About Barbara B. McDowell

“Creative pursuit is a way to study and make sense of the world, an opportunity to observe more than ordinarily meets the eye, a means of expression, and a source of deep satisfaction. I derive immense pleasure by simply being still and observing what’s around me: color, texture, shape . . . noticing light, shadow, and pattern . . . particularly as these things play out in the natural world.

Observation inspires my imagination and motivates me to create. I have always made things.It’s what I do, in the same way that I breathe.”

Barbara McDowell grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and on a farm north of the city, with her parents and four siblings during 1950’s and 1960’s’. The family made annual visits “home” to Southern New England and to Cumberland Island, Georgia.

McDowell earned her BFA in photography at the Rhode Island School of Design where she studied in the early 1970’s with Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan. In the course of her career, she has owned and managed retail businesses, raised two sons, and taught photography and art to middle school children. In 2000 she turned her attention to her artwork and began to pursue it with increased focus.

McDowell lives and works on a small farm on Chase Road in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Her studio/ gallery, Buglee Wallow,* is housed in her barn and is open seasonally and by appointment.

* The name given by neighboring children to a swimming hole in the stream between their farm and the McDowell farm.