Barrie D'Angelo

 From Barrie D'Angelo:
I began making crowns as a young teenager. After taking a wire-sculpture class that I enjoyed at an arts camp I didn’t like, I came home and started playing with any wire I could turn up around the house (this wasn’t too hard since my parents were running a jewelry manufacturing business from home). One day I came across a photo of a medieval crown in one of my parents’ jewelry books and I wanted it, so I thought, “Why don’t I just make one?” I went to my room, grabbed some wire and beads and made myself a simple crown. Then, consumed with a kind of craving for crowns, I made more and more and they grew more and more elaborate. One day I realized I was an artist and crowns were my format for expressing designs and ideas. I was born and raised by my artist parents in Port Townsend. I always had an “art drawer” growing up and was encouraged to take over the dining table when it wasn’t used for eating. After high school I went to St Olaf College in Northfield, MN thinking I would major in Spanish. When I discovered I was having way more fun in my drawing class than I was conjugating verb forms in Spanish, I decided to major in Art. My parents were thrilled, which was not the case for most of my Art Major friends. I graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art, with a focus on drawing and oil painting. Coming back to Western Washington after college I gravitated away from two-dimensional art and back to the making of crowns. My crowns have been given as awards to grant recipients on Bainbridge Island, and to visiting celebrities at the Port Townsend Film Festival. They were sold at Crackerjack Contemporary Crafts in Seattle and best of all, one was worn in place of a veil when I married Alex D’Angelo in June, 2008. I am delighted to be a part of this show with the talented artists of my family and I often wonder where these crowns will take me next.