Why do I make things? I come from parents who made things; making is in my DNA. Materials and process are of great interest to me. Color, touch, and line are essential elements in my work. I paint and draw; I work with clay; I weave fiber and paper, and I sew. I’m a sometimes printmaker. I take photos with a toy film camera. And I write. I respond to the world around me using whatever materials I have at hand. I let the materials take me places. What am I curious about? Everything. Curiosity is the catalyst for much of what I do. I make my work for myself; if it engages others, that’s a bonus. I have discovered that the things I make tend to catch a viewer at first glance—and then they come a little closer to investigate further. In the same way that I think of drawing as slowing down my looking, my drawings seem to ask that of the viewer. My work is a reflection of me, and it’s the tangible result of my thought process. Most important to me is the process—the investigation and the discovery—that leads to the making.

I am at a most interesting inflection point in my work. Before the pandemic, I would say “I am a painter, and my primary medium is color.” During the first year of the pandemic, I turned to drawing—obsessively perhaps—in accordion-fold Japanese albums, resulting in “Isolation Journal”—52 volumes of drawings. Although I’ve not returned to “easel” painting, my exploration of color persists—in clay, printmaking, weaving, fiber, and drawing. The interaction of color is very different in each of these mediums, as is the role of line, which is central to my current work. An artist colleague of mine observed (enthusiastically) that my various pursuits are on a collision course. Indeed, they are. Where they intersect, is in drawing. My “postcards” project, an ongoing series of daily drawings and messages on blank postcards, is a subtext of sorts for everything else.

i  c a r r y  y o u r  h e a r t  w i t h   m e  *

I’ve been intending for years to make a blanket out of P’s sweaters. He’s been gone for 18+ years now. Finally I’ve gotten a start on washing and drying the sweaters and deconstructing them into “yard goods.” I started to cut and sew a first piece—a get-acquainted-with-the-process piece. Quickly I realized that the blanket project I imagined has evolved into a growing series of collaged textile pieces. This endeavor is about upcycling, repurposing, and making something of what remains. Most of all it is about memory, love, and the remnants of loss. 

n.b., Although it has taken me 18+ years to get around to making this work, it is informed by the painting, drawing, weaving, printmaking, and ceramic work that I've done in the meanwhile. 

*The title for this project is borrowed from the e.e.cummings poem. If you'd like to read it, scroll down to the last image. 

D r a w i n g

Drawing is my habit. I draw every day, any place, and everywhere. Much of my imagery comes from direct observation, but some of my drawings have moved into the realm of memory and imagination. I draw mostly with an extra-superfine black Indian ink pen, and sometimes with colored ink, in accordion-fold albums. Each album, when expanded, contains twenty-four accordion pages on one continuous sheet of drawing paper, 123 inches long x 8.125 inches high, folded into a hardbound cover. I’ve filled 300+ albums with 3,000+ feet of drawings.

P o s t c a r d s . . .

. . . aka “Dear _____ ,” is an ongoing series of daily drawings and messages on blank postcards. The intended recipient has been obscured throughout. n.b.: Organized in descending chronological order; to view a slideshow of the drawings from the outset of the project, visit the "About" section of this website.

P a i n t i n g

I make small-scale, square, colorful paintings. My imagery is rooted in observation and it departs from it. I like to call attention to the commonplace and the local. I look where others don’t. I choose to paint ordinary situations and particular places by manipulating color, shape, and composition in such a way that suggest the possibility of multiple interpretations. The way I paint is driven by my interest in abstraction as economy of expression, and by my fascination with the dual role that color can play both as content and as structure in a painting. I use color to create space.

Painting[s] from Recollection, comprises sets of paintings made in various places; taken as a whole, the aggregate of small-scale paintings assumes a large scale and, at the same time, the parts encourage intimate interaction.

“The works in the ‘Recollection’ series are untitled (except by number and place-name), and the associations that we might make with their origin offer us the pleasure of inventing titles of our own. Leaving that effort to the viewer, Barbara Marks signals her commitment to the independence of her paintings from a fixed interpretation—in favor of a continuum of meaning.” —Rebecca Allan, [excerpt from Painting[s] from Recollection catalogue essay]

T h e  B l u e   C i t y   ( L a  C i t t à  B l u ) . . .

. . . is a place of my imagination—a supremely fictive and extinct city that is both frozen in time and actively alive in the present. Its invention and visual realization originated during a richly productive time as a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome, December 2015 / January 2016.

C a s e t t a  S u i t e

On my daily walks along the strada vecchia between Martano and Martignano I am drawn to the little structures in the olive groves. I am attracted to their simplicity, their utilitarian nature, and the way they are situated just so in the terrain—and what this says about the intersection of humankind and the land. These are not intrinsically landscape paintings. On a certain level, they represent my observation and interpretation of “here” from the point of view of an outsider. On a deeper level, they represent the essence of my time living here. In this suite of paintings, I explore concepts of lyricism and abstraction. Color is my way of describing a sense of place—in a subterranean way. 

—Puglia. Fall 2010 / Spring 2011

B o x e s

I draw and paint on collapsed, disassembled packaging—formerly containing such ordinary consumables as bar soap, chocolate, tissues, crackers, personal care items, and so on—creatively reusing something meant to be disposed of by reëmploying (or upcycling) it as the substrate for drawings and paintings.I am attracted to the asymmetry of a flattened container and its complex of planes, tabs, flaps, score-lines and fold-bumps that comprise the geometry of a box.