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Q: Do colors stay with you from your journeys, particularly to Bolivia and India? (Question from “Pastel, Passion, and Perseverance: An Interview with Barbara Rachko” in .ART Odyssey: Healing)
Sari shop window, Jaisalmer – Sadar Bazar, India
A: Yes. For Bolivia I think of red, white, and green—the colors of the flag. l even chose to use red frames as a kind of homage. For India, multi-colored patterns always come to mind because of women’s saris and white too, which Hindus wear on important occasions. Certain places attach themselves to your memory through color.
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Q: Travel clearly plays an important role in your practice. What does it give you? (Question from “Pastel, Passion, and Perseverance: An Interview with Barbara Rachko” in .ART Odyssey: Healing)
With friends at a Buddhist Monastery, Gangtok, India
A: Travel is the spark. It opens you up, makes you think differently, introduces you to people everywhere.
It makes you realize that people are the same wherever you go – which in turn makes all the political divisions and wars feel so senseless.
The work itself gets made in silence, but those bright sparks from travel feed that silence. Countries like India and Bolivia are full of character and color. They shift your perspective, and you bring that back to the studio.
Pearls from artists* # 710
Shamans performing a ‘safe travels’ ritual for our group at Tiwanaku, Bolivia
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on
Mental health not only exists on a spectrum but it is also often culture-specific. Revered healers and sages in one country are the ‘crazies’ in another. Context determines whether we will be treated for illness, or simply considered ‘eccentric’ and left alone. Many who struggle to hide their differences, go against their own nature, and contort themselves into an acceptable demeanor to fit in, until they break down or die, undiagnosed.
Kate Kretz in Art From your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice”
Q: What’s on the easel today?
Charcoal drawing
A: This preliminary charcoal drawing is my first tentative move towards the next “Bolivianos” pastel painting. I took the reference photo in February during my Bolivia trip to research and experience Carnival in Oruro.
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Travel photo of the month*
*favorite travel photos that have not yet appeared in this blog
Moonrise, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
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Travel photo of the month*
*favorite travel photos that have not yet appeared in this blog
Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
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Travel photo of the month*
*favorite travel photos that have not yet appeared in this blog
In Oruro with Rodrigo Paz, the President of Bolivia
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Q: What’s on the easel today?
26” x 20” pastel painting in progress
A: I’ve just started a new “Bolivianos” pastel painting based on a photo captured at MUSEF La Paz during my February trip to Bolivia.
Comments are welcome!
Q: How do you think your recent trip to Bolivia will affect your work?
Reference photo from my trip to Bolivia
A: I have been back in the United States for one month and I know from past trips that there is always a long gestation period as I reflect on colorful new experiences, new sights, sounds, etc. My three and a half-weeks in Bolivia were non-stop, intense, and just full of so many high points. Bolivia is a fascinating country with profound cultural riches, and exceptionally warm and welcoming people. I experienced new friendships and events that were way beyond anything I could have imagined. In short, there’s a lot to process!
In the immediate aftermath, back in the studio I am deliberately selecting more vibrant colors and bumping up the contrast and drama in the painting on my easel (“Gatecrasher”) as I attempt to reflect some of what I saw and experienced in Oruro during Carnaval. I have begun to plan a pastel painting based on the mask pictured above, which I photographed in La Paz. We shall see what new work is created over the coming months and years. For now, it’s exciting to be reenergized and to have new subject matter with which to work. And, at this early date, I can barely conceive what our new Bolivia documentary will be like!
Comments are welcome!
barbararachkoscoloreddust.com 
Pearls from artists* # 706
Jun 10
Posted by barbararachkoscoloreddust
Carnival mask, MUSEF La Paz, Bolivia
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Several observers have commented that Saint Michael seems “pallid and emasculated” compared to the fearsome devils that oppose him. During the dancing that filled the parade ground immediately before and after the play’s performance, Michael was visually outshone and vastly outnumbered. While a few archangels danced up and down in pink and white, hundreds of devils cavorted in a wild array of colors splashed liberally across their high boots, skintight trousers, beaded capes and tunics, long wigs, and monstrous masks. Their masks are among the most complex headpieces in the festive world: “bulging, billiard-ball eyes studded with bright artificial stones and huge grinning silver teeth, hideously pointed, leer grotesquely out of an exuberant triangle of horns and ears and tusks, painted in a wild cacophony of colors, and crowned by a three-headed viper or other misshapen reptile.” Some masks are crowned with whole stuffed condors. No two masks are alike. Dancing alongside the devils, a number of China Supays provocatively swing their hips and twirled their skirts. The odds were stacked against the virtuous archangel. The audience’s eyes were on the devil’s masks and the China Supay’s thighs. Winning the aesthetic war in performance is a common folk means of challenging an officially scripted defeat.
Max Harris in Carnival and Other Christian Festivals: Folk Theology and Folk Performance
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Posted in 2026, Bolivia, Inspiration, Pearls from Artists, Quotes
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