Blog Archives
Pearls from artists* # 609
At the World Premier of “Barbara Rachko: True Grit” during the Newport Beach Film Festival
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Whether we are creating high art or a meal, we improvise when we move with the flow of time and with our own evolving consciousness, rather than with a preordained script or recipe. In composed or scripted art forms, there are two kinds of time: the moment of inspiration in which a direct intuition of beauty or truth comes to the artist; then the often laborious struggle to hold onto it long enough to get it down on paper or canvas, film or stone. A novelist may have a moment (literally a flash) of insight into which the birth, meaning, and purpose of a new book reveal itself; but it may take years to write it. During this time he must not only keep the thought fresh and clear, he must also eat, live, make money, suffer, enjoy, be a friend, and everything else human beings do. In composed music or theater, moreover, there is yet a third kind of time: besides the moment (or moments) of inspiration and time it takes to write the score, there is the time of the actual performance. Often the music is not even performed until after the composer’s death.
Stephen Nachmanovitch in Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art
Comments are welcome!
Q: Would you talk about your first solo exhibition in a commercial gallery?
“Big Deal,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58″ x 38″
A: Although I had exhibited in a number of non-profit galleries in Virginia, Washington, DC, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York, my first solo in a commercial gallery was at 479 Gallery, 520 Broadway, in July 1996. The previous summer I had entered a juried exhibition there. My work won first prize and I was awarded a solo show the following July.
This exhibition was soon followed by representation at an important New York gallery, Brewster Fine Arts, at 41 West 57th Street. I had my first two-person exhibition at Brewster in October 1996. The gallery specialized in art by Latin American artists. Besides myself, the sole non-Latina represented by Brewster was Leonora Carrington! I quickly began exhibiting alongside a group of illustrious artists: Leonora, Rufino Tamayo, Francisco Toledo, Francisco Zuniga, and other Latin American masters. I could hardly believe my good fortune!
Comments are welcome!
Q: Tell us about any other interests you may have besides your art practice. Does it get reflected in your art? (Question from artamour)
A: Travel is arguably the best education there is. My travels around the world, supplemented with lots of research once I return home, are an important part of my creative process. This is how I develop ideas to forge a way ahead. It is difficult and solitary work.
Even though I became an artist later in life, travel as a source of inspiration found ME. And it has been a blessing! People around the world have become fans. Many send messages of thanks saying they are proud that some aspect of their country’s culture has inspired my work. I am always grateful and touched to know this.
I love old movies, especially early silent films, classic noir and horror films from the 1930s and 1940s, and anything by Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Wells. Probably this interest is most evident in the way I composed and designed pastel paintings in my early “Domestic Threats” series. I’m not sure it’s discernible in subsequent work.
Another passion is swimming. Four times a week I swim at a local pool. I love it! In my view swimming laps is the best exercise to help maintain fitness and to prepare for the focus and physicality I need in the studio.
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 377
Barbara’s studio
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Life for an artist, any artist, was difficult. There were few rewards other than the most important, which was satisfying one’s need to create. But in the art world of galleries, collections, and museums that the avant-garde artists in New York would inherit in the late 1940s, the difficulties experienced by the men who painted and sculpted would be nothing compared to those of the women. Society might mock the men’s work and disparage them for being “bums,” but at least they were awarded the dignity of ridicule. Women had to fight with every fiber of their being not to be completely ignored. In a treatise on men and women in America published at the start of the war, author Pearl S. Buck wrote,
The talented woman… must have, besides their talent, an unusual energy which drives them… to exercise their own powers. Like talented men, they are single-minded creatures, and they can’t sink into idleness nor fritter away life and time, nor endure discontent. They possess that rarest gift, integrity of purpose… Such women sacrifice, without knowing they do, what many other women hold dear – amusement, society, play of one kind or another – to choose solitude and profound thinking and feeling, and at last final expression.
“To what end?” another woman might ask. To the end, perhaps… of art – art which has lifted us out of mental and spiritual savagery.”
Mary Gabriel in Ninth Street Women
Comments are welcome!
Q: Do you have a mentor?
“Alone Together,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 20″ x 26″
A: No, but I often wish I did. How wonderful it would be to consult someone who’s been there, a productive and successful artist who could provide advice on all the concerns, especially the problems and dangers, inherent in a professional artist’s life.
But I have been at this for thirty years and found no such person! I think it’s because each artist’s career is highly unique as we chart are own individual paths. Unlike most professions, there are no firm rules or straight forward career milestones for making your way as an artist.
Besides the countless hours spent in the studio, I have always worked diligently to understand the art business. Certainly getting work seen, exhibited, reviewed, sold, etc. is as important as making it in the first place. It’s all part of being a professional artist.
Early on I developed the habit of relying on my own best judgment, both in creating the work and in getting it seen and collected. Certainly I have made plenty of mistakes. As a result though, I know a tremendous amount about the art business. And I enjoy sharing what I know in the hopes of steering other artists away from making similar missteps.
Comments are welcome!
Q: Besides your art materials is there something you couldn’t live without in your studio?
Barbara’s studio
A: I would not want to work without music. Turning on the radio or the cd player is part of my daily ritual before heading over to the easel. (Next I apply barrier cream to my hands to prevent pastel being absorbed into my skin, put on a surgical mask, etc.). I generally listen to WFUV, WBGO, or to my cd collection while I’m working.
Listening and thinking about song lyrics is integral to my art-making process. How this works exactly may be a topic to explore in a future blog post.
Comments are welcome!
Q: Does your work have an overall message?
Barbara’s studio
A: Maybe there’s an overarching message, but that’s something for viewers to judge. I generally don’t like to specify what my work is about because my thinking about meanings evolves constantly and I don’t want to cut off people’s interpretations. Other people’s insights and opinions are equally as valid as mine.
Recently I had the experience of being told that my interpretation of an artist’s work was “wrong.” Besides hurting my feelings, she cut off a dialog and learned nothing about how her work is perceived. I found it sad because art is communication and an opportunity was missed.
Comments are welcome!
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