By TOM KELLY
Editor and Publisher

Ronnie Barnes' second grade teacher at Choudrant Elementary School in Lincoln Parish was the first to notice and encourage his artistic talent. He sold his first original picture in the ninth grade. And working summers during high school alongs ide his father at Olin Mathieson paper mill printing plant in West Monroe convinced him he never wanted a career in a large manufacturing organization.

And so now, at age 50 and a lifetime of studying nature, creating images, and enduring the classic finan cial ups and downs of the aspiring full-time artist, the West Monroe man has made a national name for himself - a prophet not without honor except in his own country, so to speak - and may be poised to capitalize regionally on what is an extraordinary tal ent for nature and wildlife scenes.

His recent recognition comes from a source where he has already earned a reputation - the annual "Arts for the Parks" national competition at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, sponsored by the National Park Academy for the Arts.

Arts for the Parks is an annual competition and exhibition which accepts 100 original works from across America, depicting scenes from any of the National Park Service parks.

In the 2001 national competition, Barnes placed first in Region 1, which includes a ll of the U.S. east of the Mississippi River, plus Louisiana and Arkansas. He had two paintings selected for the top 200, and one in the final top 100 - out of approximately 3,000 original entries from across the country. At the 2001 Jackson Hole show, hi s entry won the People's Choice award, picked by visitors to the annual Arts for the Parks banquet and exhibition. \par Barnes began painting for the competition in 1992, after one of his students encouraged him to enter while visiting a traveling Arts for the Parks exhibit at the Norton Gallery in Shreveport. One of his entries made the top 100 in that year.

"I thought, Wow!, someone likes my work," Barnes said in a recent interview. Since then, he has entered, placed, and sold original works regularly to galleries and private collectors across the country.

Barnes has sold a few works in the local area, but has had most commercial success through contacts made in the Far West with the Arts for the Parks program. "Who is going to pay $3,000 to $5,000 for a paintin g by a guy who lives in a trailer in West Monroe?" Barnes said ruefully. Well, from the looks of the works hanging in his trailer/studio on West Arkansas Road, that may change when word gets out about the nature and wildlife scenes he has available. He no w has works in the private collections of businesses and families in Dallas, New York, and elsewhere, and in galleries in Jackson Hole, and Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Ronnie Barnes was born in Sibley community in rural Lincoln Parish, son of J.E. an d Betty Barnes. His father spent a career as a paper mill worker at Olin Mathieson in West Monroe, and has since retired. Ronnie worked in the Olin printing plant on the same shift as his dad as a youth, and came to the conclusion that it was not a life h e wanted. His mother is retired from a career at the Back of Choudrant.

Ronnie is the second of four children, with one older brother, and one younger sister and brother. All live in North Louisiana, and he is the only artist in the family.

"I always loved the woods and the outdoors," he said. "I would always see more than most people - snails, cocoons, butterflies, wildflowers, the shapes of trees. I never found a use for this until much later," even though he began as early as the second grade creating im ages which his teacher, Mrs. O'Neal recognized as coming from a native talent.

By the ninth grade, he made pictures of sailing ships, three or four of which were purchased, Ronnie said.

After high school graduation in 1969, he began working shifts and summers at Olin Mathieson, for money to attend college. At Louisiana Tech, he took courses in architecture that taught him things about perspective and lines.

"But I couldn't handle the math," he said, and dropped out. His work at the Olin printing plant expose d him to other aspects of art and color, but the corporate life and shift work had no appeal. Ronnie then worked for seven years at Campbell Arts in West Monroe, an art supply and framing firm. Through that work, he was exposed to more art, by degrees sha rpening his eye and his understanding of various art media and techniques.

Finally going out on his own, he opened a business, Barnes' Taxidermy, an experience which gave him a thorough understanding of the anatomy, coloring, and physique of a variety of animal wildlife.

Sometime around 1979 or 1980, he was approached by three ladies from Downsville in Union Parish, asking him to teach an art class for them. He protested that he was not a teacher, having never been taught himself.

"Well," they said, "just sh ow us how you paint." That he agreed he could do, and began a career which has continued, bringing the income to pay the bills for living, and affording him the opportunity to broaden his own art horizons. As art classes expanded, he dropped the taxidermy business, and at one time had 13 three-hour classes per week.

"That was too much," Barnes said. "I came to a stop sign on the road near Sibley, and had to ask myself, Where am I going?" He reduced the teaching load to five classes now, including two in Rus ton, two in West Monroe, and one in Jonesboro, with students at various levels of skill and interest.

While he would like to spend less time teaching and more on his now fully-developed nature and outdoor art, he says the teaching provides both steady income, and discipline to keep his own techniques growing. \par "When you are teaching, showing others how to help themselves, you learn yourself," says Barnes.

An event touched Barnes' life in 1999 that has altered his outlook and his art. While travel ling to the annual Arts for the Parks event at Jackson Hole, he awakened one morning unable to walk and move normally. He realized that he had had a stroke. He was able to crawl to the door, and get help top notify his family.

He was flown from the small town where he had stopped to a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. His mother and brother drove from Louisiana, took him from the hospital, drove him to Jackson Hole, where he attended the Arts banquet in a wheel chair. \par He appears fully recovered from the stroke, and exercises every morning with a long walk in the woods near his home. He continues to enjoy the outdoors.

Has the stroke affected his art ability? There is no physical impairment obvious to the eye.

"It has improved," Barnes said. "But I'm on the inside looking out, and I know something is not right. It may be that I'm concentrating more, to compensate," but the art has improved, he says. "I'm there."

"There," being where he has been heading since at least the second grade.

Barnes' subject matter i s heavily tilted toward the Far West, where he visits each year to look, photograph, and absorb the atmosphere. His studio shelves are lined with photo albums from which he takes scenes from the forests, mountains, and streams of the west, with animals in c luding buffalo, elk, bear, and birds. He also has scenes of Louisiana forests, swamps, and wildlife - one of which was featured earlier this year on the cover of a regional magazine, and which has been rendered on a limited-edition print which is availabl e for sale.

Barnes can be reached at his home/studio at 2809 Arkansas Road, Lot 48, West Monroe, LA 71291, and by telephone at 318-397-2317.

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