’s Shows, galleries in Highlands, Brevard, and Greenville and occasional design events. Attend her painting demonstration at Art Highlands Gallery on Thursday, July 13, at 5:00 P.M.

For more information, visit BarbaraJamisonPaintings.com or follow her on Instagram @BarbaraJamisonPaintings.