Art Exhibit: All That I Can T Leave Behind

Collage, paint, photography and printmaking are combined for layered images that provoke equally layered interpretation.
The show at the Bitsy Irby Visual Arts and Dance Center Gallery continues through Jan. 20, with an opening reception today and a gallery talk Jan. 15.
In a name: The show's name springs from a painting she showed at Cole Pratt Gallery in New Orleans that included photographed post-Hurricane Katrina debris, love letters both kept and found and even a fortune cookie fortune, 'All that you can't leave behind.' In conversation with Pratt about her exhibition's next venue, she said, 'I guess this is all I can't leave behind.'
He nailed the comment, 'That's your 10 years right there.' Pratt died this past April from a heart attack. 'He was really a supporter of my work. ... You hope you're moving on in the sense that people who supported you would want you to.
'My work is so much about the South and Mississippi and the past ... it seemed fitting, philosophically,' says Barton, who lives in Flora.
'So much of my work is things I can't leave behind ... a love letter, a piece of lace I found. I collect things that I find intriguing or beautiful or poetic.
'I also can't leave behind the past.' It commingles with the present. 'I photograph women friends who are alive and well ... their stories filter in along with my stories, along with current event stories.
'Sometimes it's like emptying your cupboards or refrigerator to make that great gumbo of whatever you have on hand.'
All is there in spirit and collage, as in Keepers of the House. Duplicate images show a woman holding a box in her lap. 'For me, it is like all of her possessions. She's handing it out to the viewer or she's clutching it to her,' Barton says.
Cherished items: Keepsakes, tulle wedding dress jewelry, treasures and secrets, hugo boss dress even a hope chest, may all come to mind. Antique door locks enhance that sense of home, the past, locked doors, keyholes.
A border, pieced together from one of Barton's own paintings from 1998, pleated dress adds a quilt-like feel. Behind the central image is a cotton field, sharecropper wallpaper with painted flowersan old dress pattern.
It all comes back to the women.
'They're keepers of the house. They're the ones taking care of things, nurturing thingssequestering away things that are important.'


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