Mary Ruth Barnes

Green Actor Rebel

Medium: Watercolor And Graphic Arts/ Mixed

Dimensions (In INs): 16 x 10

Country: United States of America

Out of stock

Artist Bio

Mary Ruth Barnes graduated with a Bachelor from North Carolina State with high honors and a Masters from Montana State. After college, Barnes taught high school and college English, Art, and Computer Science for 14 years. Barnes won numerous awards for her art at SEASAM, Artist of the Arbuckle, and Pontotoc State fair competitions from 2011-2020. She was also honored as a Chickasaw Artist in the July 2015 issue of Distinctly Oklahoma magazine. Her watercolors are on display at the Chickasaw Nation Medical Center, the new Artesian Hotel, the Davis, OK Welcome Center, and the Capital offices of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma City. She was selected as Chickasaw Dynamic Woman of the year for 2015. Her story about her inspiration to paint and draw was featured in a book by Allison Fields, Chickasaw Artisans. Barnes was selected in 2017 for the registry of Native American Artist located at the Heard Museum in Scottsdale, AZ. While traveling and vacationing in South Texas with her art, Barnes was interviewed and featured in the RV Wheel Life Magazine for 2017. In 2017 Barnes retired from a career as Director of Planned Giving for the American Cancer Society, where she raised over 35 million for cancer research. Her artwork “Fight of Hope” is currently featured in the Cancer Journal of Native American Research and additionally is on display in the surgery waiting room of the Chickasaw Nation Medical Center. In 2019 Barnes won the Women in the Arts Recognition award from the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She recently was inducted 2022 into the Chickasaw Nation Hall of Fame. Barnes recently published her book Little Bird with the Chickasaw Press about her great-great-Grandmother’s journey in Indian Territory. It is currently available on Chickasawpress.com and on Amazon.com.

Artist Statement