My Spring Garden

“Lisa Marie Barber: My Spring Garden” will run March 31, 2023, through May 2, 2023, in Caestecker Gallery, C.J. Rodman Center for the Arts, at Ripon College. An opening reception will be held at 7 p.m. March 31 in Rodman Center for the Arts.

Lisa Marie Barber’s aesthetic sensibility is rooted in Mexican Folk Art and the Latin American Catholic shrines of her heritage and upbringing. During her childhood in Tucson, Arizona, this was the artwork she knew and she practiced making creations in similar ways. She came to believe that ornamentation and excess denoted value and importance; materials weren’t required to be “fine” and tools were expected to be simple. Evidence of “the hand” (the maker) was never something to be self-conscience of or craftily removed. Throughout her life, Barber has remained loyal to this style of making.

Barber’s works are imagined conceptions of home, gardens, friends, peacefulness, playfulness and celebration. They are personal meditations on the happiness and beauty that outlines every day.

Originally from Tucson, AZ, Barber earned her BS in Sociology/Art minor at Northern Arizona University and MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently a professor in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Kenosha, where she teaches and serves as the community liaison in the arts. Prior to her professorship, she worked as a university and youth art instructor in the San Francisco Bay Area.