Hope Barton

   My roots are from Oklahoma.  My parents moved us from there in 1950 to Coral Gables, Florida where I grew up.  I met my husband at Florida Southern college as a Freshman and we have been married for 55 years.  We lived in Clermont, Florida for 38 years, St. Augustine for almost 12 years and are currently in the process of moving back to Clermont.

For 25 years, I worked as a printmaker creating multiple–plate and hand-colored etchings.  I showed in juried sidewalk art festivals such as:  Winter Park, Gasparilla, Festival of the Masters, Ann Arbor Street Art Festival, Beaux Arts, Mt. Dora and many others.  From 1997 through 2001, I owned a gallery in downtown Clermont, FL.  During that period of time, I started doing a lot of acrylic painting, teaching and demonstrating at Epcot, as well as at many art leagues.

Since moving to St. Augustine in 2005, I have been featured at Fogle Fine Arts in the “Riverkeepers Show”, several times featured artist at Mullet Beach Gallery (now High Tide Gallery) and have had 2 solo shows at Arts on Douglas, New Smyrna Beach. I have also shown at  Butterfield Garage Gallery, Acquisitions Gallery, Melrose Bay Gallery, Corse Gallery and Plum Gallery.   I was honored to participate in the Greenscape show at R.Roberts Gallery in Jacksonville.  I am included in the book,  Picturing Florida,  from the First Coast to the Space Coast.  My work hangs in the new Flagler Community Hospice building and at Flagler Hospital.  In 2015, I was commissioned to paint two 48 x 60 paintings for Baptist Hospital South to hang on the 8th floor of the new wing. I sold 3 paintings at Lakeview Health Center in Jacksonville and one was recently purchased by the new Medical Center near the airport in Jacksonville, FL.

In 2011, I concluded the etching process and donated my two presses, one to the Doris Art Center in Gainesville and one to the New Smyrna Art League.  Since then, I have hand-colored the remaining prints, destroyed etching plates and concentrated solely on acrylic painting.