Barbara Flexner was born on Staten Island, New York.  During her formative years her family lived in San Juan, Puerto Rico.   A graduate of the New School for Social Research in New York with a degree in Fine Arts and Social Sciences, the artist and her family have lived in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey and currently, Georgia. 

The artist began to draw and paint as a young child. Drawing and painting have been life long passions.  As an adult she has studied drawing, painting, textile surface design, printmaking, weaving, natural dyeing and spinning at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Riverside Church, Northwestern University, the New School for Social Research, the School for Visual Arts, the Pittsburgh Arts and Craft Center, Montclair State University, Brookfield Craft Center and the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts.  

She studied Architecture and Environmental Design at Kent State University.  After working as a corporate architect for many years, the artist switched careers and worked as the Village Weaver at Waterloo Village in Stanhope, New Jersey.  There she was able to direct a staff that designed and produced domestic textiles for use in the Village and for sale to the public.  The weavers at Waterloo Village tended sheep, hand produced yarns, grew their own dyestuffs and wove finished product on handlooms.  more