Barbara Hart Decker
La Crosse, Wisconsin
 

“I always liked to work with my hands,” Barb Decker says, and for the past 44 years she has shared this passion through her art and through a variety of courses and workshops for children and adults. When she was a child her parents gave her a set of watercolor paints. But what she really wanted was oil paints. She waited almost 30 years to get them, after earning a bachelors degree in biochemistry and a masters in physiology.

As part of her master’s degree in art education at the University of Houston Clear Lake City, Barb wrote her thesis as a guide for outdoor art programs, based on a backyard program she developed  for kids.  It led to a 35-year commitment to children’s art, at the Galveston Art Center; El Paso, Texas, Community College; and the yearly El Paso “Generation 2000 “A Children’s Fair.”  For the past 23 years she has been a part of this weekend children’s hands on event, first as one of the exhibitors and now as a creative director working for a month each year on creative development of activity booths and with vendors.  Generation 2000’s purpose is to show parents how to have fun with their children, because for children to develop their creative sides, she says, “somebody has to take the time with them.”

From an initial pool of soap bubbles and a few other activities the fair has expanded to fill the entire convention with raised sand tables, catch-and-release fishing, a variety of painting and industrial scrap sculpture areas, puppetry and music. Generation 2000, presented by Clear Channel radio, also partners with the Texas Parks and Wildlife, the National Guard,   Child Crisis Center, a major Children’s Hospital among others. Proceeds from ticket sales benefit children’s centers and other activities in the El Paso area.

Since relocating to La Crosse in 1997, Barb has taught in College for Kids at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, and given workshops and presentations in several Wisconsin school districts. She has also been “artist in residence” with the School of Science and Technology (SOTA), a charter school in the La Crosse Independent School District.

“The Driftless region of Wisconsin inspires most of the scenes,” she says, “and painting with paper allows me to interpret the farm fields, wild flowers, and majestic views of the Mississippi.” She has fun doing her art, enjoying the texture and the color of the papers she uses. But,” If I can’t tear it I don’t use it. ”

She calls doing art “dropping seeds so people can pick them up.” And she admits that “a part of me is in each picture.” She wants the same for anyone who feels like creating art.

“Too many people are stifled by being told how to do art,” she says. And so, when working with children as well as adults, her philosophy is “I don’t teach art – I share art.” Her guidelines go something like this: Look at something. Let it get inside of you.

Let it come out as you want it to look. And, most importantly, there’s no right or wrong way to see it or express it.  One of her own guiding principles is, “Don’t tell me I can’t do it, because I’ll figure out how to do it”

In addition to painting with paper, Barb also draws on eight semesters studying clay at a community college in Texas. Her free form pottery is “inspired by the shapes and forms of nature,” as she forms the pottery over rocks, squash, melons, and pieces of wood.  Functional and practical in nature, her pottery is made with lead-free, non-toxic glazes, and is dishwasher, microwave, freezer, and oven safe. She does her sculpture in a garage overlooking Goose Island in southwestern Wisconsin, “so I usually do that only in the summertime.”

She likes selling her work at art festivals, where she tries to draw people in to get them to see what’s there. “But I don’t want them to buy just to buy. I want them to really want a piece and appreciate it.” She enjoys the camaraderie during the festivals, seeing what other artists are doing. And she appreciates the deadlines that preparing for art festivals impose.

Barb has received awards and recognitions from, among others, La Crosse’s AAUW Art Fair on the Green, the Wisconsin Regional Arts Program, and La Crosse Magazine. Her work can be found at the VIVA Gallery in Viroqua; the State Street Gallery and her Northern Coyote Studio, both in La Crosse; and the Driftless Area Art Festival in Soldiers Grove.  She can also be visited at northerncoyotestudio.com and bdecker273@centurytel.net.