Creative Mind Podcast Episode 48: Caroline Baca-Vecchio on Art as Continuous Learning

August 20, 2021

From Spring Show to the pages of Juxtapoz Magazine, MFA student and fine art painter Caroline Baca-Vecchio has been riding a whirlwind of success, all the while selling her house and moving her family to Germany.

This however is not the first time that Caroline has packed up her brushes and easel in a mover half way around the world. She has taught art to students in Germany; Okinawa and Tokyo, Japan; and back in her hometown of Fresno.

Caroline has worked to guide the next generation of creative youth as an Art educator in K-12 schools for over 10 years, Teaching was where she started but it was the starting point to bigger things. “I would sometimes draw on the chalkboard before the students would arrive to class and we would be studying crosshatching or something. And so, I just like go all out and they had come to class and I’d have this big drawing on the board and, I would find myself just getting lost in those moments.”

When it came time for Caroline to go back to school herself, it was the online program that fit her schedule and more importantly the “new normal” of studying during the pandemic.

That was huge for me, having the ability to connect one-on-one with my professors both through Zoom and just this constant dialogue through online chats and online messaging.
Caroline Baca-Vecchio, MFA, School of Fine Art

Getting to a point to where you can work and create is hard for any student but, “that feedback has been huge, down to the specifics.”

But as always it is about the work, and her work is stunning focusing on curiosity. “I think a lot of the inspiration for that was just from following my daughter around just kind of came naturally. I didn’t do a lot of pre-sketching for some of these paintings. It just came by talking with my daughter about an idea of what I’m interested in. I told her I want you to just have fun and I want you to explore and enjoy the environment. As an artist I’ve been trying throughout the years to not lose that to just stay curious,” she said.