Flavia Bacarella is an amazing artist whose work pulls you in with its color, its directness, and its life force.  She is primarily a painter, with a remarkable eye for color, shade, and mood, so it’s not surprising to hear her say that what she has always “most loved about painting is the visual pleasure I gain from the colors.”  You can see this love of color in her paintings of scenes from the farm in upstate New York where she lives with her husband, Keith Stewart, an organic farmer and writer.  In all of her paintings, woodcuts, and drawings, you can see her love of her work.

Belgian Blues

Oops 50 interviewed Flavia Bacarella recently, so that we could introduce our readers to this wonderfully gifted artist and her work.

Oops 50:  When/how did you become a painter?

Up on the Hill

FB:  I started painting after graduating as an English major from college.  As a child, though, I always was drawn to ‘coloring’ and was totally passionate about my 64-color crayola set.  I drew with these crayons non-stop as a kid.  But I didn’t study art other than an occasional art course in grade school and high school until after college.  When I started studying, I took a drawing course, and the teacher encouraged me to become a painter.  I started studying painting at night until I was able to take a fellowship leave and a couple of special leaves without pay in order to participate in both a full-time studio program at the Studio School in NYC and later earn a graduate degree from Brooklyn College.

Buckwheat

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