Blog Archives
Q: Do you have any big projects coming up?
A: I certainly do! I have been a painter for forty years, and for most of that time, my work has been shaped by foreign travel. At seventy-two, I find myself thinking about legacy — what I want to leave behind. Documenting my creative process on film has become an essential part of this objective.
In the “Bolivianos” series, I have been creating pastel-on-sandpaper paintings that transform the vivid masks of the Bolivian Carnival into universal archetypes. I first encountered these masks at a museum in La Paz in 2017.
Circumstances have aligned perfectly for an exciting next step: another trip to Bolivia and a new documentary. Our upcoming film will be a follow-up to the award-winning “Barbara Rachko: True Grit” (released in 2023), marking a deeper exploration of my thirty-five-year engagement with folk art from Mexico, Central America, and South America.
(See https://youtu.be/JJWLy84kXI0?si=v7JHIq9ViYGgs76U)
In February 2026, I will return to Bolivia with a two-person film crew to experience Carnival firsthand — to immerse myself in its rhythm, history, and meaning. Recognized by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, this festival offers an extraordinary window into Bolivia’s cultural soul.
Our film will chronicle my journey as essential research — a vital continuation of my creative inquiry over these past decades. With this trip and film, I hope to create my next body of pastel-on-sandpaper paintings, rich with color, spirit, and the enduring vitality of Oruro’s Carnival.
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 670
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
I’ve had to keep defining and defending myself as a writer every single day of my adult life – constantly reminding and re-reminding my soul and the cosmos that I’m very serious about the business of creative living, and that I will never stop creating, no matter what the outcome, and no matter how deep my anxieties and insecurities may be.
Over time I’ve found the right tone of voice for these assertions, too. It’s best to be insistent, but affable. Repeat yourself, but don’t get shrill. Speak to your darkest and most negative interior voices the way a hostage negotiator speaks to a violent psychopath: calmly, but firmly. Most of all, never back down. You cannot afford to back down. The life you are negotiating to save, after all, is your own.
Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
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Pearls from artists* # 651
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
We are engaged in a mission that can be perplexing to those around us. We are playing a long game that no one else can see. Every time we walk into the studio, it is a mini act of defiance against all of those who believe we are wasting our time. If you do not shore up and internalize this right to make art until it becomes a part of you, outside forces will repeatedly rise up to challenge it, creating conflict. Understand deep in your being that making art is a vital part of who you are, to be your own strongest advocate. Be greedy for the time and space your work requires to be actualized.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
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Q: What lies in the future for you? (Question from “Cultured Focus Magazine”)
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 kind of reactions do you get from spectators at your exhibitions? (Question from “Cultured Focus Magazine”)
A: Reactions to my work run the gamut – from dopey comments like, “I’m scared!” to “How in the world is it possible to achieve such beauty and profundity using only soft pastel on a piece of sandpaper!” I’m sure most artists can say the same. We can only hope that our work finds its way to an audience that has the eyes, heart, and mind to understand, to appreciate on a deep level the decades of devotion, sacrifice, and hard work that go into creating works of art.
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 631
With “Maestro,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 35” x 28.5” framed
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Selling your art is harder than creating it. Every artist dreams of being able to sell his/her art and make a considerable profit from it and/or build a business based on art. This would give artists the opportunity to make art full-time. However, the process is neither easy nor quick. It requires determination, discipline, and consistency. The idea of becoming a successful artist overnight almost doesn’t exist. All the artists who seem to be “overnight successes” put in a lot of hard work for years.
Dr. Bianca Turner in The Business of Art: A Guide for Visual Artists to Become Successful Entrepreneurs
Comments are welcome!
Q: What kind of reactions do you get from spectators at your exhibitions? (Question from “Cultured Focus Magazine”)
A group exhibition in New Jersey
A: Reactions to my work run the gamut – from dopey comments like, “I’m scared!” to “How in the world is such beauty and profundity possible to achieve using only soft pastel on a piece of sandpaper!”
I’m sure most artists can say the same. We can only hope that our work finds its way to an audience that has the eyes, heart, and mind to understand, to appreciate on a deep level the decades of devotion, sacrifice, and hard work that go into creating works of art.
Comments are welcome!
Q: How large is your collection of Mexican folk art objects?
Part of my collection
A: I began collecting these figures in the early 1990s. I haven’t counted them, but my guess is that I have amassed around 200 pieces of various sizes. This includes some Guatemalan figures. I went to Guatemala in 2009 and 2010. Since I divide my time between a house in Alexandria, VA, an apartment in Manhattan, and a studio in Chelsea, a portion of my folk art collection resides in each of these places.
Since 2017 I have been creating pastel paintings in the “Bolivianos” series, which exclusively use my photographs of Bolivian Carnival masks as source material. Occasionally, I will add one of my smaller Mexican or Guatemalan figures to improve and enrich a painting’s composition. Otherwise, my Mexican collection sits gathering dust. My thinking and my ideas, not to mention my travels, have evolved and just naturally moved on with time.
Comments are welcome!
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!
barbararachkoscoloreddust.com 
Q: What kind of internal conversations do you tend to have when you are in the process of making art? (Question from Vedica Art Studios and Gallery)
Jan 10
Posted by barbararachkoscoloreddust
A: When standing at my easel creating a pastel painting, I focus on formal properties: composition, shape, color, and line. I always strive to produce a painting I’ve never seen before. Even as (perhaps especially as) the creator, I want to be surprised by the final result. My studio days are spent thinking, looking, reacting, and adjusting colors and composition as I refine increasingly tiny details, ensuring all elements work harmoniously. I determine which areas need to recede or advance, which require intricate details to appear three-dimensional, and which are better left as flat areas of color.
These countless adjustments ensure viewers’ eyes are guided around the finished painting in intriguing ways. I often recall something collectors of my pastel paintings shared: they mentioned a New York Times review of a Nan Goldin exhibition, in which the writer stated, “All of the pleasure circuits are fired in looking.” The collectors agreed this is exactly how they feel when viewing my work. Artists live for appreciative comments like these!
Comments are welcome!
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Posted in 2026, An Artist's Life, Creative Process, Studio, Working methods
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