THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 27, 1994 TAG: 9411230267
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Mary Ellen Riddle
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
There was a time when Betty-Jeanne Barnes had a generous patron. Barnes was able to buy whatever art supplies she needed - paint, canvas, brushes, you name it.
And she painted and painted, day and night, to a point where the time of day meant nothing to her.
That patron is now dead, but Barnes continues to scrape out a living grouting floors. The 64-year-old artist doesn't mind being on her knees. What better place to meditate, she says with a laugh.
And in between grouting, Barnes continues to create. She carves, she paints, and she reflects.
Barnes was raised in a Catholic boarding school in the Washington, D.C., area which may be why she has a fascination with religion. Perhaps it was the schism between her and her parents, in part due to their absence, that helped form her intensely questioning mind.
Their sole offspring, Barnes, was like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - thoroughly misunderstood. Hers was the world of creativity and art, her mother's law and politics. Her mother scaled the heights of the legal world, working in what Barnes calls ``an ever so proper embassy.''
Today, the only heights Barnes is interested in scaling is a mountainside, riding a donkey up to a Tibetan monastery, painting as she goes.
In the meantime, Barnes creates in her studio/home on the top of a hill in Corolla that's dotted with stone sculptures.
While Barnes meditates toward a state of mind that is boundary-free, her sculptures of sandstone, alabaster or marble are very concrete.
They illustrate her fascination with Eastern and Western thought - winged, godlike and sometimes kneeling figures that are solid and ethereal. Barnes' work also reflects her intensive travels in 13 countries, including Greece, Turkey, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Mexico.
She borrowed a male, Mexican god and transformed him into a more fluid form of a mother holding a child. Linear floral designs soften the stone exterior.
Her work can be seen at her home in Corolla or at the Ghost Fleet Gallery in Nags Head.
Barnes is able to bridge many worlds. Mixing coffee and chocolate bars with lentils and meditation, she feeds her contemplative self. She is a sieve that acutely observes as life passes through. She takes little for herself, happy to nibble on fruit or a sandwich dropped off by her son, with a Hershey bar lovingly included. And it's obvious that he adores her.
To him she is art.
Perhaps her uniqueness is another reason Barnes searches. She is the first to laugh uproariously about the futility of her quest. But for Barnes there will always be the quest.
Barnes owns nothing except her mind. Her home was her mother's legacy. But the work, the work, the work, Barnes chants, ``It's grasping. Look at me is all it's saying.''
Those who look in from a much different sphere are happy to grasp the work. Work that her six children beg for. Paintings that her friends claim even before they are completed. Yet her work sits in galleries, her patron has passed away and all Barnes says is, I can fast. I can eat lentils.
As long as she has strength and stone, she will sculpt. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY ELLEN RIDDLE
When Betty-Jeanne Barnes isn't scraping out a living grouting
floors, she continues to create. She carves, she paints, and she
reflects.
by CNB