Category Archives: Bolivianos

Start/Finish of “Harbinger,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 26” x 20” image, 35” x 28.5” framed

Start

Finish

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Q: What’s on the easel today?

Pastel painting in progress


A: Here is the latest progress on “Showman,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 26” x 20”.

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Q: How do you feel about the fact that more people view an artist’s work online than ever see it in person?

A page on Barbara’s website

A: This has been a dilemma for decades. Don’t get me wrong. Artists are indeed fortunate to have alternative ways to share our art, such as on the internet, but there is just no substitute for seeing art in person! I remember friends telling me about a review of a Nan Goldin exhibition that said, “All of the pleasure circuits are fired in looking.” That rarely happens when you view art online. Yet this is how most people experience our work – at a remove and on a small screen.

Nowadays, a global audience will see art on their phones instead of in our studios or in a gallery or museum. My pastel paintings are quite large and very detailed so when people finally see them in person, they are often surprised. They had gotten used to seeing them in a much smaller scale online, where very few of the meticulous and subtle details I incorporate into them are visible.

Comments are welcome!

Q: What’s on the easel today?

A: I am just beginning a small 26” x 20” pastel on sandpaper with the tentative title, “Con Man.”

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Q: What’s on the easel today?

Charcoal Drawing

A: This is a preliminary charcoal drawing to help plan my next small “Bolivianos” painting.

Comments are welcome!

Start/Finish of “Apparition,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58” x 38” image, 70” x 50” framed

Start

Finish

Comments are welcome!

Q: What’s on the easel today?

A: I continue making slow progress on “Oblate,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 26” x 20.”

Comments are welcome!

Q: What lies in the future for you? (Question from “Cultured Focus Magazine”)

Museum of Ethnography and Folklore, La Paz, Bolivia
Museum of Ethnography and Folklore, La Paz, Bolivia

A: I still have so much to say and share through my work! First, I want to continue creating and adding to the “Boliviano” series of pastel paintings that I began in 2017.

Second, Jennifer Cox, my director, and I are considering making part II of our film, “Barbara Rachko: True Grit,” which will require a return trip to Bolivia – to the Museum of Ethnography and Folklore in La Paz, where I first encountered the masks that are my current subject matter, and to Oruro to see similar masks in action during Carnival celebrations. This will be a complex undertaking and the issue of financing will first need to be resolved. Stay tuned!

Comments are welcome!

Q: What’s on the easel today?

Work in progress

A: I continue working on “Oblate,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 26” x 20”. I often say that titles can come from anywhere and here is a great example. “Oblate” came to me thanks to a sign on Route 95 in Maryland. It says, “Oblates of Our Lady of the Highways.” An oblate is a person who devotes themselves to a religious order. I like the word and thought it a fitting title for this painting.

I have been driving that stretch of Route 95 for more than twenty years. Only now, as I wrote this blog post, did I uncover a fascinating story about “Our Lady of the Highways.” https://www.ncregister.com/news/our-lady-of-the-highways

Comments are welcome!

Q: What’s on the easel today?

Work in progress

A: I started a new small pastel painting!

Comments are welcome!