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FOR AN ARTIST with an impressive creative family legacy who began painting at age 9, received her first commission at age 12 and was a working portraitist by 21, the hardest thing was to hear that she had to stop. “It was the low point of my life,” says Sausalito artist Barrie Barnett, 57, a pastelist who discovered in 2000 that the dust created during her work was
dramatically affecting her health. “To find that the medium I loved was killing me created
a huge dilemma; I was secretly planning my funeral.”
Called “the finest living pastelist” by renowned dog painter William Secord, Barnett was
going to have to leave that medium and find another way. So the artist, then recently divorced,
donated her more than 1,000 pastels to a local art academy in Maryland (her home state) and
in 2013 came to Sausalito, where she took up residence on a houseboat, opened a studio in the
ICB Building and continued doing animal and human portraits, this time in oil.
“I got through it and discovered it could loosen me up,” Barnett says about transitioning to
oil. “It was a more fluid outcome, less overworked.”
Still, something was missing: Barnett was working constantly on commissions but wanted to “paint
something that I love.” And then it hit the Marin Rowing Association member (another activity her
family excels at): why not paint people participating in that sport?
“I started thinking how I could capture the beauty of the sport in a painting,” she says. “Not easy at
all, as to me the beauty is in the fluid, perfectly synchronized movement.”
She began in January, aiming to have the painting done in time for the contest, and she just made
it — after a few nights of sleeping on the studio couch and drinking tea and French brandy. What
inspired her was the youthful energy of the athletic Juniors, but she got much more than just a piece
of art from the experience.
“This painting restored a fire of ambition in me,” Barnett says. “It’s a milestone; I discovered that I
really want to paint rowers.”
•Meet Barrie Barnett and
the finalists at our Get
Covered Contest Celebration
event May 12, 5: 30 p.m. to
7: 30 p.m., at 302 Bon Air
Center in Greenbrae. It’s a
great chance to celebrate with
the contest winner and to view
art by this year’s Marin Open
Studios participants.
BARRIE BARNETT
Marin Rowing Association Juniors
26” x 30”, oil on canvas
barriebarnett.com
