Throughout her life, Barbara J. “Bobbi” Adams ’61 has been unafraid to change course. When financial realities prevented her from becoming a medical missionary in Africa, she instead used her background in zoology and education to teach in Sierra Leone for five years.

Upon returning to the States, Bobbi resumed teaching in her home state of New Jersey and took art classes on the side. Soon, Bobbi knew it was time for another change. 

“I really wanted to be an artist,” Bobbi said.

After graduating from the National Academy of Design in New York City, Bobbi became the artist in residence for the South Carolina Arts Commission, a position she kept for 30 years, teaching and exhibiting in art shows all over the state.

“I worked with individual schools to do murals and paintings with kids,” Bobbi said. “Each county who hired you wanted a different thing.” 

In her fifties, tragedy struck when both of her parents and her husband died within five years. “Then I asked: What did I want to do with the rest of my life?” Bobbi said.

Since she enjoyed living abroad and creating art, Bobbi pursued a master’s degree in studio art at New York University, which enabled her to study in Venice for two summers. There, she learned how to make paint and create her own paper.

“I finally became my own person artistically,” Bobbi said. Bobbi has also written three books filled with her art, thoughts, and photos. She has earned certificates as a master gardener and master naturalist, and she has written a weekly newspaper column in the Lee County Observer called “The Peripatetic Gardener” for 20 years.

“Opportunities have been presented in ways I never could have imagined,” Bobbi said. “But God has given me talents, and I have always felt led.”