Blog Archives
Q: Were there any other artists in your family?
“The Ancestors,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58″ x 38,” 2013
A: Unfortunately, I have not been able to reconstruct my family tree further back than two generations. So as far as I can tell, I am the first artist of any sort, whether musician, actor, dancer, writer, etc. in my family.
Both sets of grandparents emigrated to the United States from Europe. On my mother’s side my Polish grandparents died by the time my mother was 16, years before I was born.
My paternal grandparents both lived into their 90s. My father’s mother spoke Czech, but since I did not, it was difficult to communicate. I never heard any stories about the family she left behind. My grandfather spoke English, but I don’t remember him ever talking about his childhood or telling stories about his former life. My most vivid memories of my grandfather are seeing him in the living room watching Westerns on an old-fashioned television.
Sometimes I am envious of artists who had parents, siblings, or extended family who were artists. How I would have loved to grow up with a family member who was an artist and a role model!
Comments are welcome!
Q: What are your most significant professional accomplishments to date?
“Big Deal,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58″ x 38″
A: I will mention these: my 1996 solo exhibition at a venerable New York gallery that specialized in Latin American-influenced art, Brewster Arts Ltd. at 41 West 57th Street; completion of Aljira’s Emerge 2000 business program for professional artists; and a solo exhibition at the Walton Art Center in Fayetteville, AR, in 2005. All three were very important factors in my artistic and professional development.
In January I published my first eBook, From Pilot to Painter, on Amazon.
In February I was interviewed by Brainard Carey for his Yale University Radio program. It can be heard at
http://museumofnonvisibleart.com/interviews/barbara-rachko/
Most recently I was interviewed for a fourteen-page article (the longest they have ever published on a single artist!) in ARTiculAction Art Review. Please see
http://issuu.com/articulaction/docs/articulaction_art_review_-_july_201/30
Comments are welcome!
Q: At the end of last Saturday’s (September 28th) post you mentioned something called, “Esala Perahera.” What is that?
Waiting for the Perahera to start, Kandy, Sri Lanka
Mending an elephant’s headdress, Kandy, Sri Lanka
Preparations – planning what to do in case an elephant charges
Flame throwers watching a man balancing on one stilt
First elephant in the procession
Drummers, Kandy, Sri Lanka
Three elephants, Kandy, Sri Lanka
A single “tusker,” Kandy, Sri Lanka
Esala Perahera, Kandy, Sri Lanka
After the festival
A: My trip to Sri Lanka was timed so that I could observe it first hand. Here is a description from the “Insight Guide to Sri Lanka:”
The lunar month of Esala is a month for festivals and peraheras all around the island. Easily the finest and the most famous is the Esala Perahera held at Kandy over the ten days leading up to the Esala Poya (full moon) day (late July or early August). The festival dates back to ancient Anuradhapura, when the Tooth Relic (of the Buddha) was taken through the city in procession, and the pattern continues to this day, with the relic carried at the head of an enormous procession which winds its way round and round the city by night. The perahera becomes gradually longer and more lavish over the 10 days of the festival, until by the final night it has swollen to include a cast of hundreds of elephants and thousands of dancers, drummers, fire-eaters, acrobats, and many others – an extraordinary sight without parallel anywhere else in Sri Lanka, if not the whole of Asia.
I would go further and add that the Esala Perahera is one of the world’s great festivals. Who could ever imagine such a spectacle? It may be a cliché to say it, but travel is ultimately the best education.
Comments are welcome!
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