| Barbara Beausoleil was born Barbara Ellen Baston on March
31, 1947 on Long Island, New York. Her father was in the Navy and the
family spent most of the 50s and early 60s moving from one Naval base to
another. This experience, although difficult at the time, gave Barbara an
adaptable nature, a love of exploring new territory, as well as a deep
appreciation of “home”. |
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Barbara’s first artistic influence was her mother Jane, a
talented artist and antique restorer. Barbara’s early artistic efforts
were appreciated and encouraged in school. Her interest in art solidified
when the family came to settle in Woodstock N.Y. after her father’s
retirement from the Navy (in 1964?). Woodstock was home to many artists,
writers and musicians and was a mecca to the beatnik and hippie
generations. After high school, Barbara attended Boston University where
she graduated from the School Of Fine Arts. Barbara’s interest in
mythology and Goddess spirituality began to take hold during this period.
After spending a year in California, and giving birth to her first
child, Eben in 1970, the family moved back to the east coast and settled
in Simsbury Connecticut. Her son John, was born in 1971 and her daughter
Rachel a year later. While her children were young, Barbara attended
classes at the University of Hartford where she continued her study of
painting and ceramics. It was during this period that she also began
studying Middle Eastern dance. |
| After a divorce in 1977, Barbara moved to Sacramento,
California where she became an apprentice carpenter on the restoration of
the State Capitol building. In September 1981, Barbara saw a brief news
interview on television one evening about a prison inmate who had designed
and built a musical synthesizer. Moved and inspired by the story, she
contacted the television station and obtained the inmate’s address. She
wrote him a letter of encouragement and recognition for the creative work
he was doing in such a restricted environment. Several weeks later, she
received a letter of response and thus began their correspondence.
Telephone calls and visits in prison soon followed.
In November, Barbara asked Bobby to marry her. “It was the only
way we could be alone together. At that time, in California, married
prisoners who had earned the privilege by remaining disciplinary-free were
allowed to have overnight visits at the prison with their spouses.” They
were married at California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo on December
18, 1981. |
Restoring Capitol rotunda railing
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Raks
Al Lat at Nepenthe, Big Sur |
Barbara continued to paint and study Middle Eastern dance in
San Luis Obispo. She also became involved with several local theater
groups and performed in HMS Pinafore at the Great American Melodrama as
well as Oklahoma! and Guys and Dolls at the Pismo Light Opera Theater. She
joined a local Middle Eatern dance troupe named Raks Al Beledi and later
was a member of Raks Al Lat, two troupes that danced and performed from
Santa Barbara to San Francisco in the early 1990s. She also began teaching
Middle Eastern dance.
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