On my 66th birthday in 2015, I found myself walking for 500 miles on the “Camino de Santiago.” Every day I walked 5-7 hours through Nature at less than 3 miles per hour and walking this slowly, I encountered Beauty and it began to heal me from within. 

While walking the Camino, I had a strange experience which changed my life. Somewhere around mile 400 I was walking across a bridge with an empty mind, and a thought flashed through it: “I have to put color on paper.” I wrote it down because if felt so imperative and odd. I had no idea what it meant.

Returning to the United States I met my family where we vacation near Creede, Colorado. We have a friend there named Stephen Quiller who is a world-renowned water media painter. I was sitting in his gallery telling his wife, Marta, about my experience and explaining to her that I had no idea what it meant. She looked at me quizzically and said, “Bart, you are sitting in an art gallery! And my husband has made a living by putting color on paper!… In fact, we sell color and paper and brushes.” I was stunned but left with color, paper, and brushes.

Since I had no idea where to begin I asked my daughter and granddaughters to come to my house and show me how to get started. They were amazed that I didn’t even know what were the primary colors. When I first mixed two primaries and saw it turn into a third color… it was like magic!

        I started painting then and simply haven’t been able to put the brush down since.

To my great surprise I have been juried into two Art Associations and has won several awards for my art in my home town of Santa Barbara, California. I was also a resident artist at “The Fineline Gallery” in Santa Barbara in 2023.

I am a landscape artist primarily, though I also do still lifes and abstracts. I paint in the four primary forms of Water Media: Acrylic, Watercolor, Gouache, and Casein. I have been inspired and mentored by friend and Colorado Artist, Stephan Quiller, and by Santa Barbara Artist and teacher Tony Askew. 

My Art Journey