Barbara Bemis Adams

The Sparks of My Heart

Exhibit Location: Stairwell Gallery

Notes: Most of Barbara’s paintings are for sale. Please stop by the reference desk for more information.

About Barbara and Her Work

Art has been a focus since school days in museum classes at the George Walter Vincent Smith Museum, Springfield, MA. Barbara has taken classes and workshops with many memorable teachers and worked in many mediums, as well, including clay, monotype printmaking with collage, and drawing with charcoal and conti crayon. Now she sticks to oil paint and pastel, but plays with masking tape and spray paint, gouache, and cold wax.

An important mentor and teacher for her was Phil Malicoat, a Provincetown painter. Barbara spent every Saturday for three years, working in oil, with a few other students, 1977-1980. Barbara was a Special Education teacher in the Sandwich, MA schools and spent twenty summers at a camp in Burlington, ME. She moved to Maine full time in 2018.

Her work has been in galleries and shows on Cape Cod and in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maine. Most recently she had a show with two friends at the Eastham, MA Library, March-April 2023. She is not currently represented by a gallery, but has taken part in shows at the Rock and Art Shop and with the Bangor Art Society. She has received prizes in international juried “For Pastels Only, Cape Cod” shows and in Bangor Art Society shows.

Her work is in private homes in the U.S., Canada and Holland. Interests include: Monday Art Group at the Ammadamast Grange in Enfield, ME, playing uke and singing with the Strumdingers of Lee, ME, tutoring adults through Literacy Volunteers Bangor, taking zoom fiddle lessons with her long time Cape Cod teacher, Clayton March, yoga classes at Save A Life, Lincoln, ME and as a member of the Friends of the Lincoln, ME, Library.

She lives in Burlington, ME with her husband, Chris, a retired Cape Cod lobsterman and tireless volunteer for the Burlington Food Pantry.