Born in New Jersey, Barbara studied commercial art at Arizona State University and then Painting and Art History at the University of Colorado. Under the aegis of the Department of International Education at the University of Colorado, Barbara studied Italian language and culture in Siena, Italy, for two years and remained there to live and paint another year. Upon returning to the United States, she worked in New York City doing stained glass, etched glass, and wood sculpture with Belgian artist Benoit Gilsoul.

Since 1982, she has resided in New Jersey, where her artwork took the form of oil paintings, murals, faux finishes, magazine illustrations, and painted furniture. Her interest in American Folk Art and painted furniture led to opening a shop with her sister and father. Influenced by Folk artists and also Gaugin, Botero, Kahlo, and Klimt, her portraits have a primitive quality to them. She loves pattern, vibrant color, and surface decoration in her art. She paints several main themes - suns, magical realism, fruit still life, and portraits.

The fruit themed paintings evolved from a series of oil paintings for a restaurant. The paintings derived from American Folk Art still lifes, and as they sold, Barbara painted replacements. She incorporated her love of textile patterns, antique china and rugs into these rich compositions of fruits that seemed to increase in size with each painting. Gold leaf and other metallic leafs add a depth and dimension to the paintings. The leaf is antiqued and sometimes patterned with tinted glazes, letting the metal shine through.

Barbara has also introduced mosaics into her repertory; sometimes producing them as frames, furniture, walls, stair risers or floors. She also uses her own painted ceramic tiles also in creating these "paintings" of tile, glass, grout and objects. Some of her oil paintings have a frame specially designed to be part of the painting, with three dimensional gesso patterns, gold leaf and mosaic insets.