The Sisters

Barbara Eberhart
  Like many children I started learning to play the flute in the sixth grade. It wasn’t my first choice of instruments. I had picked up the saxophone that was kicking around the house, found the beginner’s book and started teaching myself to play. But my oldest sister was devastated when her band director told her that her embouchure was wrong for the flute. She came home and took away my saxophone and left me with the flute! Fifty years later, I can honestly say it’s been an amazing career and adventure. 

     The flute has taken me around the world and given me the opportunity to meet and work with so many wonderful people from students to professionals. Now with the pandemic, I have had to close my teaching studio and traveling has stopped. The silver lining is that I was thinking about retiring anyway and this gives me time to work on so many other things! Sophie and I were raised in a family of nine in rural Washington State and spent our early lives making things. There is great joy in creating and I’ve always loved the concept of making something out of nothing. 

Sophia Eberhart
  I am a self-taught, catch-as-catch-can type of artist, learning tips and tricks over the years, rather haphazardly. As I was growing up, I would snag my sister's Vogue and peruse other magazines that arrived through the mail, especially the National Geographic, drawing in pencil and pen & ink what caught my eye. My first 'formal' learning came when I was given "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" as a gift.

Now, I mostly work in acrylics with thick 'mediums' to add texture and lift. Collaging fabric, thread, paper and bits of what anyone else might call 'garbage' is especially satisfying. (I once collaged a large semi-abstract to evoke that first cup of steaming coffee using coffee beans and the empty bags. It was heavenly to work on because of the smell!)  

    Typically, I tend towards portraiture and 'scapes' (landscapes, seascapes), but I also like folktale-esque imagery. I can do photo-realism, but prefer to just start something and then see what it turns into.

    Over the years, I have matured enough to recognize that having to create art (because of an internal drive to do so) is in fact, not the bane of my existence. Art & I have become friends. Lol!