We recently connected with Rachi Farrow and have shared our conversation below.

Rachi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

On 9/10/2009 I reached into the mailbox and was stung by a wasp or perhaps several. I’d had several allergic reactions to wasps and bees over many years, so I knew immediately that another was under way. This one turned out to be anaphylactic. I’d forgotten to get a new epipen and was out of Benadryl so John (my husband) and I got into the van and headed out to the nearest pharmacy, an 8-ish mile drive. To make a long story short, we’d were about a half-block from home when I died.
When John realized I was no longer conscious he pulled onto the front yard of our friends Jan and Chris who happened to be outside. He told them to call 911. Before calling, Jan ran around our van a few times crying out “Rachi is dead. My friend Rachi is dead!”
The fire engine was less than a mile away and arrived first. The ambulance followed as it had to come the same 8-ish miles. I think someone injected something that revived me and I rode in the ambulance to the nearest hospital, way farther than those 8-ish miles.
By the time I was in the ER I was awake and aware and ready to discuss what I’d experienced while I was dead. But no one would allow me to tell them.
What I’ve learned is that no one wants to know what happened when I was dead except those people who have also been dead and returned. I’d had one of the most meaningful and interesting experiences of my life and all I got were deaf ears.
At the hospital the ER docs did some enzyme tests and told me I had died. They’d determined it by counting the enzymes to find out if I’d had a heart attack or if I’d died. I knew I’d died, but like I said, nobody would listen to me. I spent that night in the hospital. John drove me home the next day after my carotid arteries were checked.
I only began to understand this was stressful for John until I got home. So stressful that I stopped talking about my death until sometime the next February.
But… I knew how meaningful my death was and i thought about it a lot. I decided that my death should have an impact on others, that I had to share it. But I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to do or how to do it or when. So I just kept on working on making my art and hoping I’d figure it out some day.
It wasn’t until 2014 that I received a relevant message while I was sleeping. The message was that everyone is born with a voice. That my voice is brightly colored. That I am to use my voice in my art. Loud, clear and brightly colored. Two years passed. On 1/30/2016 I realized what I was supposed to do and how.

to be continued…

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was born an artist. First one who told me was my mother. Then I got to know more people and a lot of them also told me I’m an artist. My mother started me out with crayons. By the time I was around 7 she enrolled me in an adult oil painting class and gave me my first set of oils. I’m 80 now, so we’re going back a long time, back to the days when i was playing hide and seek with the kids on the block. But at home I was on my bedroom floor, painting in oils on canvas.
Over the past 80 years i’ve worked with many mediums, experimented a lot and to this day there’s been nothing I’d rather have been doing. I’d like to be in my studio every day but sometimes things prevent me from being there.

Since 1990 I’ve only painted on recycled used canvases, using recycled materials. Except for the paint. I only use new paint, the best paint i can buy.

Now I must regress and go back to where i left off on the last page…

continued (from the last page)… It was on 1/30/2016 that I became an Artivist.
On that day I walked out to San Carlos Bay on the Gulf of Mexico, the water behind my house, hoping to photograph a spectacular sunset. A bright glint of orange light caught my eye when i got to the water. Upon further inspection I saw that the water itself was glowing orange. I’d lived right there for 12 years and went out to photograph the sunsets over the water almost daily and this was the first time I saw orange water. So, I contacted local water quality groups, their leaders and other clean water activists, met them, attended meetings and began reading lots of books on the topic. I began working closely with the South West Florida Clean Water Movement (SWFLCWM) and was soon creating all of their posters and flyers for whatever we were involved with. The movement soon became bold and colorful!
In the studio I began painting about pollution, toxic water, its history and what could/should be done to remedy the situation. As I’d been instructed during my dream about 2 years prior, I was using my voice. Loud. Colorful. Bright. And delivering messages, important information that could convince us humans what we had to do to save the Earth, to stop this needless destruction. All the while we continued making our planet a place that in the future will not sustain us.

Over the past 10 years I’ve had outdoor art shows, all done using Artivism.
I’ve participated in gallery shows, too, but I like making my own shows. I feel much more connected to the people who come. And it seems the time has come to say that although our true homestead has been in rural Vermont since 1970, that from 1994 until recently I’ve been a snowbird and had a studio and worked in FL for half of each year. Thus my work about polluted water in FL. I’m once again a full time VTer and I’ve had a brick and mortar studio/gallery on Main Street in town since 2017. I’ve worked there when in VT full time since Covid. I’ll be working on Main Street unless i’m using mediums that I can’t use there, like spray paints and messy stuff. I enjoy and learn so much while connecting with my community down on Main Street.
I also have a big bright studio in a repurposed old barn here on the farm.
I realize how badly I failed with my first Artivism project, Clean Water. But I’ve continued working as an Artivist, searching for the next important subject to focus on. My art continues to be my voice. Loud, bright and colorful.
When the Supreme Court voted to end Roe v Wade, I made a painting of a hand with a raised middle finger that I called “Fuck the Supremes” and hung it on Main Street where it captured a lot of attention. It was so popular I kept on painting the image, differently each time for nearly 3 years. It became the only best-seller I’d ever created.
Then it was once again time to move on. Since 2023, I’d been living under Project 2025 in FL and I knew pretty well what our country would be facing if a different party won the election. I began a new chapter in Artivism that began with Project2025 and is now about current events A new president moved into the White House and so Artivism continues with my loud, bold and colorful voice.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Yes.
To continue to be an Artivist using the voice that was revealed to me in a dream years ago. Using bold words and bright colors. To remain connected to my community which is currently divided. To Create my truth using art.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I can be in my studio every day. I get to do what I like doing more than anything, making art. I don’t get there everyday because life sometimes gets in the way.
I don’t work during specific hours. I’m a working if the all the lights are on.
And about the lights being on… The lights in the windows are always on, every single day. This goes back to when i first rented the store on Main. One day my husband told me he felt sad being down town at night because Main Street had gone dark. Many businesses had closed because of the bad economy. Only 3 places were lit up at night. John suggested he rent one of the empty stores, that I could use it like a gallery, that we would leave it lit 27/7/365, that I never had to be there. And so, we lit Main Street, filled it with art and the rest as they say is history. Main Street remains brightly lit.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: rachifarrow
• Facebook: Rachi Farrow