Jasmyne Barber wasn’t always into art. In fact, she only began cultivating her soon-to-be passion in the twilight of her senior year of high school.
Now, her work is winning over judges. Barber, a native of Montgomery, Maryland, took home the blue ribbon in the Orangeburg County Fair’s amateur art competition in early October. Her winning entry is an untitled painting depicting a landscape of bushes and trees.
“I never won first place for anything before,” said Barber, a studio art major.
Barber entered Claflin unsure of what she would study. After speaking to her pastor, Rev. Shane Wall of the Feast of the Lord Church in Orangeburg, she gave art a chance.
“I spoke to him and he said ‘God wanted me to use this’,” she said of Wall’s advice.
Barber said she had been working on this particular painting for some time. At the encouragement of Wall and Winston Kennedy, chair of the University’s Art Department, she submitted two entries into the fair competition.
“Jasmyne is a remarkably talented young artistic,” said Kennedy. “Her ability to visualize and create art far exceeds her years.”
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