06 Sep Artist Spotlights: Bridger Barksdale

Bridger Barksdale has always seemed destined to become an artist. After all, his late grandfather, Ralph Barksdale, who passed in 2021 at the age of 88, was a graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles who went on to be a widely admired artist, illustrator, teacher, and highly influential professor at Brigham Young University. Many artists working today credit him for guiding them to success.

Yet, Barksdale at first followed a different artistic discipline. “I fell in love with dance in my early teens, and that swept me away,” he says. “My main school was CityDance Conservatory at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland, where I moved when I was 16. I was in class 11 hours some days and got a day off maybe once a month. When I was 20, I was just about to enter a company when I got injured. So, I came home at Christmas in 2016.”

As a present that holiday season, Grandpa Ralph gave Bridger a few paintings inscribed to his grandson. “And he said to me, ‘Why don’t you stick around and learn to paint watercolor?’ So, I did. I stayed with my aunt in the desert in Congress, Arizona, and seven days a week for an entire year I would wake up and ride my bike to Grandpa’s house and begin painting. I knew that I had an opportunity to learn from somebody who had dedicated their life to understanding form and visual movement, a unique master who had so many diverse skills. I completely threw myself into it, because I knew that I was not going to get a chance like this again.”

Up Close and Personal | Oil on Canvas | 20 x 16 inches | 2024

Under his grandfather’s tutelage, Barksdale’s native-born talents as a painter quickly emerged and matured. “He was the hardest worker himself, and I wanted to show him what I’d taken from that lesson,” he says. By the end of that year, a painting he entered in an Ogden plein air show had won first place, with a prize of $600. “And I thought, oh, I could make a living at this, too.” Galleries began showing him, and he also shared his knowledge in painting workshops with students of all ages and skill levels.

A Time to Talk | Oil on Canvas | 16 x 20 inches | 2023

Yet, refreshingly, Barksdale still considers himself a student, always ready to explore and learn. “I think I’m a wannabe Impressionist, but I hope to stay quote-unquote formative for as long as possible. The minute I start sinking into a way of doing things, I just want to run away from it as far as I can and do something different.” In that spirit of discovery, he recently was accepted on scholarship to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, and he and his fiancée Chelsea, a jeweler, moved to Providence in late August. “We’re starting with foundational studies. I’ll be up to my elbows in charcoal, and that just sounds like the life to me!”

Barksdale’s work is represented by Relics Framemakers & Gallery in Holladay, Utah, and Ferleman Gallery in Cumberland, Maryland. Visit his work online at bridgerbarksdale.myportfolio.com.

Based in San Rafael, California, Norman Kolpas is the author of more than 40 books and hundreds of articles. He also teaches nonfiction writing in The Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension.