Barbara Earl Thomas
Barbara Earl Thomas is a Seattle, Washington-based artist who has exhibited professionally since the early 1980s. Her far-ranging exhibits were viewed at the Seattle and Tacoma Art Museums, Washington, with solo national exhibits at the Meadows Museum in Shreveport, Louisiana, and in the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science in Indiana. Her work is included regional public collections and in such corporate collections as Microsoft and Safeco. She earned an M.A. degree from the School of Art, University of Washington in 1977.
As the daughter of Southerners who came to the Northwest in the 1940s, she is among the first generation in her family born outside of Texas and Louisiana. She credits her Southern heritage for her penchant for storytelling and humor. From her mother, Lula Mae, she inherited her love of reading. From her father, Grady, she learned that the truth is better than a lie because human beings are not smart enough to keep multiple story lines untangled. She is a reader and writer who has also published essays on a variety of topics and monographs on artists such as Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence, Joe Feddersen, Cappy Thompson, Allan Rohan Crite and Julie Speidel.
Thomas is noted for a social commitment to her community that is broad and inclusive. As an artist, she has a long and consistent practice of including the world in her art and her life in the world. Through her art administrative work in agencies such as the Seattle Arts Commission and Bumbershoot, Thomas has given time and energy in support of individual artists in all genres. In 2012, she stepped down from the directorship of the Northwest African American Museum where she was instrumental in creating the agency and the broad-based support that now, in its 70th year, sustains it.