Joe Barnett...Landscape artist, sculpture, inspirer, father — Renaissance man
by Timie Yancey, ABODE Magazine

Not many people know that Joe Barnett, sculptor and landscape artist, actually died when he was only 2 years old. “I had severe asthma as a child and remember being carried into the emergency room several times when I was only a few years old,” he said. “But this particular time I turned blue, my heart stopped and the doctors had to resuscitate me.”

Joe hasn’t had an asthmatic episode since his childhood, but his early health problems and his interest in anatomy provided direction for him as a young adult.

“I’ve always been interested in anatomy and I had a strong desire to find a cure for asthma, so as a child I always thought that I’d become a doctor,” he said. “As I became older I developed an interest in plastic surgery; it wasn’t so much that I wanted to make people beautiful, but more to restore.

“I had a friend involved in an accident and the doctor just never got the reconstruction right. I always wondered if the doctor had been more of an artist, would he have gotten it right? Could he have restored my friend to what he was before?”

Joe, who admits he has always been fascinated by faces, is also a strong man of faith.

“In sixth grade, you know the girls and guys didn’t really like each other, or at least they didn’t show it,” he said. “But I had this girl friend whose mother was sick and ended up passing away. I really felt for the girl, so I drew her a picture of Jesus — of his face — and intended to write ‘Jesus Loves You,’ but instead it came out ‘You … Jesus Loves.’ To me, it seemed like a simple gesture, nothing more than a card, but it really touched the girl. For the first time in my life, I really felt like God had used me. And that’s when I realized that God can use me in a way to touch others; I can create meaning for other people.”

After high school Joe studied art at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and worked at Green
Thumb gardening center.

“I loved the manual labor and enjoyed being outside, but didn’t think about ever doing landscape as a career,” he said. “In school I enjoyed dabbling in all mediums — painting, drawing — and then we got to sculpture. It was like it just clicked: I can do both of the things I love — I can landscape and create art for my design. It was so intriguing for me to merge these two aspects, and by doing both I could truly enjoy the layers of design.”

Joe is now the owner of Little Rock Land Design as well as Sculptures Incorporated. The company has 10 employees and they enjoy creating artistic landscapes.

“I have six kids, so I’ll do whatever,” he joked. “But most of our jobs are when people want something special, something different.”

While Joe does show his sculptures at M2 Gallery in Little Rock, he says that most of his sales come from him feeling out a landscape project and placing the art accordingly.

“You know, most of the time people only think of putting art in the house, but there are so many more options outside,” Joe said. “It’s amazing to see the natural light hit the sculptures, and it changes nearly every second of the day. And many times you can even enjoy them not only while outside, but from the inside of your house as well.”

Aside from his everyday projects with his two companies, Joe is in the process of creating Arkansas’s first — and possibly, he said, the South’s first — Holocaust memorial.

“I’ve always been interested in the Holocaust and I feel that this project is an extremely important way for me to give back,” Joe said. His plans include having a gate inscribed with the words “Work for Freedom” leading into a garden where a statue will be the focus.

“The Holocaust is so important to me because it shows good will always prevail,” he said. “It’s so clear to me that it was in fact a battle [between] good and bad.”

The statue, which will also be a working water feature, will stand nearly 6 feet tall in the garden and will have numbers engraved up the wrist. The team behind the memorial is working to find the perfect place for the monument, and as of now they are still currently in the process of negotiations throughout venues in central Arkansas.