Born in Chicago in 1941 and raised in
El Paso on the
Mexican border, Baron earned a
BA and
MA in
English, writing his Master's thesis on
Joyce Cary's concept of the "artist as child," a guiding theme he still abides by. While serving in the
Peace Corps in
Nigeria and
Ethiopia, he became intrigued with primitive, intuitive
African art. Baron later lived in
New York City,
Philadelphia,
Austin, and the
Virgin Islands. In 1970, he settled in
Antwerp, Belgium, working as the photographer for the art collective Ercola (Experimental Research Center of Liberal Arts) which published the underground comic
Spruit. In the late 1970s, Baron returned to the United States and studied sculpture, first at the
Philadelphia College of Art and later at the
University of Texas, El Paso, though he is largely self-taught and his expression is intuitive. He earned a second
Master's degree in library science, and after a stint in retail, he worked part-time as a college librarian allowing him free time for his creative endeavors. A long-time proponent of the arts, he served on the City of El Paso Public Art Committee 2006-2007 and on the board of the Texas Society of Sculptors 2011–2015. Baron as a young man was a writer. His passion to live creatively took him to the visual arts: photography, pen and ink drawing, painting and finally sculpture. He occasionally published a satirical political newspaper,
The El Paso Lampoon. Baron has had photo exhibits and published a book of photos entitled
El Paso: A Hoverview: 59 works. He was a radio disc jockey of a new music radio program for seven years on
N.P.R. In 2007, he began creating short videos of his sculpture. He published his second book,
Gods for Future Religions: Surreal Sculpture, in 2012. Baron began sculpting in 1979 and eventually created more than 300 narrative bronze and cast stone figures. In his elder years, he turned to creating scores of sculptural assemblages. Baron's theme is of the human form, abstracting it with unique motifs of surreal imagery.
Jesse Walker once wrote that his sculptures seem to have "emerged from both the deepest levels of the ocean and the deepest levels of the subconscious." Regarding the title for his collective work, Baron satirizes: "When society's tired of its existing gods, it's going to need new ones, and I'm ready." ==Selected works==