Paper, brushes and watercolors define memories

By Amy Welch

Managing Editor, Florida State Times

Professional artist Barbara Mulligan was five years old in 1940 when she first saw the old FSU library, now Dodd Hall, and the Westcott building.

Mulligan's mother was carrying her Florida State College for Women yearbook and was reminiscing about the days she spent on campus. Mulligan was just learning to draw and remembers thinking, "Someday I'll be able to paint the Westcott towers."

This year, Mulligan, a devoted FSU supporter, is fulfilling her childhood aspiration. She is painting Dodd Hall and the Westcott building in memory of her mother, and to influence her grandchildren to become FSU graduates, too.

Although Mulligan didn't major in art ­ she thought she couldn't make a living at it ­ she painted in her free time during her 30-year career as a teacher and registered dietician.

Now the spunky, 62-year-old retiree has her own studio and gallery in her home.

Since she retired five years ago, she has painted hundreds of historic buildings, animals and landscapes. Some of her paintings are the product of pictures she has taken on worldwide excursions she has made since early childhood.

Mulligan is the only artist in the world who has made wood carvings of animals and people, and then added watercolor to them so that the carvings can be reproduced into as many as 200 to 300 prints. She got the idea from 1920s Japanese art.

As a member of the Florida Watercolor Society, Mulligan said, her paintings have been in better company than she has. When the society held an auction to raise money for the National Cancer Society, Mulligan's "Memories" print, painted of the Cove Hotel in Panama City, sold for $26,000 to U. S. Sen. Bob Graham and his wife.

After the sale, the Graham's inadvertently left the print in Washington, D.C. Gov. Lawton Chiles brought it back to them, carrying it on his lap the entire way.

Mary MacNamara, who owns Signature Gallery in Tallahassee, where Mulligan's FSU lithographs are sold, said the interesting thing about them is that they have a personal touch.

"Her finished pieces are slightly impressionistic, but at the same time are rich in architectural detail and are nostalgic," MacNamara said. "There's an emotional quality to her work."

Dodd Hall holds a special place in her heart; it's where her mother and father met in the 1930s.

Profits from the sale of the FSU lithographs will be used, Mulligan said, to pay for her grandchildren's college education.

Mulligan's four children and their spouses are Florida State graduates. Her six grandchildren already have a head start in believing that FSU is the best university in the world. As infants, they wore FSU diapers, three of them recite the FSU fight song and the two year-old says, "F-S-U."

Mulligan said it was the university's academics, professors and friendly atmosphere that made attendance at FSU a 65-year tradition in her family.

"My FSU print is formal, classic and my best yet, and why shouldn't it be?" Mulligan said.

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Copyright © 1997 Florida State Times