The Artist_s Muse
A few years ago, I decided to paint a new collection of Native American Indians. After they were completed, I thought I would do something a little extra special with the signature that I place on the back. I decided to paint an eagle feather on each.
“Feathers mean a lot to Native American Tribes. A feather isn’t just something that falls out of a bird, it means so much more. The feather symbolizes trust, honor, strength, wisdom, power, freedom, and many more things. To be given one of these is to be handpicked out of the rest of the men and women I the tribe-it’s like getting a gift from a high official.
If an Indian is given golden or bald eagle feathers, it is one of the most rewarding items they can ever be handed. Indians believe that eagles have a special connection with the heavens since they fly so high. Many Indians believe that if they are given this feather, it is a symbol from above. They believe the eagle is the leader of all birds, because it flies as high as it does and sees better than other birds.
Once an Indian receives a feather he must take care of it, and many will hang it up in their homes. It is disrespectful to hide away in a drawer or a closet. An Indian will be given a feather to hold on to or to wear, and if they hold it, they must put it out for everyone to see. This is be a constant reminder of how to behave. An eagle feather is a lot like the American flag, it must be handled with care and never dropped on the ground.”
Just like the native American Indians and their feathers, I think every artist has hopes and dreams of their life’s work being honored and respected and that their work will be displayed for others to enjoy and not hid or tucked away in a closet or attic.
If you would like to preview some of my newest Native American Indian art you can click Native American Children or Native American Life.
As an Apache man returns to the river to bathe as part of his daily rituals; I too return to the waters of reflection of my early childhood by creating Native American paintings. -Barry L. Wingard Ph.D.
Early Life:
As soon as school let out for the summer my shoes and shirt came off and wouldn’t come back on until the fall session of school started. (Except for church on Sundays. It was a challenge for my mom to find my shoes for Sunday school every week. I was an incorrigible child; I was usually pretending to sleep or have a cold or some other ailment to get out of going.)
John and his older brother Tim, my brother Jamie and myself were a band of brothers. John and I were Indians, our brothers were the cowboys. I had an Indian headdress and moccasins. John I’m sure had the same. I just can’t remember now. (John and I even cut our flesh and became blood brothers) Our brothers had cowboy hats, sheriff and deputy badges and cap guns. We played together every day. There were always wars between the brothers. But if John and I didn’t get along then our parents separated us for a few hours. A day separated was our punishment for being bad. Soap for my mouth was sometimes needed too. We built dams in the streams and the ditches. We searched under the rocks in the streams for crawfish. Made arrows and bows. Climbed trees. And one of our favorite past times was finding a big paper wasp nest that we would spear with sharpened sticks. Our goal was to outrun the bees to the creek and jump in! We were a bunch of savages! Or, at least my parents thought so. They said and I quote. “Can’t you behave while we are out? You are a bunch of heathens and we can’t take you anywhere!”
John and Tim and their sister Kathy moved away when I was 10. I only ever saw them once again after that. Their parents were church missionaries. They travelled from one dead church to another to rebuild the congregation to a thriving church once again.
My Mom’s parents (Reitz) travelled someplace every year on their summer vacations. Usually, it was to visit siblings. Both (My grandparents) were from a family of 12. Some of my great aunts and uncles lived in Arizona, and California. When my grandparents went out to visit them, they brought back souvenirs, trinkets, postcards and photos to share with us grandchildren from their trips out west. (My favorite was the gifts from the Indian Reservations in Arizona.)
At about age 12 my father started to visit our cousins (Sprague and his wife Ethel Wingard) at his enormous white Victorian farm house. I don’t remember much else about the house except that they had a variety of different colors of carpet squares in one room laid down as floor covering. His wife would let us pick rhubarb that grew next to the foundation of the house and we would stick the end of a stalk of rhubarb in a sugar bowl and chew on it. They had a 1500-acre longhorn cattle ranch in Richardsville, Pennsylvania.
My dad would take my brother and I with him to see them. Sprague was in his 70’s at that time. We would sit and visit on his porch. My brother and I would listen to all the crazy stories that Sprague and my dad would tell of the family and their adventures. Cousin Sprague would also tell his adventures in the wild west all the while chewing his tobacco and spitting it in a huge brass spittoon placed near his feet.
My first memory of my cousin Sprague was seeing him sitting in his big blue boat (Buick) with a pair of long horns mounted on the front. (He was sitting in his car with a huge cowboy hat on as his hired hands corralled his cattle across a main road to a pasture that he owned on the other side.)
One night, Sprague asked my father if we wanted to go to an Indian POW WoW. My whole family went. It was an exciting and scary evening I shall never forget. (The Indian’s were more nomadic in those days. Bands of natives would cross the United States and set up camp. They were dressed in full regalia and paint for these events)
Note: As a child I had watched The Lone Ranger and Wagon Train in black and white. (We only had 4 channels on TV back then.) To see this vivid amount of color was not only scary to me but captivating as well.
The colors of the native dress dancing around the bonfire were exceptionally bright under that cold starry night. This is why I paint my native American Indian collection in these colors to this day. This imagery is permanently seared in my memory.
As an adult I have amassed a large collection of Native American photographs and sound files of Native American war calls and dance. I use this collection of historic artifacts to create my painting collections today.
All the beauty that surrounds us in all its form and fashion gives me great pleasure to create beautiful environments and art in all of its splendor, variety and charm.
But, in many circumstances in life we must endure deep hardship, wrongs committed that are no fault of our own for reasons that serve no logical or rational purpose. All meant to destroy our innocence of decency and good and to hurt and break our will for the demented pleasure of a deranged mind.
I know hardship well. I am a survivor. Not to the degree of my Jewish Ancestry or the many other peoples of the world that endured extreme persecution but, I do know abuse.
For you see, in my life I have suffered through all forms of mental, sexual, emotional, and physical trauma. Most of it unspeakable, deplorable and to most of us……unforgivable.
I chose to work out my hate, bitterness and unforgiveness through this set of paintings as a reminder of the capacity of unfettered evil and to be an advocate for others to fight the darkness that squeezes their soul. I survived, not without scars. I learned to accept myself. I learned to love and I learned that I can be loved in return. I have accepted the fact that I will always have nightmares. But when I wake up, I know I am a survivor. I am loved and I can conquer much more. If I put my mind to it.
The paintings in this collection are considered some of the best I have ever created. But they are not for children to see. Therefore, I will not display all of them on this website.
To date, there are only three paintings completed in this collection; Shame, Sorrow and Starved. The one pictured is titled: Sorrow. For those individuals interested in potentially purchasing this series, please contact me, verifying your age; and I will share these with you.
Being a Christ follower is important to me. Being an avid reader of the scriptures engages me to learn and express through creativity my love for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The 27 paintings in this collection took over 7 years to create. This was not a marathon race to completion. It was a slow contemplative approach to the healing of my soul.
Let me explain….
I started this collection in a difficult season of my life. I was mentally and emotionally hurt. My soul felt bruised and betrayed; and I felt distant from God. My body and soul ached from the battles that raged through my life. I was suffering from PTSD. Many of a night I would wake with panic attacks; and I was battle weary. I hated those that betrayed me and caused me harm; but I hated myself more. I felt vulnerable and foolish that I trusted people who had purposely hurt me. I knew I could not carry all of this and still survive. It was too heavy for me to carry. So, I did what I know best……. create!
What I found while working my way through each scene of the passion, death and resurrection of Christ was that it calmed my heart and soothed my soul. The paintings released my pent-up anger, resentment and unforgiveness. Knowing that Jesus the Son of God suffered much more than I could ever fathom or comprehend released in me the ability to forgive and move away from that destructive path. His act of love for me became real.
To this day I weep in the presence of these paintings.
You will notice that each of my paintings has a different model of the image of Christ. Because of the time frame of Jesus’s life and that photography hadn’t been invented; and we truly don’t know what Jesus looked like. However, what we do know of His life is His compassion, love and His steadfast commitment to the Father. He truly is a wonderful Savior, Counselor and Prince of Peace.
One day I hope to finish the entire New Testament; but until then, I carry on… pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Ever since I can remember I have always loved the color purple. It was my favorite color of crayon growing up as a child. When I was in undergrad it was my favorite color choice in Advanced Painting Classes. In fact, the color Violet Dioxazine was almost taken from my art palette box by my art professor for my liberal use of it. To this day I am still adding it to my paintings; and you can see it everywhere in my work (including the background color of this website).
Violet Dioxazine is a vivid purple pigment; and it is almost black at its most concentrated form. When diluted, it reveals many incredible shades of purple. It is also one of the bluest shades of purple/violet.
The color violet is strongly connected to Impressionism, with Monet, Pissarro and Manet abandoning the use of black for shadows and instead using tones of violet, seeing in shadows shades of color rather than black or grey. This led to violet being dominant in their paintings and they were dubbed as having ‘Violettomania’. With Monet declaring “I have finally discovered the true colour of the atmosphere,” . . . “It is violet. Fresh air is violet.”
Violet falls between red and blue in an artist’s color wheel and is placed after indigo on Isaac Newton’s 7 color rainbow spectrum (ROYGBIV: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet). Violet sits on the very edge of the visible rainbow spectrum after which we find Ultraviolet (or ‘beyond’ violet from the Latin ‘ultra’) which is invisible to most humans. Perhaps because of our inability to visibly perceive beyond violet, it is sometimes the color that represents the fringe or the edge of knowledge.
As my final thoughts on my favorite color, I will leave you with this poem that I wrote about it.
Purple is the color of my dreams,
It makes my mind wander and my eyes gleam.
From flowers to fabrics, it catches my eye
It’s a color that many are afraid to try.
Purple, oh purple, a regal hue,
It’s bold, it’s bright, and oh so true,
It’s a color that always sets my work apart
And it’s a favorite color for my heart
Purple ignites my senses with its delight,
It brings joy to my heart and hope to my sight.
A hue that brings calmness and peace to the eye
It whispers of mystery, of secrets that lie
Purple, oh purple, a sight to behold,
A color so fascinating, it never gets old,
From lilacs to lavender, it’s a color of flair,
A shade so gorgeous, it’s beyond compare.
So, let’s hail the color, so perfect and true,
A hue that can never be misconstrued,
Purple, oh purple, forever we’ll be,
In awe of your beauty, for eternity.
Author: Barry L. Wingard Ph.D.
Carol F. Wingard and Barry L. Wingard, co-founded Wingard Wingard & Associates LLC in 2000 after the death of my father, Merle K. Wingard, in 1999. Our focus was and still is on decorative finishes, fine art and interior design.
This is probably where most companies would list their projects, I don’t feel that is necessary. Our clients value their privacy. We honor that notion. If you would like a Curriculum vitae, please contact me. I will be happy to send out one to you. Instead, I want to dedicate this section to the one that helped create our legacy, my mom.
My mom had a phenomenal eye for color in all of its shades, hues and intensity. Her color combinations where unusual and sophisticated. All grey, beige or white was monotonous to her. Her favorite colors where normally greens, blues and pink. But she was never one to be put in a box, she liked lots of color and pattern harmoniously brought together in a unique way.
In her later years she didn’t venture out on design calls as much. She worked in the office in accounting. Every day when I got back to my office, she would want all the details of my adventures of the day. She knew all of our clients and their projects by heart.
My mom loved life! She was a great conversationalist and always had a listening ear. You could tell her anything and she would keep it confidential. She was an excellent business woman.
When we decided to uproot from Western Pennsylvania and move to Lynchburg Virginia, four years ago, we sold and closed everything. Mom was never going to come back to the interior design world and I had no intentions to either. I was happy to just paint.
On July 24, 2022 my mom passed away. Before she passed, she asked me to open up the interior design and decorative finishing firm. This website is about honoring her request.
So here I am once again, feeling lost at times, but I am open for business!
I have never wanted 15 minutes of fame or to ever be in front of a camera. I prefer to be behind it. But I am told I need to step up to the plate and take a good swing at it. So here I go….
In this video I will attempt to answer a few questions posed to me that might interest you.
Questions presented include:
Do I like living with my own artwork?
When did I learn to paint?
Why do I paint so large?
How and when did your skills begin to develop?
When did you develop a passion for interior design?
What was your favorite interior design magazine growing up?
Was your first love interior design or painting?
What inspires me?
Why do you stay original?
What is your advice on collecting art?
Those are just a few of the questions posed to me during this interview.
Thank you for watching.
The best way to describe me would be to say I am a “Paradox of Human Diversity (PHD)”. My early exposure to extreme opposites began as being the first-born to a unique couple whose merger of different backgrounds, talents and faiths began my journey of thinking outside the box.
A strong work ethic was formed on our family farm, which also provided my deep appreciation of nature, especially animals. I inherited my father’s down-to-earth wisdom and logic which helps me problem -solve and enjoy the simple joys of life. The foresight of my father burns within me and that characteristic fuels my soul. My passion and creativity evolved from my mother’s romantic heart. Her love of beauty and harmony has nurtured my artistic tendencies and helped me develop my style.
My diverse formal education in Interior Design (Doctorate), Fine Art, Commercial Art, Graphic Design, Sculpture, and Business Administration has allowed me to dabble in many Disciplines of art: Interior Design, Painting, Drawing, Architecture, Photography, Digital, Mixed Media, Sculpture and Video.
When practicing the disciplines of art I enjoy the creative processes in all their complexity, beauty and spontaneity. My artistic preferences move me from one choice to another depending on what inspires me at any given moment.
My hobbies include writing, and developing music. I also like to collect recipes (over a 100,000 collected and ever growing), furniture, (European) and other artists’ work. (Asian, European, African and American art)
All these diverse qualities combine to form me, Barry L. Wingard, Ph.D. – a Paradox of Human Diversity (PHD).
