Blog Archives

Q: Please introduce yourself and tell us what makes your work unique. (Question from Bold Journey)

With a Giacometti at Fondation Maeght, St. Paul de Vence, France; Photo: Christine Marchal

A: I am a contemporary painter based in New York City, best known for large pastel-on-sandpaper paintings inspired by Bolivian Carnival masks and Latin American folk art. For more than 40 years, I have been committed to elevating pastel as a fine art medium.

My blog, Barbara Rachko’s Colored Dust, has 229,000 subscribers, and I’m the subject of the documentary Barbara Rachko: True Grit, available on YouTube. My e-book, From Pilot to Painter, tells my story of moving from Navy Commander, commercial pilot, and Boeing-727 Flight Engineer to professional artist.

My work has been developed into three major series—Domestic ThreatsBlack Paintings, and Bolivianos. In 2023, I was featured in a documentary that premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival, winning both the Audience Award and Best in Category.

Comments are welcome!

Q: Can you elaborate on the title of your very first series, “Domestic Threats”?

"Myth Meets Dream," 1993, soft pastel on sandpaper, the earliest painting that includes Mexican figures
“Myth Meets Dream,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 60” x 50,” 1993; part of the Domestic Threats” series

A: All of the paintings in this series are set in places where I reside or used to live, either a Virginia house or New York apartments, i.e., domestic environments. Each painting typically contains a conflict of some sort, at least one figure who is being menaced or threatened by a group of figures. So I named the series “Domestic Threats.”

Depending on what is going on in the country at a particular moment in time, however, people have seen political associations in my work. When my husband, Bryan, was killed on 9/11, many people thought the title, “Domestic Threats,” was prescient. They have ascribed all kinds of domestic terrorism associations to it, but that is not really what I had in mind. For a time some thought I was hinting at scenes of domestic violence, but that also is not what I had intended. “Domestic Threats” seems to be fraught with associations that I never considered, but it’s an apt title for this body of work.

Comments are welcome!