Cindy Baron | Capturing the Sublime

Cindy Baron paints grand vistas, from Big Sur to Serbia

By Bonnie Gangelhoff

Cindy Baron, Transitions, oil, 15 x 15.

Cindy Baron, Transitions, oil, 15 x 15.

This story was featured in the February 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art February 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

Last October, the Laguna Beach Plein Air Painting Invitational celebrated its 20th anniversary. And landscape painter Cindy Baron celebrated her first Best of Show award at the prestigious annual event. Since 2015, Baron has won six other awards at Laguna Plein Air Painters Association events, adding to an array of honors from prestigious shows.

Baron painted her award-winning work, TRANSITIONS, a few days before the invitational’s gala. She recalls it was late in the afternoon and dusk was settling in when she set up her easel on a high cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The air was cool, and the sky displayed shades of pink, blue, lavender, and lemon yellow. The ocean below reflected the same rainbow of colors. A crescent moon hung over the scene. “What really appealed to me was that there was no horizon line,” Baron says. “The sky flowed into the sea, and the only thing that marked a meeting place was the lights from Catalina Island and Huntington Beach.”

Earlier in the day, Baron had painted two watercolors, but it was time for a change. “I whipped out the oils and had fun,” she says. “My watercolors demand a lot of focus as well as drawing before I paint. So, I couldn’t wait to break free. I was like a wild horse running—giddy and relaxed. I smiled and thanked Mother Nature for the show.”

TRANSITIONS illustrates Baron’s penchant for capturing both grand vistas and the subtle changes that unfold in nature. In depicting the sky, she moves from deep blues at the top of the piece to more yellows and reds towards the horizon and setting sun; she relishes spending the time it takes to faithfully convey changing values to viewers. In paintings such as TRANSITIONS, she slows down to marvel at the sublime scenery. And Baron is fond of describing painting on location as a spiritual experience. “It’s my church, where life is good,” she says. “I solve problems, paint, and a peace comes over me.”

These days Baron calls both North Kingstown, RI, and Monterey, CA, home, usually spending May through October on the East Coast and the winter months in the Golden State. In addition to living and working in two places, Baron works in two media—she is equally recognized for her talents in oils and in watercolors. She is a signature member of both the American Watercolor Society and Oil Painters of America. Switching back and forth between the two keeps her energized and creative. “Watercolor is one of the hardest mediums and one of the most underappreciated,” she says. “Oils give you a richness and changeability that allows a lot of leeway. When I work in watercolors, I spend a day doing studies and then a day drawing them all out before I even pick up a brush. After a few weeks in watercolors, I can’t wait to lay out the oils.”

Baron describes her watercolor process as starting out “very wild.” After her design is finished, she starts to “throw” paint onto wet paper to create an overall mood, she says. When that’s dry, Baron flicks more paint onto the surface, often repeating the routine a third time if she hasn’t achieved her desired result. After the work is dry and her drawing is still evident underneath the layers, she lifts out areas of paint where she wants to add detail, employing a wet brush and a cotton cloth in what she calls her “subtraction process.” Kleenex, spray bottles, round brushes, and salt (to provide texture by separating the paint when it’s wet) are also tools of her watercolor trade. “My watercolors are not quick,” she says. “I put in a lot of time to achieve what I want the viewer to see.”

For her oil paintings, she again covers the entire surface with rich color to begin. When she has applied enough color, Baron once again employs the “subtraction process,” wiping the paint away with a rag or with Q-Tips until she is satisfied by the design she has created. Then it’s back to adding more paint as she builds up layers of color to create detail and atmosphere, using a combination of brushes, cardboard, and palette knives to add texture.

Oils were not part of Baron’s body of work until 2006, when she stepped out of the proverbial comfort zone and signed up for a workshop with renowned landscape painter Scott Christensen. Until then, Baron worked mostly in watercolors and without much formal training. However, as a youngster growing up in South Bend, IN, in the 1960s, she loved to draw. In high school an art teacher recognized her talents, offering encouragement and a job assisting her in a children’s drawing class at a local art association.

Baron describes her family as creative, with interests in music and the arts, but of modest means. After high-school graduation in 1975, she accepted a position at a local tool-and-die company, learning about the business via on-the-job training. She stayed for 10 years, and during that time the company paid for her to study business at a local college. Baron also persisted with her art, drawing and painting in her spare time.

In 1983 she married and began raising a family. Her husband at the time was an assistant basketball coach at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend. After the couple’s first son was born in 1986, the family was on the move: Her husband’s career path led to Saint Francis University in Loretto, PA; St. Bonaventure University near Allegany, NY; and eventually to the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, RI.

Baron’s second son was born in 1990, and she continued participating in small-town art shows and festivals in the winter while also living the life of a busy “basketball mom,” attending her sons’ games and practices. In the summer Baron loaded the family’s trailer with her watercolors and headed to art events in Chicago and South Bend.

By 2006, however, she realized boredom and stagnation had set in to her watercolor life. Fresh inspiration was needed, and Baron decided that dipping into oil paints was the answer to her malaise. “I am the type of person who needs to be challenged,” she says. And so she signed up for a workshop with Christensen in Jackson, WY. It was her first time in the West, and she was awestruck by the majestic landscape and wildlife. Those two weeks in Wyoming “kick-started” her career, she says.

Baron returned home having transformed into a dedicated plein-air painter, with her creative eye cast on New England’s quaint small towns, farms, and lighthouses as well as on the wonders of the West such as the Grand Canyon, Big Sur, and the Rocky Mountains. She began entering plein-air competitions and eventually became a member of the Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters and LPAPA. Painting on location enhanced her studio work. “It’s what my brain needed,” she says. “As artists we need stimulation and new adventures to spice up the canvas or paper.”

Having been raised in northern Indiana, Baron developed an early appreciation for farmland and the families who carry on the farming tradition. There is a certain reverence in her voice when she talks about the subject. So it comes as no surprise that she has gravitated toward the landscape genre. Painting occasional still lifes and portraits are a respite—another way for her to stay creative—but her heart lies in the land.

As this story was going to press Baron was settling back into her East Coast life after returning from California. While she was in Monterey, devastating wildfires raged to the north of her home, and a sad, compelling beauty enveloped the city: The winds had carried the smoke south to Monterey, so sunsets were vibrant, but a smoky haze blanketed the atmosphere. Around this time a painting, eventually titled LINES OF HERITAGE [see page 51], took root in her imagination. “What attracted me to this scene was the contrast of the haze in the mountains with the freshness of the foreground growth,” she says. “There are so many facets of farming—fresh plow lines, new growth and life. What was beautiful about this scene was the way the hazy atmosphere created mystery and warmth in the day. The sad part was that the atmosphere came from the fires up north. And yet, life was going on; the farmers continued to grow food for people.”

This year promises to be another busy one, with Baron teaching workshops at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, GA, and in Italy. She’s part of a three-person show at Spring Bull Gallery & Studio in Newport, RI, in June and then, in the summer and fall, her works are on view in Wyoming and Southern California.

For Christmas this year Baron planned (at press time) to travel abroad. Her two basketball-playing young sons, Jimmy and Billy, are now grown and play on professional teams in Europe. This would be her 10th Christmas overseas—visits to her sons and their families have included journeys to Russia, Turkey, and Lithuania. This year the itinerary included Serbia and France. Baron packed presents for everyone and, of course, packed sketchbooks, watercolors, pencils, and paper for herself. “I love finding places that hardly anyone sees but me,” she says.

representation
Highlands Art Gallery, Lambertville, NJ; A. Banks Gallery, Bozeman, MT; Tilting at Windmills Gallery, Manchester Center, VT; Del Monte Fine Art, Carmel, CA; Maritime Gallery, Mystic Seaport, CT; Huse Skelly Studio Gallery, Newport Beach, CA.

This story was featured in the February 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art February 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

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