Barnum feels her artistic career was inevitable, as she has been drawing since she could hold a pencil. Her third grade teacher told her parents she would most likely become a "commercial artist". "I feel like it’s not really a choice," she comments. "It’s something I have to do and it is a privilege to create and be able to share it with others."

Barnum feels that appreciation and love of art lie in the eye of the beholder, and that everyone has something to contribute. "For me, art is like a lot of things in life, there’s always something new to learn so hopefully one’s work is always evolving, changing, growing."

The artist paints whenever she can, and nearly always with music playing. She’s not always in a creative mood when she sits down to work, but finds that if she sticks with it she soon slips into the right frame of mind. She feels that her work communicates her appreciation of nature’s beauty, and her ability to capture it and frame it in a creative setting.

Barnum received most of her education in England.