Barnett started drawing and making things in his father’s Germantown, Pennsylvania studio in the early 1950s. Isa Barnett was a Philadelphia illustrator studying under the tutelage of Thorton Oakley, a colleague of N.C. Wyeth. When he was 7 his family moved to the countryside, his parents had bought the summer home of Philadelphia inventor Atwalter Kent. It was a wonderful large farmhouse, with outbuildings including a barn which would become the “place of projects” under his father’s watchful eye. Soon Barnett became aware that the young life he was leading was different, he was surrounded by artists of all persuasions, makers of all kinds.

Barnett observed from this young age and it is not surprising he became an artist. He went on to attend the Philadelphia College of Art from 1965-1969, studying under instructors Olaf Skoogfors and William Daley.

After graduation and a short service in the army, he began his adult life as a maker. By 1980 Barnett was constructing weathervanes, collages, and his favorite, mobiles. The first mobiles were quite basic, using silhouetted folk elements from his time spent in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1981 he first received word that famed collector/designer Alexander Girard was acquiring his pieces for the Museum of International Folk Art here in Santa Fe. Thanks to Girard’s support and encouragement, Barnett has been making mobiles ever since.

Barnett has had several exhibitions at Patina Gallery, which he owns with his wife, Allison. Every 3 years he has an exhibition of pieces: wood constructions, found object collages, and always mobiles, which reflect his deepest love for making.

“I am proud of my latest few pieces. They are my reminder that now, even 60 years later, the love remains un-fettered for my true self.”

“Ivan and Isa” was painted in the 3rd floor of his father’s Germantown, Pennsylvania studio by esteemed Philadelphia painter Leon Karp. In the 40s and 50s, many fine Philadelphia artists worked at the famed advertising agency N.W. Ayer & Sons. “Holding my dad’s hand we would travel to the upper floors of the Ayer building. The doors would open and it was like magic! Art and commerce were living in every cubical. I am convinced that my love for design, specifically hand-made, came directly from the times spent at the agency.”

His first trip to New Mexico was at the age of five. It was a life changing experience for him. “My parents packed up their “woody” station wagon in the summer of ‘52 and headed west on 66, until they hit Albuquerque.” It was four decades later that he would make New Mexico his home.

Taos is home to the origins of the New Mexico art movement. In 1987 Ivan purchased eleven acres on the “Taos Gorge.” “The shapes of the clouds and the rock formations still seep into my love of the abstract.”