[4] While teaching at Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa she met her future husband, a music teacher and composer, Marshall Barnes.

She began creating small, non-traditional baskets and proceeded to make larger and more complex pieces that used wire, stone, glass and wood.

[1] Barnes was known for gathering and using natural materials for her woven and sculpted forms,[5] including techniques from woodworking, basketry[6] and tapestry.

[1] She credited Kay Sekimachi, Osma Gallinger Tod, and Ed Rossbach among her notable influences.

She taught workshops internationally, in New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Fiji, and Canada, and across the United States, from Hawaii to New England.

[3] Dorothy Gill married composer Marshall H. Barnes in 1952; she made her own wedding ring in a metal shop at the University of Iowa.