COMING OF AGES

Meet The Artists

2/7/25 - 5/2/25

Kristin Bainger, an artist and designer based in Wilmington DE.

Art has been a part of my world my entire life. As a young adult freelancing for a variety of design and architectural firms. In the 80’s I opened an architectural design firm. Germaine Design, creating spaces, furniture, murals, and custom wallpapers. Fortunate to have many of my spaces published in a variety of magazines, and several of my wallpapers were distributed by Thibaut Wallpaper of France.

After a time my path diverted. While running a business and growing a community not-for-profit I discovered that as much as I loved design, I also had an affinity for the business of business. After some time stretching and developing my corporate muscles, I began a coaching and consulting business focusing on helping business leaders and not-for-profits develop sustainable practices. For a time, 20 years, my art became relegated to the back burner.

A few years ago I was able to pivot, again, to spending more time in the arts. I took a part-time job teaching art in a local elementary school and began casually taking on a few painting and design commissions. I have not walked away from business consulting (yet) but have been lucky enough to be able to do my art for myself and an ever-growing audience.

My specific style or subjects? I can’t say. The style depends entirely on the mood of the moment or specific commissions. My subjects are whatever captures my attention.

I am enjoying this journey and hope that everyone is fortunate enough to find art, in one form or another, that moves them, relaxes them, or inspires them. Follow Kristin on Instagram at @germainedesign_kristin

Joseph Barbaccia (American, born Philadelphia, PA, 1952) studied at Tyler School of Fine Art in Philadelphia. Barbaccia spent the following 8 years (1976- 84) traveling through the United States and South Pacific, concentrating on drawing and painting in a mostly representational style.

All his life, Joseph Barbaccia has been inspired by color and form. He was drawn to their motivating force even before his artistic inclinations and aspirations were clear to him. There were no artists among his extended family or their friends, but “at church on Sundays, I remember always wanting to sit in a pew the had a stained-glass window at the end in order to enjoy the colors close up,” as he studied the statues and the bas-reliefs on the walls.

Barbaccia was born in Philadelphia, but when he was a toddler, the family moved to rural New Jersey. He began drawing in earnest when he was six, at first to capture the attention of his second-grade teacher, whom he admired. But soon his family began to take notice. “Since then, except for six months in 1979 when I took a motorcycle trip [out west], I never stopped making images.” After taking classes at Philadelphia’s Tyler School of Fine Arts, Barbaccia traveled through the United States and the South Pacific, drawing and painting in a “mostly representational style.” In 1996 he settled in Potomac Falls, Virginia, where over the next two decades his experiments with encaustics, freestanding sculpture, and mixed media gained increasing attention and recognition.

The prolific artist has exhibited widely – over 35 group shows and 10 solo exhibitions – in galleries and major venues throughout the East Coast and the mid-Atlantic, including the Greater Reston Art Center, Delaware Contemporary, Rehoboth Art League, and Washington’s Corcoran Gallery. He’s been the subject of dozens of articles and reviews, both as an artist and as an illustrator with three published children’s picture books (and a fourth underway).

Barbaccia had always worked in a large studio, but in 2018 he and his wife (also an artist) moved to Georgetown, Delaware, where his workspace was smaller. Realizing “I would have to change my materials and methods to accommodate the new reality,” he landed on polymer clay as “the perfect choice.” The material – with its translucency and a full color spectrum – allows him to create in both two and three dimensions. It led Barbaccia in a new direction. “Approximately 90% of the artists creating with polymer clay create jewelry. I thought the time was right to expand its visual range.”

As well as inspiring Barbaccia, working with polymer clay has challenges. Using atypical art materials, “I sometimes come up against limiting parameters in applications to shows or competitions . . . [including] a list of accepted materials that doesn’t include polymer clay.” And the pandemic has led to a scarcity of his chosen material. But he continues to push against these and other constraints and revels in “showing and sharing my work.” Follow Joseph on Instagram at @josephbarbaccia