Artist
- Barbara Strawser
P.O. Box 165
Schaefferstown, PA 17088
Strawserart.com
717-949-2374
Sample of Barbara's Work
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Sponsor
About the Artist
Ms. Strawser's interests include painting, gardening, cooking, and learning. Her painting is her profession. Ms. Strawser takes her work to shows all over the east coast. One show that she frequently visits is the Kutztown Folk Festival. She goes there every summer. Ms. Strawser also enjoys gardening and cooking. When she cooks and bakes , she likes to experiment with different recipes. She loves learning new things and trying them out.
Ms. Strawser's friends would describe her as a person who is very connected to the Earth, someone who loves everything on the Earth. She especially enjoys all of the seasons of the year and when they change from one to another. She also is known as someone who loves to garden, cook, and paint.
This talented woman loves to paint. She taught herself to paint at the age of 15 and has been painting ever since. Her paintings display what she calls “folk art style.†Most of her works consist of women in gardens, or performing chores and tasks that were common in times past. There are also some of her paintings that are inspired by things that she has witnessed personally.
For instance, she has a beautiful picture of a woman feeding birds which was a scene that she had come upon in Connecticut one winter. Ms. Strawser is very creative also in the way that she displays her work. She has paintings that are framed by windows, and even antique doors. Another talent of Ms. Strawser's is gardening. Her house and gardens are filled with plants and flowers of all kinds. She also enjoys growing vegetables and using them in her cooking.
Ms. Strawser has a few personal goals. She would like to be able to continue her work for her whole life. She has a illustrated one mini-book for a publishing company called Running Press. And she is also interested in illustrating more children's books and maybe even writing one of her own someday. The book would be about making kids more aware of the changing seasons and each one's beauty.
A major mission in Ms. Strawser's work is painting her world for others to see. She wants to make others aware of the great beauty that she sees in the world. She wants her paintings to make people happy, and she wants her work to stay fresh and new. She wants her work to be different and varied.
She wants to be remembered as someone who found something that she loved as a young teenager and taught herself. Her painting is her passion. She taught herself how to paint since she was 15 years old. She began selling her work at the age of 20 and has made a living out of something that she has always wanted to do. It’s something she loves.
Ms. Strawser got involved in this project through her daughter Melissa. Her daughter told Mrs. Stahl that her mother was an artist. There were also people who saw her work in the area and liked it. She believes that she will benefit from Bear Fever because it's good to put your work out there, wherever you can put it.
Ms. Strawser believes that Bear Fever is good because it is a fun thing for everybody to get involved in our area. There were similar things that were done in Harrisburg and Chicago, and now it is happening in our own community. Something like this breaks the routine of a community. She believes that spring is a good time to do this because spring is a good time to do something new. She also thinks that it is a fun thing to get kids excited about.
She hopes that this does provide a nice thing for the community to unite around. This should be something that the members of the community work together on to look at things differently.
An admirer of Mrs. Strawser's work heard that she was doing a bear for the Bear Fever project and wanted immediately to buy her bear. Boyertown's Bear Fever project, unlike many other public art projects of this kind, does not maintain ownership of the bears. In Boyertown's project, whoever sponsored the bear owns the bear...forever. Thus, since Herb Real Estate sponsored Mrs. Strawser's bear, it belongs to Herb Real Estate.
So, Bertoia Studios bought a Bear Fever bear so that Mrs. Strawser would have one to sell to her admiring fan! Bear Fever was excited to know that one of its artists is in such demand and that there are folks outside of our community excited about our project.
About the Sponsor
Mr. Herb has many interests in being involved in community functions and events. He is on many community boards such as the YMCA and Scouts.
His friends would describe him as a friendly and caring guy who is easy to work with. He is good at working with people and communicating with others.
The personal goal of Mr. Herb is to continue to build a strong company in the community, a company that is involved in the local community and enjoys participating in such events. He himself says that he hopes to be caring and compassionate and to be able to give something back to the community that has given so much to him.
His career mission is to build a strong business in the community, a business with integrity and honesty, a business with agents and staff who enjoy working and doing what they do, a business that works for and with the whole community.
Mr. Herb has some advice for any young people who intend to go into the business of real estate; this advice can pertain to any goal in life. You must be passionate and committed to what you are doing. And it is very important that you enjoy what you do.
Mr. Herb believes that he will benefit from Bear Fever because being involved in this organization demonstrates his commitment to the community. He believes that the involvement of all of the artists, sponsors, and the students creates a better sense of pride in the community through uniting around this project. Anna Manthey