From Isolation to Inspiration: Barbara McCulloch's Path to Finding her Creative Voice in New Mexico

In this episode of the "I Love New Mexico" podcast, Bunny engages with Barbara McCullough, an artist with a background in technical illustration, pottery, and painting. Barbara shares her journey from working for NASA to embracing pottery and eventually painting. She discusses her struggles with depression and alcohol, her path to sobriety, and how these experiences shaped her art. Barbara also talks about her move to New Mexico and her upcoming participation in the Fall Paint Out event on Canyon Road. The episode highlights the transformative power of art and the vibrant artistic community in New Mexico.

Links:
Email: barbaramcc46@gmail.com

Website: www.BarbaraMcCulloch.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.unstoppable.artist/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/barbara.mcculloch.395669/

Facebook group (free): https://www.facebook.com/groups/902308597144960

The Unstoppable Artist workbook:  https://www.amazon.com/Unstoppable-Artist-Discovering-Inside-Yourself/dp/1665723076
Art Is Gallery Website: https://artisgallerysantafe.com/

Bunny Terry's website

Bunny Terry Instagram

Bunny Terry Facebook

Original Music by: Kene Terry

Transcript

Bunny 00:00:01  Welcome to the I Love New Mexico podcast. those of you who are followers know that what we talk about here is anything and everything that has to do with New Mexico. If you've never listened to the podcast before, welcome and thank you for being a part of this. This is a really special place where, we don't really have any boundaries about the the things that we discuss, the subjects that we cover. What I'm most interested in is telling stories and hearing stories from people who have made a really a big difference in both their own lives and in New Mexico in general. And so I'm really excited to introduce you to my friend Barbara McCullough. Barbara is an artist who started out elsewhere and who has this fascinating, fascinating history of being a technical artists before a technical draw. Illustrator. And so. I want you to stick around because you're going to be interested in hearing Barbara's personal story and her New Mexico story. So, Barbara, thank you for coming back. We did this once before for a different podcast, didn't we?

Barbara 00:01:19  We did. We were talking about gratitude. And I have so much gratitude and grateful for this opportunity to talk about New Mexico and how it's helped fuel and propel my journey as an artist.

Bunny 00:01:34  You go ahead. I'm sorry. You go ahead.

Barbara 00:01:37  I'm talking about technical illustration right out of high school, I did not have the opportunity to go to college, but what I did was I. I answered an ad for a line artist, and I had always liked to draw, and it turned into a job in Phoenix in technical illustration, which I did for 15 years. And I kept. I had my own little Jeep, and I love the outdoors, and I'm always been hiker and just kind of nothing could stop me. And I was always coming over to New Mexico, and I'd slide over to Silver City when it was just nothing, but but, you know, Mountain Sheep and I just loved New Mexico. I love Santa Fe. And after about 15 years doing boring, excuse me, technical illustration.

Bunny 00:02:29  Hang on. I want folks to know who you were doing those technical illustrations for, because it's kind of a big deal.

Barbara 00:02:35  Sure, I had a secret clearance and I was doing work for NASA, so. And the government. Yeah, it was cool. It was cool. I was very well paid for someone for a woman in those days. That was a long time ago because I'm 78 years old as of last week. So this was from 65 to 1980. So it was a long, long time. And when women really didn't have the opportunity to have good jobs and this was a good job, and I saved every penny I could, could to get back up to my home state of Montana, where I was certain I could have a horse. I mean, that was it. I wanted a horse, and I wanted the freedom to get dirty because technical illustration was just precise. It was clean. It kept me in a tight little box, working hard and making money. And I needed some freedom and some beauty in my life.

Barbara 00:03:44  And I moved to Montana. I took my I took my pennies and moved to the highest mountain I could, got the horse, opened a pottery because that was a skill that I had developed on the side. And I was able to find that I could sell my pots in galleries and in the gift stores up at Glacier Park.

Bunny 00:04:08  And I love this part of your story because you, we all and I've had these conversations before with people who are artists at heart, but they do these jobs that, aren't really I mean, a lot of us do jobs for years that don't feed our souls, but you, like my friend Mary Maribel, who did the same thing. She was in a C-suite in the corporate world, and she was like, I'm just going to save my money until the moment when I can do nothing but art all day long. It sounds like that's how it worked for you.

Barbara 00:04:47  It was. And I thought it was heaven. I was a mountain woman. I live by myself on top of a mountain.

Barbara 00:04:55  Would heat in my house and down in the pottery for horses. A well, it was I mean, it was glorious. It was also, it was also hard. It was hard work. And I saw people paint and they were more creative. And I was wearing mud all day long and all night because I'd set my my alarm for 2:00 in the morning so that I could get down to the pottery and adjust the burners on the on the big kill that I had made. And I saw artists with studio galleries in the little tourist town off the mountain. And I thought, and this was ten years that I was a potter. And I said, I could do that because I can draw. And I had taught myself through a book of how to do watercolor, you know, putting little tints of, of color on top of my drawings of Wildlife. Those. Those little drawings framed. I took them to the galleries that sold my pots, and they sold them. And I thought, okay, I had unfortunately, no children.

Barbara 00:06:13  I had no husband to worry about. It was me. And I found homes for my horses. So the risk was minimal. The the risk, the reward was just too huge to say no to. So I found a buyer for my pottery, my horses, my land. And I moved off the mountain and opened this tiny little room down in a tourist town and hung up a sign, you know, Barbara Watercolor Studio Gallery. And it took I was there for seven years. And this is where this was 1990. This was when I became a painter and my my work was exciting to me for quite a while. I would be outdoors, I'd hike all through Glacier. I would teach people how to how to do watercolor. I was like Mamma duck in Glacier Park, and they'd advertise me and I'd have little watercolor students following behind me, and we would just hike all over the park and, and paint. And it was through Glacier Field Services, and that was nice. And as my business with the gallery grew, my ability to develop as an artist shrunk because everyone wanted the same thing, the same look, the same thing, and often the same, same view.

Barbara 00:07:50  They wanted that spot where they had picnicked that they loved, and so they'd commissioned me to do it and to, you know, do their red barns in the snow. And that was fine. Again, I was making money, but I was shrinking up so much inside. I was getting depressed, terribly depressed, because I saw no way out for me, of the people that I saw around me had the college degrees. They were getting national recognition. They were doing this and going there, you know, and and I'm sitting there paying the bills, working hours and hours and paying the bills and, and not growing. And I saw someone with another gallery with a box of wine on the back counter. And I thought, oh, that's a great idea. And it turned out not to be a great idea because I've got the genetics of enthusiasm. And if I'm doing art, I'm enthusiastic. If I'm drinking, I'm enthusiastic. Well, the two did not work together, and drinking for me caused me to be more depressed.

Barbara 00:09:08  It wasn't a solution, it was a problem. And so after a few years, I needed to quit completely. And I did, with some help. And I have to say, yesterday in New Mexico I celebrated 23 years of not drinking and it was so great. I was out under the blue sky in northern New Mexico, walking around Georgia O'Keeffe's stomping grounds and just leaving my little prayer prayer rock at the old Adobe church up there. And, you know, Barber.

Bunny 00:09:44  That that that really that warms my soul. I love that story. That is so amazing because we talked about that before, and we talked about how you had to sort of Learn again how to be grateful after that really significant struggle in your life.

Barbara 00:10:05  Right? Because what I had to do, I had to learn other artists could could stay in the groove and achieve national recognition because they would keep improving their skills in a narrow lane. I'm not built that way. I'm built. I'm curious. And so it took me that break down, that break in my pattern to really understand who this person was.

Barbara 00:10:36  And this person is a curious person. And what it meant was, I am driven to experiment and try this kind of art and that kind of art and this media and just push, push my path wide instead of narrow. It has meant professionally, I did not achieve that. You know that rocket to stardom if you want for an artist to get national recognition. But what it did was it fed my soul. And I developed, a very wide repertoire. I can I can pull things out of my experience drawers when I need them, and that helps me as an artist. It's also helps me as an instructor or just simply talking to artists because they start realizing that I've got a background with whatever they're looking for, almost, you know, and.

Bunny 00:11:45  You, you can you do you have this wide body of work, but it's not just, you know, sometimes people will say, well, that's really wide but not very deep. Yours is wide and it is very deep because you're you I don't, I don't I mean, this sounds cheesy to somebody who's listening perhaps, but you really have your heart and soul in every piece that you create.

Bunny 00:12:10  It seems to me. I mean, I'm looking at the one that I own that is on the wall right here in my in this room where I do. It's not in the room where I do the recording. It's out in the hall, but it's of the church at the school and arenas, I believe. And I see you create these images that are very, look very iconically northern New Mexico. And then I'm looking at you in your studio and you do these beautiful, contemporary looking abstracts. That's, I just you.

Barbara 00:12:43  Right. I have you a wide range. I don't know.

Bunny 00:12:46  I, I don't know.

Barbara 00:12:47  just a wide body.

Bunny 00:12:48  It feels like you're a national star to me, but, I'm I really I love your work. So, tell folks how you ended up in New Mexico. And then I want to talk for a minute about your book.

Barbara 00:13:02  Okay. When? So I started painting in Montana. I got sober, and that led to me having a breakup in a relationship and the wisdom to leave Montana.

Barbara 00:13:17  And so I moved to Colorado. I moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, a nice little home town with a lot of trees and a river going through it. And although I had no interest in a relationship, I met a guy and the guy that I met 20 years ago. We got married and he was a philosophy professor there at CSU. The side benefit was he had a job, which is, I mean, for an artist, you know, we're always counting pennies or juggling or figuring out how many shows we can pack in. You know how we can do this thing? Especially as a self-employed artist. Well, here. Here I married a man who. He has a job and he's supportive. And I love him to pieces. And that's that, of course, as you know, is is what's critical. But when he every, every school break, we would pack up and go hiking someplace all through Colorado, we'd come down to New Mexico, we'd come down to Santa Fe so that I could immerse myself in art, and we would rent a little casita there downtown for a week.

Barbara 00:14:42  And I would go around the galleries, and then we would hike, and I do my do my field studies over and over again. And, and in 2018, I inadvertently, in the spring break, talked to a man who had a gallery on Canyon Road and mentioned to him that I was a painter, and he was curious. And he said, well, I'd love to see your work. And I said, well, I've got three paintings in the car, you know, and, and he said, bring them in. One thing led to the other. And in 2018, I had my first show, solo show on Canyon Road. yeah. Thanks. Brad Smith, the gallery just on the north side of El Faro. And so I'm very grateful to Brad for that. We were Michael and I were sitting on the porch towards the end of my show, and he said, well, I retire next year. Let's do it. Let's just move here. And I said, yeah, you can't leave your kids.

Barbara 00:15:49  You know, it was like too big. It was too magical. I just, you know, it was too hard to imagine a dream like that coming true. I thought, well, I'll just go back to my day to day routine there and in Colorado, which was fine. You know, it was wonderful. It just wasn't Santa Fe, it wasn't New Mexico. And, so I started you're a realtor. I started looking through Zillow every back home for months, and I'd keep pulling up homes in our price range and just teasing him, saying, oh, here's our home and here's our home and here's our home. You know, every time I found something charming and I pulled this one up and, and said, oh, here it is. Hey, you know, I kind of like this one. It's got trees out front and it looks meets all the criteria. And he said, well, why don't you call the realtor? And I thought he said, why don't you buy the house?

Bunny 00:16:52  Oh, of course you did.

Bunny 00:16:56  and that's what you wanted to hear.

Barbara 00:16:58  That's right. And so I did. I called the realtor, she asked if I wanted to make an offer because three people already had. And I said, well, yes, I'll offer exactly what they're asking for, but we'll take it as is. And she said, okay, well, I'll give you a call back. And she called back and said, we've had five people and they picked you and I. She said, but I need money in two days. And this was November. So I jump in the car and my hands are on the steering wheel. It's sleeting, of course, in Colorado on the freeway, and I didn't take my hands off the steering wheel except for one bathroom stop to get down there and give her that earnest money in hand. But I got to the house 15 minutes before she did, walked around it and said, oh, this is great. It's got a nice Western view and da da da. And, you know, it's it's quite natural, which I loved.

Barbara 00:18:02  And quiet. And she came and she opens the door and she said, well, it's all been refurbished and this and that. And she said, let's walk through. And I said, please, can we see the garage? And she laughed and she said, you must be an artist. And because there were no windows and I couldn't see my future studio online, and I walked in and it has three skylights. It was wired for LEDs, it was insulated and a laundry room sink. I mean, it was like manna from heaven. It was. It was my studio.

Bunny 00:18:48  It was your house with your studio. I love that.

Barbara 00:18:51  Right? And I said, please take my money. You know this. I'm buying this. And? And the rest is history. You know, I cleaned it up, but. But New Mexico is the the state that I need to be. It's perfect in my retirement years. It's not my retirement years. Michael's retirement years.

Bunny 00:19:17  You're still working?

Barbara 00:19:18  I am still working.

Barbara 00:19:20  I'm so excited about the work that I do. And, I'm talking a lot shorter.

Bunny 00:19:27  I that's because you have such an amazing story. But tell you wrote a book and and the amazing thing, I can't think of her first name now, but you got a blurb from or a foreword from. I'm sorry. Her last name is Cameron that wrote The Artist's Way.

Barbara 00:19:44  Yeah. Julia Cameron wrote of put me in another book that she wrote called Finding Wisdom, and she wrote, she used my story to open up her first chapter in that book.

Bunny 00:20:01  It's so amazing. When we did this podcast before, when we spoke before and we talked more about the gratitude piece and more about your the struggles that you had had and how you had gotten to this place of immense gratitude in your life. But you said, and and that's what inspired me to call you to do this, is that from my notes that we that I took during that podcast, you said that you felt like you needed to always live in with an attitude of learning.

Bunny 00:20:32  I mean, you talked about curiosity before in this podcast, but you have this really curious spirit spirit that's open to learning. And I'm sure that's what she saw. I'm sure that's why she included you, Julia Cameron. Yeah.

Barbara 00:20:48  And she has a sense of humor.

Bunny 00:20:50  You know, that's. Well, I don't think that's why she included you, but none.

Barbara 00:20:57  At the Red enchilada. And she taped me and used to use that for her story. But I'm sure I know I had her laughing, but it was it was heartfelt. And when you've passed a little bit of time from difficult experiences, it's easier to look back at them in a fuller framework and see if it hadn't been for that. This could not have happened.

Bunny 00:21:26  I feel that way too. Yes, yes.

Barbara 00:21:28  And and gratitude is that it's that connection with the magic. Whatever we believe spiritually, it's that magic that that we tap into that, that source that says just be.

Bunny 00:21:48  Be.

Barbara 00:21:49  Available. You know, just be available and I'm of love.

Barbara 00:21:53  I'm so available. And when the, when the pandemic came, I couldn't teach because I couldn't teach. So I thought, well, what am I going to do? I guess I can just stay in my studio and paint and order groceries in, and in a few months this will all be over. Which of course it wasn't. And that that winter I started thinking, well, I'm going to make some notes about being a teacher, about those things that I talked to my students about, and some notes about developing their insides first so that it speeds up your whole process. Because I learned from experience, I didn't tap into who I was. I tapped into what I could do and worked very hard on it. But I didn't know me. And until I knew who I was, I couldn't really put it together. And so the beginning of this book that I wrote, the first part of it, it's little matrixes, nothing psychological, because I don't carry those degrees, but just the wisdom of helping people discover who they are as a person who might become an artist, whether they already are or not, so that they can speed up that journey so they don't have to take so many years like I did, or go down, you know, chasing the chasing the dollars and, and think you're doing the right thing.

Barbara 00:23:37  But by grinding out that job.

Bunny 00:23:42  So then what's the name of your book, Barbara?

Barbara 00:23:45  The name of my book. And here's, of course, here's a book. The Unstoppable Artist. And it's it's not about me being an unstoppable artist. It's about helping people become unstoppable by discovering the artist inside themselves and these.

Bunny 00:24:05  Little.

Barbara 00:24:06  Things on the cover. I won three awards for it as a writer. And Bunny, that that that just felt so bizarre because again, I did not go to college there. There's things that I would have could have done maybe if I'd gone to college. And, you know, I don't know, but I loved writing and so I put, put together the best book I could. And this the main part of the book is less sense. It's 55 projects guiding someone, no matter whether they want to jump into acrylic or oil or life drawing or field studies. There's sections there for that particular topic. Taking it as if that person had never experienced it before, so that somebody can just open the book and say, hey, I want to learn about field studies.

Barbara 00:25:06  And there's, you know, everything I could put in it.

Bunny 00:25:11  It's very tactical, right? It's not it's not ethereal. It's not a bunch of theories. It is Barbara saying, if this is the thing you want to do, here are the steps to try it. Right.

Barbara 00:25:22  Exactly.

Bunny 00:25:23  That's so cool. Yeah, yeah, that is so a lot of bad things happen during the pandemic. But out of it came you and I publishing these books. So I it's it's crazy to me. Well so Barbara I want folks to know that in the show notes we have links to your website, your Instagram account and to where they can find your book. Where are you showing your work these days?

Barbara 00:25:57  I'm showing my work. I'm represented by a gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, which is I mean, I couldn't ask for I couldn't ask for a better location. And the gallery that represents me is called the name of the gallery is Art is meaning art just is, art is gallery. And their address is 419 Canyon Road.

Barbara 00:26:23  But the reason they are such a perfect fit. Mika and William Rosen are Belgium and sweet, kind, curious, accepting people. And they allow me the freedom to follow whatever muse is calling me, you know? And if it if it doesn't work in the gallery, it doesn't work in the gallery. But they so many galleries are looking to create a business and put their artists in categories and keep those artists in categories. And so I, I lucked out and ended up in the gallery that says, oh well, just follow your heart, follow your creativity. And it's been so.

Bunny 00:27:25  Perfect for you. And it's also perfect for the for the, the consumer. Because my taste in art is different than your taste in art is different. I mean, I can't imagine wanting to put artists into a box. So congratulations for being there. Yeah. And what's next for you?

Barbara 00:27:45  Well, what's what's next for me? Very specifically is next Saturday the 19th. Canyon road does events and they have an.

Barbara 00:27:58  Twice a year they do the annual their paint outs, a spring paint out and a fall paint out. And I'm advertised and will be participating in the fall paint out as an oil portrait painter. So I'm pulling that from another draw. And I have one willing subject and I'm always open for another one. Bonnie, to sit for me for an hour while I create and demonstrate how to do oil portraits.

Bunny 00:28:31  I would love to do that. How fun would that be? Yeah.

Barbara 00:28:35  So Saturday the 19th, from 4 to 6 I will be available.

Bunny 00:28:41  And you're at Art is you're at the gallery okay for night.

Barbara 00:28:47  And we will I will be indoors for this project a lot of times I'm out on the sidewalk like a lot of artists are. But this time she has, Native Americans from the pueblo bringing in food. And so I'm going to be indoors.

Bunny 00:29:07  Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. Well, we'll put up a link to that event as well. And Barbara, this is hard for me because you and I we love to visit and we could do this for an hour, but we do have to stop.

Bunny 00:29:22  So, but I, I can't wait to see you on Saturday on Canyon Road at the Art is Gallery. And I want folks to find you. So. So everybody take a look at the show notes, and please take a look at Barbara's work because you're going to love it. Thank you for being on the podcast, Barbara.

Barbara 00:29:45  Thank you for inviting me. Bonnie. I just love anything we can do together.

Bunny 00:29:50  I agree, I agree. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to the I Love New Mexico podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share it with your friends on social media, or by texting or messaging or emailing them a copy of the podcast. If you have a New Mexico story that you'd like to share with us, don't hesitate to reach out. Our email address is I Love New Mexico blog at gmail.com and we are always, always looking for interesting stories about New Mexico. Subscribe, share and write a review so that we can continue to bring you these stories about the Land of Enchantment.