Barbara grew up in a 2 bedroom 1-bath cottage on the Fox River in Illinois. She began painting at 5 years old when her parents gave her an oil paint-by-number set. “I tried my best to stay ‘in the lines’, but something didn’t feel right”, she recounted.

     She saved the left-over oil paint and the next set she received became an experiment. “I just used the canvas board and did my own thing”. The oil painting is of a house on a hill with an oak tree, and now hangs in her vineyard studio in Sonoma California.

     Barbara had private painting lessons throughout grade and high school and took every available art class in high school. “Those were the days when students really had daily art classes and specialty art classes available to everyone.” She attended Chicago Academy of Fine Art.

     Barbara White Perry and her husband, Fred Perry has lived in California since 1975 and in Sonoma Valley since 1985. Their vineyard home designed and built by Barbara won the Award of Honor at the Sonoma League’s Preservation Awards in 1999.

     In 2001 Barbara was recruited to launch the Cottage and Garden Tours for the Sonoma League for Historic Preservation. This fundraising effort provided a major contribution by raising $128,000 for the Heritage Center at the Maysonnave House.

Barbara is well-know for her ink drawings, begun in 1998, documenting structures or vistas of Sonoma Valley. A series of her drawings, “Gone but Not Forgotten,” which was exhibited at The Heritage Center in Sonoma, depicts Valley structures or views lost to time or development.

     In 2004 she became involved with Sonoma Plein Air Foundation. This is an annual event bringing over 40 nationally known plein air artists from all over the country for a week of painting the landscapes of Sonoma Valley. Barbara became the Board President, and Chairperson of three consecutive events, 2005 through 2007. At the conclusion of the September 2007 event and after raising over $250,000 for art education in Sonoma Valley Schools, Barbara announced her retirement from volunteering to focus on her own art career.

     In June 2010 the Gallery at Hooker House hosted an exhibit of Barbara’s recent oil paintings of Sonoma Valley. In July 2010 Barbara joined other California artists at the Shirley Roberts Gallery at Jack London Village, Glen Ellen, California. Barbara’s believes that, “You don’t have to look far to be inspired. In Sonoma, every walk, every drive motivates me to draw or paint”.