Volusia County Courthouse - Margaret Ross Tolbert

Springs Run - Blue Springs, 2001
Acrylic

Behind Blue Springs - Blue Springs, 2001
Acrylic

Margaret Ross Tolbert
Gainesville, Fla.
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Margaret Ross Tolbert has a master of fine arts and bachelor of fine arts in painting from the University of Florida. Her paintings are featured in both solo and group exhibits in Florida and elsewhere. She has participated in several residencies, including the Museum of Arts and Sciences and Jamestown Community College in New York. 

“I walk along the springs run toward the headspring. The water cuts a wide swath through the grasses bending sideways in the current. Gar hover in formation, pointing into the flow. A mantilla of water beetles circles in a tangle of frenzied activity. As I look down into the water, a turtle careens away in a wild gymnastic display. Hundreds of fish stud the depths, hovering over small sand boils bubbling in the river bed. I am drawn to a small cypress on the distant bank. All the water seems to flow from just under this tree, from a thousand orifices in the bank, from the pores of the aquifer.” – Margaret Ross Tolbert on her painting, "Springs Run"

“All is changed in this world under the surface. Space seems to have blown apart. Here, underwater, I am flying in a room that expands in all directions. Everything is tinged with violet, the leading edge of a prismatic light that wafts in a plume to the surface. Fish hover, curious, then dart away, their shadows coursing across the white sand. The blurry line of trees above the surface seem infinitely far away from this world inside the spring.” – Margaret Ross Tolbert on her painting, "Behind Blue Springs"