| Who is Louise? Artist statement And Why did she Leap? . . . the story of an artist's beginning. . . |
Sewing cards. Remember them? In my first memory, I am on a boat with my dad, who is fishing. I am three years old and threading bright yarn through holes in equally bright cardboard with a blunt needle. A couple of years later, I find old curtains in the basement, and play with them for hours, eventually figuring out how to sew a seam (inside out!), and make gathers (big stitches, drawn tight!). I make a dress for my best-friend doll, Cinderella. I have been thus driven for all of my remembered life. So it is not so surprising that after fifteen years as a plant science professor, I find myself once again making things full-time, rather than in stolen moments. In those intervening years, so full of practical considerations, I developed an enormous respect for plant life. Plants fill the world with function and beauty simultaneously. No life could Be without their primary existence, and yet they live their lives of incomprehensible utility, exquisite beauty and languid grace without expectation of appreciation or recognition. Their sensual, graceful forms and jewel-like colors inspire and inhabit my work, often in abstraction, but still evident to even the casual viewer. I make things because I am compelled and inspired to. The media I chose changes. The need to create as a means of connecting to creation . . . to express what’s inside to the outside . . . to produce a compelling object . . . never does. |
Why did she (finally) Leap? Once upon a time, there was a child named Barbara LOUISE Bowling. And like most children, she liked to Make Things. For better or worse, circumstances conspired to entice her to grow her left, rather than her right brain, so she eventually went to school for a very long time, and became a plant scientist. She worked as a university professor (a berry specialist) at Penn State under the alias of Barbara Goulart. That career culminated in writing a book called The Berry Grower's Companion. Check it out, if you like to grow your own food. Why did she Leap? After 15 years of overly-loyal service, she had a Very Bad experience at the hands of many people at Penn State University. So, she decided to move to Boise, Idaho with her trusty companions. She was thus given the opportunity to emancipate her "inner artist child" and gave said child her middle name, Louise. Then she started a journey to see if an artist lurked inside her rational, verbal, linear thinking self. And here's the surprise. The artist had not died, or even really ever stopped Making Things. She just needed a little encouragement. She began working in media that she had been exposed to 30 years earlier: Enameling. Metalsmithing. Cloisonne. Of course, her skills were tarnished (!) and so she became a student whenever she was afforded the opportunity. And after six years of steady learning, working, trying, failing, learning, trying again, failing again, and ultimately finding a path to some success (defined as work she was proud of), she once again became a student, learned to make a website, and that's why you can find her here today. about her work, or purchasing some of her small art, check out the Shopping Page on this site! Good Growing. Barbara Louise Bowling |
| She drank from a bottle called "drink me" And up she grew so tall She ate from a place called "eat me" And down she grew so small And so she grew while other folks Never tried nothin' at all. Shel Silverstein |
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Redefining Precious