Spotlight
Barbara Crawford’s Artistic Journey Around the World
On June 16, Professor of Art Barbara Crawford traveled to the picturesque hills of Sanquhar, Scotland, to set up her latest art exhibition at the Crawick Multiverse—a 55-acre land art project—in honor of the local celebration of the summer solstice.
“This installation represented the earth and sky coming together in harmony,” said Crawford. “In all of the installations I do I try to create a work that is in harmony with the design of the area and nature. I wanted to do a series of installations based on a shared theme but also in an interesting and unique place—both environmental and cultural—and Scotland was the latest place in this series.”
Located in the heart of Dumfries and Galloway, Crawick Multiverse is a former open coal site that had been transformed by landscape architect Charles Jencks. Based on Jencks’ idea of connecting the concepts of cosmology, space, and astronomy, the design creates symbols of the sun, galaxies, comets, and universe. In celebration of the summer solstice, local performers danced, sang, and reenacted historical events in front of Crawford’s installation.
“I did my first public installation in the courtyard of the city government in Spello, Italy in 2016 and loved it,” said Crawford. “In 2019, I had the opportunity to do it again. I created small pyramids with a polyester material called mylar and painted them in various shades of green and blue. They were part of an exhibition at the Museum of Saint Francis in Italy called Anticipating Memory, which referenced my expedition to the High Arctic the previous year. Their three sides symbolized the past, the present, and the future.”
Since 2019, Crawford has showcased her pyramids in galleries and theaters around the world, including Paris, Malta, Sicily, and France. Installations are scheduled for the Ancient Greek Theater in Taormina, Sicily, and Red Rock Theater in Denver, Colorado, in the upcoming year.
“I always try to involve my students when I am researching a theme or idea or creating a work,” said Crawford. “As a professor of art and art history and 32 years of taking students on travel studies to Europe, I want them to see and experience art outside the classroom. When I travel to these sites, I often do workshops for school children in the community and tell them they are using materials that have been in exhibitions all over.”
As the longest-serving member of the Southern Virginia faculty, Crawford has taught art history, studio art, and multimedia design at the university since 1979. She was the recipient of the 2016 Michael and Kay Elton Lectureship for Outstanding Teaching and Scholarship, a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome in 2015, and was Cy Twombly’s assistant for the creation of The Ceiling in the Louvre Museum in Paris in 2009.
She has exhibited nationally and internationally in more than 50 solo, invitational, and juried shows and is co-author of “Rockbridge County Artists and Artisans,” a book that details the development of artisans’ work in Rockbridge County in the 18th and 19th centuries.
“I used to paint and sell work in galleries, but since 2018, I have shifted the purpose of my art,” Crawford continued. “I now give my art as gifts to schools, hospitals, and cultural institutions, hoping it will heal, teach, or inspire. My gift of a large, permanent installation to the University of Virginia’s ER building, completed during COVID, was a deeply inspiring project dedicated to the hospital staff and all they did during that time.”