From the beginning

Hey, I’m Rachael Baskerville, but my friends call me Rae.

I’ve been compelled to create for as long as I can remember, and since I was very small I would leap at any opportunity to play with art materials, dress up, direct my cousins in plays, and tell stories. Cameras were the shiny forbidden fruit that I was never old enough to be trusted with for the first few years, but would savour the rare moments I was allowed to hold one in my hands at a family event and snap a few frames.

I was fortunate enough to be given my first camera on my 8th birthday just before a family trip/reunion in Paris. That trip was a fundamentally formative experience for someone who always knew she wanted to be an artist. I was sitting on the train on my way to visit our family outside of Paris when a man stood up and handed me a piece of paper as he got off the train. It was a small portrait of me with the words ‘petite fille du train’. I was so deeply struck by a sense of magic and awe. I saw the way art could connect people, the way art can see us, show us things about ourselves and the world, and bring us to terms with ourselves.

Producing art and telling stories has been an obsession and source of catharsis ever since. It has earned me so many connections, adventures, and experiences, and on multiple occasions saved my life and pulled me out of some dark places.

I owe this great love of mine to two of my other great loves. My mother and grandmother. They’re two bold, brilliant, stylish, playful, kind, creative women who exude integrity, wit, and love for life. They gave me my love for travel, food, fashion, the arts, and making friends with strangers. They taught me to ceaselessly pursue what I love, to find magic in the tiny moments, and beauty in the everyday.

That’s a small snapshot of who I am and why I do what I do. And yes, I’m still wearing the same beret from the train.