Blog Archives
Q: Would you please share your current bio?
A: Here it is.
Barbara Rachko, born in 1953 in Paterson, New Jersey, is a contemporary painter based in New York City, renowned for her large pastel-on-sandpaper paintings inspired by Bolivian Carnival masks. With nearly 40 years dedicated to revolutionizing pastel as a fine art medium, Rachko’s influential blog, Barbara Rachko’s Colored Dust, has garnered over 229,000 subscribers. She is the subject of the acclaimed documentary “Barbara Rachko: True Grit,” available on YouTube, and her ebook “From Pilot to Painter” captures her inspiring journey from a former pilot to an accomplished artist.
Rachko’s work explores the vibrant cultural heritage of Bolivian Carnival masks, and Mexican and Guatemalan folk art. Her meticulous attention to detail is showcased in notable series such as Bolivianos, Black Paintings, and Domestic Threats. In 2023, she was featured in a documentary that premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival, earning the Audience Award and Best in Category Award, further cementing her impact on contemporary art.
Her solo exhibitions include the Joy Pratt Markham Gallery at Walton Arts Center (AR), Louise Jones Brown Gallery at Duke University (NC), Olin Gallery (VA), and La MaMa La Galleria (NY). She trained in photography at the International Center of Photography in New York and studied drawing and pastel techniques at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA. Her works are held in private collections worldwide and have been showcased at prestigious art fairs, including Art Basel Miami, Moon Art Fair in Hamburg, and Art Busan in Korea, affirming her global influence in pastel painting.
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Pearls from artists* # 640
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
When an artist changes and develops over the years, as is natural to any creative person, such change is met by howls of protest from the marketers. Sometimes an artist (or teacher, scientist, or spiritual guru) starts with something extraordinary, becomes a star, and then their gift is either frozen or perverted.
The growing and risky edge of creative work is devalued, treated as a frill or extracurricular activity decorating the routine of ordinary life. There are few mechanisms available for the artist to construct a self-sustaining way of living and working. “One gathers,” says Virginia Woolf,
“from the enormous modern literature of confession and self-analysis that to write a book of genius is almost always a feat of prodigious difficulty. Everything is against the likelihood that it will come from the writer’s mind whole and entire. Generally, material circumstances are against it. Dogs will bark; people will interrupt; money must be made; health will break down. Further, accentuating all these difficulties and making them harder to bear is the world’s notorious indifference. It does not ask people to write poems and novels and histories; it does not need them. It does not care whether Flaubert finds the right word or whether Carlyle scrupulously verifies this or that fact. Naturally, it will not pay for what it does not want. And so the writer, Keats, Flaubert, Carlyle, suffers, especially in the creative years of youth, every form of distraction and discouragement. A curse, a cry of agony, rises from those books of analysis and confession. “Mighty poems in their misery dead” – that is the burden of their song. If anything comes through in spite of all this, it is a miracle, and probably no book is born entire and uncrippled as it was conceived.”
Stephen Nachmanovitch in Free Play: Improvisation in Art and Life
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Pearls from artists* # 610
View from the High Line, New York NY
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Just as the restless, committed, curious, and perhaps obsessed explorer follows the river from bend to bend, shooting rapids and pulling himself out of the water, so the self-dedicated artist launches himself on an exploratory art journey. He judges which fork in the river he will take, when he will rest and when he will push on, who he will take with him or whether he will travel alone. While he doesn’t possess unlimited freedom as he journeys, bound as he is by the demands of his personality, by his time and place, and by circumstances beyond his control, he does possess unrestricted permission from himself to explore every available avenue.
The contemporary artist must especially direct and trust himself because he lives in a constantly changing art environment. … as Pablo Picasso put it, “Beginning with Van Gogh we are all in a measure, autodidacts.” Painters no longer live within a tradition and so each of us must create an entire language.
Eric Maisel in A Life in the Arts: Practical Guidance and Inspiration for Creative and Performing Artists
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Pearls from artists* # 587
With friends of fifty years!
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
My general preparations include everything I do to be healthy and ready for surprises, with a full palette of resources available. I need energy to acquire skill, energy to practice, energy to keep going through the inevitable setbacks, energy to keep going when things look good and I am tempted to sit back and relax. I need physical energy, intellectual energy, libidinal energy, spiritual energy. The means to tapping these energies are well known: exercise the body, eat well, sleep well, keep track of dreams, meditate, enjoy the pleasures of life, read and experience widely. When blocked, tap into the block-busters: humor, friends, and nature.
Stephen Nachmanovitch in Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art
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Q: How do you determine what size to make your pastel paintings? (Question from Prince North via Facebook)
A: For three decades I have been making pastel paintings in two sizes: 26” x 20” and 58” x 38.” These sizes are dictated by practical considerations.
The smaller ones are because 28” x 22” sheets of acid-free sandpaper are what’s available. (I mask off an inch all around for mats so the paintings are 20″ x 26″). For large paintings I buy rolls of acid-free sandpaper that measure 54 inches wide by 30 feet. I cut this down to 40″ x 60″ for paintings and mask off an inch all around on these, too.
And why specifically make them 58” x 38”? This is the absolute largest size I can make and I prefer making big paintings!
Again, practical factors come into play: the size of my truck, the cost and size of mat board, and the weight of the frames.
My pastel paintings need to lie flat when they are moved. Framed paintings are 70” x 50,” the largest size that can fit flat in the back of my Ford F-150. 58” x 38” is the largest size that will fit in a 8 feet by 4 feet sheet of mat board. (60 inch wide mat board is available, but the cost goes up considerably). Lastly, I’ve never weighed them but my large framed paintings are already rather heavy. It takes two people to carry them.
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Q: Where do you create your art? (Question from artamour)
A: In April 1997 an opportunity to move to New York City arose and I didn’t look back. By then I was showing in a good 57th Street gallery, Brewster Gallery (they focused exclusively on Latin American Masters so I was in the company of Leonora Carrington, Rufino Tamayo, Diego Rivera, etc.). Also, I had managed to find an excellent New York artists/agent, Leah Poller, with whom to collaborate. (Leah and I are still dear friends).
I looked at only one other space before finding my West 29th Street studio and knew instantly it was the one! An old friend of Bryan’s from Cal Tech rented the space next door and he had told us it was available. Initially the studio was a sublet. The lease-holder was a painter headed to northern California to work temporarily for George Lucas at the Lucas Ranch. After several years she decided to stay so I was able to take over the lease. I feel extremely fortunate to have been in my West 29th Street, New York City space now for twenty-five years. In a city where old buildings are knocked down to make way for new ones this is rare.
My studio is an oasis in a chaotic city, a place to make art, to read, and to think. I love to walk in the door every morning and I feel calmer the moment I arrive. It is still my absolute favorite place in New York! Sometimes I think of it as my best creation.
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Pearls from artists* # 494
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Emile Cartailhac was a man who could admit when he was wrong. This was fortunate, because in 1902 the French prehistorian found himself writing an article for L’Anthropolgie in which he did just that. In “Mea culpa d’un sceptique” he recanted the views he had spent the previous 20 years forcefully and scornfully maintaining: that prehistoric man was incapable of fine artistic expression and that the cave paintings found in Altmira, northern Spain, were forgeries.
The Paleothithic paintings at Altamira, which were produced around 14,000 B.C., were the first examples of prehistoric cave art to be officially discovered. It happened by chance in 1879, when a local landowner and amateur archaeologist was busily brushing away at the floor of the caves, searching for prehistoric tools. His nine-year-old daughter, Maria Sanz de Sautuola – a grave little thing with cropped hair and lace-up booties – was exploring farther on when she suddenly looked up, exclaiming, “Look, Papa, bison!” She was quite right: a veritable herd, subtly colored with black charcoal and ocher, ranged over the ceiling. When her father published the finding in 1880, he was met with ridicule. The experts scoffed at the very idea that prehistoric man – savages really – could have produced sophisticated polychrome paintings. The esteemed Monsieur Cartailhac and the majority of his fellow experts, without troubling to go and see the cave for themselves, dismissed the whole thing as a fraud. Maria’s father died, a broken and dishonored man, in 1888, four years before Cartailhac admitted his error.
After the discovery of many more caves and hundreds of lions, handprints, horses, women, hyenas, and bison, the artistic abilities of prehistoric man are no longer in doubt. It is thought that these caves were painted by shamans trying to charm a steady supply of food for their tribes. Many were painted using the pigment most readily available in the caves at the time: the charred stick remnants of their fires. At its simplest, charcoal is the carbon-rich by-product of organic matter – usually wood – and fire. It is purest and least ashy when oxygen has been restricted during it’s heating.
In The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair
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Q: How did your ebook “From Pilot to Painter” come to be? (Question from “Arte Realizzata”)
A: It was my longtime assistant, Barbra Drizin’s, idea and more than I’d care to admit, I was resistant. I said, “I am much too busy to write an ebook!” Barbra went on to explain that we could start with material I had already written for my blog, expand on it, add reproductions of my pastel paintings, etc. With her persuasion, I agreed! Barbra made the initial selections and together we added and revised text, organized the material, and worked out countless details. I asked my friend, Ann Landi, to write a foreword and Barbra found an editor to put everything into Amazon’s ebook format.
Now I am extremely pleased that my ebook FROM PILOT TO PAINTER is available not only on Amazon, but also on iTunes. It is based on my blog and is part memoir, including the loss of my husband on 9/11, insights into my creative practice, and intimate reflections on what it’s like to be an artist living in New York City. The ebook includes material not found on the blog, plus 25+ reproductions of my vibrant pastel-on-sandpaper paintings, a Foreword by Ann Landi, the founder of Vasari21.com and longtime critic for ARTnews, and more.
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Pearls from artists* # 450
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
All the journeys that have transpired in my life have been animated by interest. Something or someone has stopped me in my tracks. Interest, that thing that cannot really be faked, is an invitation to adventure. It has always been disorienting to do but I have to act on these interests. Somehow I know that in order to keep on working as an artist, I have to keep on changing. And this means that when interest is piqued, I must follow or die. And I know that I will have to hang on tight for the ride. These rides have changed me irrevocably.
The primary tool in a creative process is interest. To be true to one’s interest, to pursue it successfully, one’s body is the best barometer. The heart races. The pulse soars. Interest can be your guide. It always points you in the right direction. It defines the quality, energy and content of your work. You cannot feign or fake interest or choose to be interested in something because it is prescribed. It is never prescribed. It is discovered. When you sense this quickening you must act immediately. You must follow that interest and hold tight.
… If the interest is genuine and large enough and if it is pursued with tenacity and generosity, the boomerang effect is resounding. Interest returns volley to affect your life and inevitably alter it. You must be available and attentive to the doors that open unexpectedly. You cannot wait. The doors close fast. It will change your life. It will give you adventures you never expected. You must be true to it and it will be true to you.
Anne Bogart in A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre
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Pearls from artists* # 439
New York Harbor
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Art is a way of preserving experiences, of which there are many transient and beautiful examples, and that we need help containing. There is an analogy to be made with the task of carrying water and the tool that helps us do it. Imagine being out in a park on a blustery April day. We look up at the clouds and feel moved by their beauty and grace. They feel delightfully separate from the day-to-day bustle of our lives. We give our minds to the clouds, and for a time we are relieved of our preoccupations and placed in a wider context that stills the incessant complaints of our egos. John Constable’s cloud studies invite us to concentrate, much more than we would normally, on the distinctive textures and shapes of individual clouds, to look at their variations in colour and at the way they mass together. Art edits down complexity and helps us to focus, albeit briefly, on the most meaningful aspects. In making his cloud studies, Constable didn’t expect us to become deeply concerned with meteorology. The precise nature of a cumulonimbus is not the issue. Rather, he wished to intensify the emotional meaning of the soundless drama that unfolds daily above our heads, making it more readily available to us and encouraging us to afford it the central position it deserves.
Alain de Botton and John Armstrong in Art as Therapy
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