"Market Women" Collage, mixed media
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Collage
using African cloth
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Artist's Bio of Barbara Paxson
Barbara Paxson is Elizabeth Paxson's sister. Barbara graduated fromKalamazoo
College with a liberal arts degree. After studying abroad inSierra
Leone, West Africa, she developed an interest in African art andculture,
which is evident in much of her work. She received a Master ofFine
Arts from Pratt Institute in New York. She returned to West Africatwo
more times, once in the Peace Corps, and again as a researchassistant
in anthropology. She earned another master's degree in Art
History from the University of Seattle . She also served as a Vistavolunteer
in St. Croix, Virgin Islands in 1968. She shows her work inboth the
midwest and the east. Her ethnographic, botanical andchildren's illustrations
frequently appear in books, magazines andpublications, including Herb
Quarterly, Cricket Magazine, Parabola, and many others.
Artist Statement of Barbara Paxson
My art revolves around and emerges from both “nature” and “culture.”
Years ago I spent time in Africa and the Caribbean,learning from
and being inspired by the beauty and radiance of the people, their
arts, and the tropical light, which seemed to emanate from everything.
The African markets were especially thrilling to me, and I create
collages of the market women, using cloth and mixed media
to convey the transcendent beauty and excitement I experienced.
I felt that the material world vanished, and I was in a realm of
light among “luminous beings.”
The collages combine “order” (the rows of market women) and “chaos”
(the hurly-burly of the market activity and produce) in one format,
thus providing a psychic harmony by wedding seeming opposites in
one image.
Nature images appear on my decorated gourds. The shapes
are natural in themselves, like the curves of women’s bodies, filled
with the seeds of potential life.
I draw butterflies, moths, fish, birds, etc., all creatures of the
Mother Earth.
My mermaids include both nature and and culture, a way to
honor “Mammy Water’” a water spirit who was the subject of
my master’s thesis in art history. She may have been a real
person; a Surinam Indian woman who helped slaves escape to freedom,
and who was remembered and praised for this. She flows between
cultures and overcomes barriers of language, race, and national
boundaries: a sign of freedom and the future.
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