My "Happy Place" - dreaming about colors. I could spend and have spent hours in front of color charts and paint store color sample displays. I love to weave and dye my own yarns! As a child, I had a "compulsion" to create, using a variety of mediums from paper collages to light sculptures. I later attended the Kansas City Art Institute where I studied fiber arts. I continue to be creative while staying home with my two lovely daughters. Making handwoven panels, scarves and shawls with hand-dyed yarn keeps me happy, healthy and challenged.

Bio
Debbie Barrett-Jones and her husband, Brandon, left their small town in Iowa so Debbie could pursue an education at the Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI). Since graduating from KCAI with a B.F.A. in Textiles, Debbie Barrett-Jones has exhibited her work throughout the United States. Along with weaving large-scale pieces for homes, businesses, and sanctuaries (including three-panel commission at Children’s Mercy Hospital, Truman Medical Center and one six-panel commission for a church designed by Frank Lloyd Wright); she also creates small, intimate pieces such as scarves and shawls. With each weaving, careful consideration goes into color, composition and material. Because color is such an inspiration, Debbie uses carefully calculated hand-dyes on all her fabrics.

Most pieces employ the process of color mixing and percentage-gradation dyeing. Each woven panel reveals the beautiful communication that passes between one color thread intersecting another. Her panels comprised vibrating colors and elegant patterns, narratives in flux according to one’s proximity to each piece.

Currently Barrett-Jones continues to live in Kansas City with her husband and two young daughters. Working from her studio at home and daily trying to find the balance between motherhood and being an artist is both the hardest thing she has done, yet most fulfilling. She would have it no other way, cherishing her time in the studio.