I am an artist working in Phoenix, Az. I have worked in a variety of media. Since moving to Phoenix, my intention has been to use images, color and form to ask questions about the contemporary environment and human condition. These inquiries range from cowboys to foreclosed homes.
I have always worked with a variety of media: oil, acrylic, clay, metal, found objects.
My work doesn't fit in a box. It is whatever captivates my imagination at the moment. The palette--bright, pastel; the message--visual or title inspired; the composition--diagonal, cramped, irrational. These are constants. For over 30 years my visions have concerned war, environment, contemporary mythology, social issues and nature.
I spent my childhood during the post WWll economic boom in the industrial town of Hammond, Indiana. On the horizon factory smoke and fire filled the sky (gorgeous!). Across the street under giant oak trees the Little Calumet river (fit for swimming in the 1920's) oozed by--a thick, gooey, bubbling black stream we were forbidden to go near (ha!). Hobos from the Depression were still numerous in the thick forest preserves (they call them "the homeless" today). Everywhere tract subdivisions were popping up. The nation was fast becoming a wealthy empire.
My teenage and college years were in Arizona, where you could see 100 miles and Indians still rode buckboards into tiny Scottsdale. Getting my driver's licence involved navigating 4 stop signs. I majored in English Lit and European history. I married after my junior year and worked while my (ex) spouse went to grad school. In 1966 I quit teaching to become a potter. We moved to Tacoma, Washington. I read The Second Sex, which changed my life. My kids, Whit and Josh, have always been a center point for my life.
A BFA and MFA were added to the resume, as well as, owner of a Montessori school, teacher of gifted, Merrill Lynch stockbroker, high school art teacher and art professor and even realtor. (Artists will do anything to "make a living.") I made art in basements, over a tavern (thank you Dusty Trail), in an unlighted, unheated mini-warehouse, on the top of kitchen counters.
After reconstructive surgery I couldn't lift 60 lb. sculptures into kilns or build 18' assemblages, so I turned to drawing, painting and mixed media on a small scale. That's harder than one thinks. And after 29 years I was divorced and moved happily back to the sun and live with my high school boyfriend on the high Sonoran desert.
I've shown my work widely, received awards, am in collections and all that. I think a passion to make art supercedes all the documentation, although it is on my website. After more than 30 years (yikes) the same themes define my work: war, the environment, contemporary mythology, social issues and nature.
Chaos is everywhere until the mind creates a rational interpretation. I am fascinated by the beauty, balance and rhythm created by juxtaposed tactile and illusionary shapes, colors and surfaces in the natural and man-made environment. I observe, read and day dream.
I do not work from sketches. My work is process: exercises to create some order out of a chaos of ideas and materials. I change direction, white-out areas, over-paint, rearrange objects and alter the composition throughout this process. My work is a translation of experiences, thoughts and ideas into visual forms.
I was born anti-war, believing that communication and negotiation must replace murder. I am concerned for the survival of wildlife and the natural world everywhere. I care about curing cancer and other ailments, being a survivor. I am committed to a philosophy of inclusion, tolerance and acceptance based on integrity and ethics.
Out of the chaos that is our planet I still find both humor and silliness existing side by side with turmoil and distress. My purpose as an artist is to explore and record a small fraction of the transitory visual and psychological world that I experience.
Barbara Minas barbminas@cox.net
