Born in Derby, Western Australia, Barbara is strongly influenced by her Fitzroy River or 'Channel Country' heritage. Many of her designs depict small creeks, rivers and waterways of the region and her ancestry, along with the animals and plant life reliant on these water systems for their survival. Perhaps Barbara's most unique work is executed on the large nuts of the boab tree, the only speices of the boabab found in Australia. Native to Western Australia's northern Kimberley coast and the Northern Territory, the boab nut is ideal for engraving and etching. Traditionally used as ritual rattles, large boab nuts are gathering popularity as a medium for artistic expression. Barbara fuses abstract geometric forms and wildlife in her designs, capitalising on the sensuous form and bulbous surface of each nut. She engraves her patterns and often paints them or nibs detail with ochres.