Barbara grew up in Adams, Massachusetts in the US. Her grand parents came to town during the Polish immigration wave and worked in the mills, where they met. "Imagine the times, when these sixteen and seventeen year old young people left their families in Polish villages behind, to come to America. They were on their own and so young. Adams, and other mill towns must have been quite lively."
Armata received an Associate Degree of Visual Arts from the Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield, but is largely self-taught. For fifteen years she would travel to Boston, Chicago, Baltimore, and Philadelphia art fairs. Approximately 20 illustrators would sell their work in a silent auction system. Works were sold to White Wolfe in that manner, but to other publishers as well, for young adult books and magazines.
Her illustrations appeared in "Phantasy Magazine" and "Cricket Magazine" for children. She illustrated for Books of Wonder: The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allan Poe, and Rudyard Kipling's, The Haunting of Holmescroft, in the Classic Frights series, and more. White Wolf published until the late 1990s collectable cards and games, for which she contributed many images. The cards would be collected by kids like baseball cards.
Armata's work is done with precious fine details, set in fantastic landscapes, in black and white or color. It is exquisite work in the realm of the imagination. She left us with the thought, that "The new easel in the closet will now come out."
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