Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Fleischman.
Hi Rachel, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born and raised in Lake Worth, Florida. Growing up in South Florida, I was always surrounded by Florida’s charm; a charm that is unique and not isolating. Whether it was the flora and fauna of my town, people with worn skin and tattooed backs with an interesting story if you caught them in conversation, or the grand art shows that came across West Palm Beach a few times a year, I was always inspired, especially by Florida’s cultural and natural landscape.
My father handed down all of his film cameras to me when I was going into a developmental time in my childhood. I would bring my father’s Minolta XD-11, loaded with Fujifilm that my parents would buy for me, everywhere I went. Day trips to Fort Pierce and Lake Okeechobee and to school, I found that a camera in my hand allowed me to express my young self. I ended up going to Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, where I would then take my mom’s old film point and shoot camera to school with me. I captured my high school’s culture through my eyes and would take the film to 60 Minute Photo on Okeechobee boulvevard during my lunch. I loved what I was doing so much and it felt so innate, especially once I started developing film and printing my own photographs in the darkroom. I further began to express myself more and immersing myself in Palm Beach’s beautiful art community. From hosting art shows in Northwood to having my work up in scattered galleries of the city, I felt so encouraged to make this my life and use my camera as an instrument to express and tell stories of myself and others.
During Covid and after graduating high school in 2020, my parents took a leap and moved to St. Augustine, and I went with them. To be blunt, I hated the move and I hated the town; I wanted my Florida, the Florida I grew up to know and love. Looking back with hindsight, I now know it was just unfamiliarity and uncertainty flooding my young self. Now, a year since graduating with a fine arts degree in photography and four years since that move, I have grown to love this town and its people. Since being able to welcome this new chapter of my life, and not flee it, I have found purpose in the cultural landscape of St. Augustine in myself and in my work. Being in my early twenties and still a new person in this town, I continue to explore and navigate myself, which translates into my work.
I now do my primary work and reside in St. Augustine with my partner, Ben. We are ten minutes from the beach and go there around four or five times a week to talk with the locals of Vilano Beach, which has also turned into a new, ongoing photographic series with commentary of local development and culture. My current work is as expressive as it has ever been, with themes of Florida and its complexities, relationships, friendships, and love. I still travel down to South Florida as much as I can to reconnect with friends in my hometown, see my mom’s side of the family in Fort Lauderdale, and to be involved with the place that will always remain as my roots. I am also an arts educator at a local high school, where I can share my passion and knowledge of the arts with young minds. I continue to find myself everyday through my work and what I do, and I am grateful to know who I have met up in Northeast Florida that have been part of my journey as an artist and human.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It never is a smooth road. At this point in my life, I feel like I have been able to welcome the challenges and struggles and, not necessarily make light of it, but to transmute that energy into my work. Most of my struggles have been internal, but keeping note of those feelings and emotions through my sketchbook pages and photographs has helped me process them and resonate with others.
However, in my work, my greatest struggle, presently, has been the rapidly changing, all-around climate of Florida. Florida has a thriving, yet threatened, culture, and the state is very divided. Locally, there is proposal of a new detention center at Camp Blanding; the Magic Beach Motel of my home beach in Vilano Beach is deemed to be demolished and will succumb to overdevelopment; the state parks I grew up going to, where my parents took me to learn about the manatees and mangroves, seem to constantly be under threat of a golf course or resort. The drive of wanting to speak for those who do not have a voice through my work; it brings up feelings of being an imposter and makes me question what I do and want to do, and even what I should be doing. I create anyways. I do anyways because this work is not just for myself or to express myself; it is communication, an act of something, whether it be love, opposition, gratitude, or even resistance.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My work is primarily photo-based and is rooted in documentary and narrative storytelling. I am passionate about the arts, its history, and I work in other media, but photography has just stuck the most for me as a means of fluid expression and manifestation. My work is a visual back and forth that consistently occurs in my mind, whether it be my current project of doing street-type photography at the beach or creating collages of Polaroid images and oil pastel and writing in my sketchbook.
I think I am most proud of just creating and keeping it going, continuing to explore ideas and myself, and making sure to actually take pride in what I am doing. I am proud of the work I have been creating recently, including my recent photographic work about Vilano Beach, a documentary film I am producing with my partner about St. Augustine, as well as a show I curated with my partner and our close friend that featured their recently debuted documentary film. It is so enriching and fulfilling to gather people together through a common love for the arts and to give local artists the space to connect and share their work. I am not quite sure about what sets me apart from others. I think that everyone, or every artist in this case, has their own individual approach to the world, for the most part, and how they portray it, and I love to witness all of it.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
My partner, Ben, who is also a filmmaker and photographer, has been my greatest teacher, supporter, and my muse for the last almost two years. He has guided me entirely through times of self-doubt and needing affirmation, I have created works focused on him and our relationship that has been published several times including by Polaroid, and he is the most wonderful fellow artist I have gotten the chance to work with. He is the background of all the work I create and my greatest source of inspiration, through his words and his own work.
My parents, Sherry and Steve, are my biggest cheerleaders, and they always have been. They have always pushed me to do what I love, they show immense interest in what I do, and they show up to mostly every show, exhibition, and gallery I am part of. Around a month ago, I had a conversation with my dad about a trip they were going on for their anniversary that coincided with a show opening in Delray Beach. “I am sorry we can’t be there for the opening, you know your mother and I love to be part of all of that and be there for you,” said my dad on the phone. I told him they greatly deserved a getaway and to not worry because there would be plenty more shows and openings for them to go to. “That’s what I like to hear, that is exactly what we want to do,” he responded.
Many of my photographs are of my friends, so they deserve all the credit in the world. All of my friends that stood for pictures in high school and those who I met in college, who also stood for pictures and whom I have immense gratitude for. Our conversations, our drinks together, times at the beach, or fooling around, are the backbone of who I am. Everyone in St. Augustine and Jacksonville that I have met and grown close to and those who are back home in Palm Beach.
Others who deserve immense credit are my college professors, including Alex Diaz and Chris Trice, those I have met just from going about in St. Augustine, like Sandy, John, and JJ, and one of my college high school photography teachers, Brian Delgado. Both sets of my grandparents, Harold and Sheila, and Bernie and Arline, also deserve immense credit, for also being my backbone and for bringing me up to my truest self, whether they are here in this world physically or spiritually.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.rachellfleischman.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rayylauren
Image Credits
Personal Photo by Evan Lepore
