Collection: Barbara Woods

Born in New Mexico, Barbara enjoyed working with textiles for most of her life. Primarily self-taught in multiple techniques of fabric painting, her formal education consists of classes and workshops taught by watercolorists and silk painters. She began her career painting one-of-a-kind silk fashions for women. The idea of first illuminating painted silk occurred to me while working on several yards of stretched silk suspended under a skylight and viewed from below. I was captivated by the way the colors glowed; lamps seemed like the perfect way to capture that look. After a time making traditional lampshades I began to combine clay bodies with the silk to create large sculptural lamps and wall sconces. In order to combine painting with ceramics, taking workshops for several years specializing in the use of a slab roller, hand building clay forms for the sculpted bodies and bases that support my silk paintings. The vision of a winged chrysalis emerging from the clay body has been an on-going theme in her work. I also work with a talented functional potter in Santa Fe who wheel throws many of her bases.