Barbara Hall recently resumed painting after a break of several years. "Your priorities change as you age - you realize how short life is, and how limited your time is. I realized that I needed to paint. I started painting again, but I changed from watercolor to oil, once I had experienced the richness and freedom of oil paint. In some ways, watercolor is much more challenging, especially when you are portraying something specific. Watercolor is not forgiving - you can't just paint over your mistakes! Oil is more flexible - you can scrape out or paint over something you don't like, and the richness and mixing of colors is such a dynamic experience."

"I don‘t have any cerebral or ethereal statements about what I am trying to portray in my art work - I paint because I love to paint and to share the beauty and love of horses with others. I‘ve had people look at my paintings and say, ‘wow, that‘s great, but can you paint MY horse?‘ The look on their faces when they talk about their horse, or when they see the finished painting, is priceless."

A horse-crazy child, Barbara fulfilled her longings with crayon drawings of horses, and stick horses made with broomsticks and stuffed socks. In grade school art class the teacher chastised her for only wanting to portray horses - in drawing, painting, pottery, wood - whatever the medium. "I'm sure it was very annoying to the poor teacher, but I couldn't see the point in working on anything else. Actually, now that I think about it, I did make a clay rabbit in class once."

It was inevitable that she would finally get her own pony at age 14, and then proceed to a horse at 16. "I was incredibly blessed to own an amazing Arabian gelding through high school. He was the most beautiful, level-headed creature. I showed him at the class A shows, and won lots of trophies." But even more important was the influence on her art work - there is nothing like the Arabian horse to help an artist learn to portray beauty and emotion.

Working part-time as a vet-tech and taking care of her family doesn't leave much time for riding and painting. When possible, she participates in lower level eventing and dressage, and she paints several commissions every year.

Barbara has had artwork accepted into the American Academy of Equine Artists Annual Fall Open Juried Exhibition, the Western States Horse Expo, and the Draft Horse Classic Art Show. She has attended Equine Art oil painting workshops hosted by the AAEA and taught by renowned equine artists Booth Malone and Elin Pendleton.

Her paintings have a special vitality because, as an artist, she sees things the average person never sees. "Even if I never lifted another paintbrush, my life would still be enriched by what I see as an artist. When I look at a horse, I see how the light hits every muscle and curve. I see that each horse changes every second as he moves - how one second he can be just a horse, the next second he can look downright goofy. But then he can turn and look or catch the light or change his expression or the angle of his head and suddenly he is a vision of incredible beauty, and I think ‘There!‘ ‘That!‘ and that is what I want to preserve forever on canvas."