Barbara Carrasco received an MFA in art from the California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from UCLA. Her work ranges from miniature drawings to monumental murals. A key figure in the Chicano Arts Movement, Carrasco has been socially and politically engaged throughout her career as an artist-activist, working closely with community and movement leaders including Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, and organizations for social change, such as the United Farm Workers (UFW) union and the Dolores Huerta Foundation. Carrasco’s work has been exhibited throughout the US, Europe, and Latin America. She is the recipient of several grants: The Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department Window Grant for Literature (1990); LACE, Rockefeller Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation, and NEA (1992): J. Paul Getty Fund for the Visual Arts, Visual Artist Fellowship/Painting (1988(: and the COLA award from the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department (2000). Carrasco’s original mural sketches and drawings are housed in the Permanent Collection of Works on Paper at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, and a permanent collection of her papers has been established and archived at Stanford University Special Collections Mexican American Collections. Among her most recent accomplishments are: a solo exhibition of her work, A Brush With Life: Mid-Career Survey Exhibition, at the Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles City College (February 9 – May 1, 2008); and a collaboration with the Girl Scouts of America in the creation of a new merit badge for leadership that features Carrasco’s image of Dolores Huerta.
