About the artists

Barbara Forrest

Barbara Forrest is an Oregon and Colorado based landscape artist who works in watercolor and ceramics. Her paintings are characterized by a richness of color and a bright and bold style which is immediately recognizable as her own. She has employed many of the same characteristics in her ceramic work, which is mainly hand built and carved ceramic tiles and mixed media pieces.

Art and the outdoors have been a part of Barbara’s life since her childhood in the St. Louis, Missouri area. One of her earliest memories is sketching the scene in a city park, and the landscape continues to be her primary focus. She particularly enjoys the vastness of the American west…mountains, rivers, high deserts, forests, and rugged coastlines are among her favorite subjects.

After many years of studying and painting while holding down a career as a clinical audiologist, she began to devote herself to art full time in 1996. She has studied painting in Texas, Canada, Oregon and New Mexico. Her love of travel combines well with landscape painting and she takes a camera with her wherever she goes, snapping thousands of pictures which end up in her studio. Sometimes this requires some creative exploring and hiking to get just the right composition; she has leaned over precipices, stood on rocks in the middle of a river, climbed on top of ancient stone walls and clung to tree branches to get the perfect shot. She believes this work pays off in her final painting as her goal is to paint things that will really connect with people; paintings of actual places where she can say, I was there, and the viewer is also transported to the same place. She is enjoying the addition of texture with her new ceramic work while still employing her drawing and painting skills.

Barbara has made her living as an artist for the past ten years. Her art has been acquired by people in dozens of countries all over the world. She has participated in art shows in several states. Her work is represented in galleries and shops in Oregon, Hawaii, Arizona, Utah and Colorado.

Rob Forrest

Growing up in the Canadian Rockies, Rob Forrest developed a keen interest in nature. He began pottery ten years ago after a career change from designing and building service stations and cleaning up contaminated soil. Realizing the creative limitations big oil demanded he shifted to building and designing hand built fish and mixed media ceramic projects (working with soil of a different kind). Hand built ceramics appeal to him because of the freedom in texture and finish. His colorful and life like fish sculptures have found their way into the hands of many outdoor minded collectors in the Northwest.

Splitting his time between a cabin on the Conejos River in southern Colorado and the Pacific Northwest south of Portland Oregon there is no end of inspiring scenes and rivers . Natural tones and texture are endless . He has paid his dues in the pursuit of the perfect fish and has donated many a fish hook to the river keeper to prove it..

His present mixed media work reflects a fascination with interpreting the outdoors in clay form and stretching its limitations. In his one of a kind mixed media work he combines electrical work, ceramics, woodwork, and assembly skills in creating his rustic art. He brings beauty to functionality with his unique designs of mirrors and lamps using both wood and ceramics in the same piece.