When it comes to painting, Barbara Alloway can’t help herself.
She likens the art to tying her shoes: It’s something that has to be done, although she admits, “Tying your shoes isn’t as much fun.”
Alloway is a Central Coast abstract painter who likes to mix acrylics, metals, and foil. Her collections have been shown in the United States, Sweden, Ireland, and England. Her most recent exhibition, Out There, is on display at McKeon-Phillips Winery and reveals the depth of her love for color and texture.
Though creating her art is enjoyable for her, it’s also something more.
“I do it because I have to, is what it comes down to,” she said.
She explained that the feeling is inexplicable, but she can’t not paint because painting is such an important part of her life. And she’s always done it in some form. Even as a child, she loved color and creating.
“I loved my coloring books,” she said. “I loved every opportunity I had to color.”
Alloway’s deep-seated appreciation for the artistic process helped her to recognize that painting was something she wanted to do with the rest of her life, but that realization didn’t come until long after her childhood.
Alloway calls herself a late bloomer in respect to art. She started painting in 1994 when she came to the United States from London. She began studying with artist Robert Burridge at Allan Hancock College, and credits his class with helping her to realize her need to paint.
Sometime around the third class with Burridge she knew she was going to paint forever.
“I said, ‘This is something I wanted to do all my life, but never knew it,’” she remembered.
In fact, she heard that same prediction in one of her first classes at Hancock.
“Burridge said, ‘Some of you have been painters all your life and never knew it,’ and I said ‘No way ’,” Alloway recalled.
She continued her art education at Hancock, studying under as many artists as she could, including the likes of Deborah West and John Hood.
“I haven’t studied anywhere else, because they were so good,” Alloway explained.
Learning from artists whom she admires is a source of inspiration for Alloway, but so is nearly everything else in the world: a flower, the color of a house, or the flames painted on a car.
“I suppose, like most people, I gather my influences from everything and everybody,” she said.
But mostly she likes color and what she can do with it.
“I love color for the sake of color. I don’t have flesh-toned paint in my palette—I don‘t know many painters that do,” she said.
She said that everyday sights that surround an artist can be influential, like the way shapes are arranged or how two colors are put together. She mentally stores the things she sees that inspire her, and later that inspiration comes through in her art, filtered through her life and experiences. With metal and foil as her medium, she creates what she’s feeling, letting the work unfold on its own.
“As an abstract painter, sometimes what I do doesn’t make sense to anybody, even to me until it all comes together,” she said.
Because the materials she works with are not absorbent, the painted colors do what they will.
“I love the way I can draw a circle and in a moment it’s not going to stay a circle,” she said. “It’s going to drip, it’s going to wander and meld with the other colors.”
Lately, Alloway has been moving more toward a pure investigation of color and mood. She created one such painting during a recent heat wave.
“It was hot, yellow and orange, which is what I was feeling at the time,” she said.
But what she’s been feeling lately is satisfaction and a desire to continue to do more of the same.
“You want to practice and you want to get better at it, whatever that means,” Alloway said. “You want to find another surface to paint on. Maybe I’ll do plastic next. I don’t know, it’s Monday.”
INFOBOX: Out there
Barbara Alloway’s art show will run until July 16 at McKeon-Phillips Winery, 2115 S. Blosser Road, Unit 114. For more information, call 928-3025 or visit www.barbaraalloway.com.
Arts Editor Shelly Cone writes because she has to. Contact her at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 10-17, 2008.