Her art is a colorful homage to the past

The Coconut Grove Arts Festival and The St. Stephen's Art Show are this weekend, February 16-18, 2019. We have been profiling some of the artists who are participating this year. 

Rachaela and her youngest child

Our last artist in this year's series is Rachaela DiRosaria. I just met her, but I love her spirit and lifestyle and she is already a friend in my head.

Rachaela is from Indiana, but now lives in Algiers, a suburb of New Orleans with her her husband Chris and their three children, ages 10, 7 and 2, who she home schools among her colorful, creative art that fills the house.

Rachaela will be presenting her work in Coconut Grove for the first time this year, in fact, this will be her first time anywhere in Florida. It's supposed to be a hot weekend, but coming from New Orleans, I'm sure she is used that type of weather.

I asked her about her work, it seems like a lot of old advertisements are the main theme, "You nailed it on the old advertisement theme - much of my work is inspired by the many nameless folk artists of the past who are responsible for everything from drug store signs to barn side paintings to circus banners. I love the bold use of color and often primitive look to the characters. I am interested in the concept of advertisement over reality and feel that in many cases, the art is better than the actual product (or person in cases of show business)," says Rachaela.

She's been on the road, doing art shows for about four or five years, "But in that short time I have been lucky to get into some of the finest shows I could have asked for. Some of the more prominent ones would include Cherry Creek in CO, Artisphere in SC, Jazz Fest in LA, Plaza Arts Festival in MO, and Utah Arts Festival in UT. Lately I have been doing shows with a traveling Expo called the Oddities and Curiosities Expo," she says.

She has received awards over the years; 2017 and 18 were especially nice to her, she received Best of Show at Jazz Fest in 2017, Best in Category at Artisphere and Second in Show at Utah Arts Festival. 

Her work is classified as a mixed media, primarily done in wood and secondarily, in acrylic. She said, "I incorporate fabric, lighting, found materials, reclaimed architectural elements and hardware and anything else that may be prudent to the work in my eyes."

Rachaela says that her studio is "fairly humble." "It started as on small work desk in my living room and the porch in my back yard and has grown to an entire room inside my house and my carport is now a full blown wood shop - you could expect to see a wooden work bench, Miter saw, drill press, jig saw (so many saws actually!) sanders, band saw, table saw and piles and piles of wood -  I have shelves and cabinets with various objects, wood, fabrics, nails, tools. You name it.  A far cry from even a year ago when I had one power tool and couldn’t ever find my pencil.

The DiRosaria family

"I have always been an artist and at the same time always tried to NOT be an artist. We are taught that artists are unorganized, impractical, and are financially unstable. I left art behind when I left high school. I was a young mother and wasn’t able to attend school past high school, and just wanted to support my self and my son. Eventually art came back to me, and it quickly became obvious that not only was it an option, it was the best option. I am largely self-taught and and honestly pretty uneducated in terms of art, so I would say that life and all the unknowns are what inspires me most, the desire to inspire and be inspired drives me to move forward," she went on.

"I have always wanted to travel and never felt like I had the time and resources to do so to the extent that I had wanted to. Art has made it possible for me to go places I would have never seen without it and meet people that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Seeing parts of America, the different cultures, people and ways of life are honestly a huge inspiration.  I love seeing our beautiful country and all the people and towns."

These are the other artists we profiled who will be at the arts festivals this weekend:
Richard Lorenz
Joyce Nelson
Josh Brooke Coté
Larry Shane
Kyle Pearce