A Legacy in Pastels — Carole Buschmann
By Kate Hakala
In a blog post in 2014, Carole Buschmann described herself as a “pastellist, sometimes blogger, always wife, mother, sister, daughter, grandmother, gardener, reader, traveler, well, you get the idea!”
Beyond what was a full personal life, she had both a well-recognized career as an artist and as an educator.
Born Carole Jo McLeod in 1944 in Madison, Wisconsin, her parents were both educators. She attended the University of Kansas at Lawrence and earned a BFA in Printmaking and a BA in Education.
One summer, while showing her art at a Salina, Kansas “Art in the Park” event, she met Lt. John “Jack” Buschmann, an officer stationed at nearby Schilling Air Force Base. After a wedding in 1966, Carole and Jack lived a military life, hopping from Cape Cod, Okinawa, Virginia, and Washington DC, and finally settling in Colorado.
Family, traveling, and art were the cornerstones of her life, and whenever possible she combined them. While spending summers in France she learned and practiced the art of “plein air” pastel painting, a French phrase describing “a painting executed out of doors.”
Carole described the process as critical to her craft, for “a plein air painter races the changing light and must just go with whatever the environment throws at them. I find it invigorating to solve visual problems in a 2 or 3-hour window of time. I am forced to make rapid decisions in an ever-changing light. In these moments I’ve learned to trust my artistic judgment about color and line.”
“Pastels are the tools that I use to interpret the emotions that everyday scenes bring to me.”
“While traveling with fellow artists and family, I have made colorful observations sitting and painting in the corners of small-town cafes, busy markets, the shade of Roman aqueducts, and quiet gardens. I am always influenced by the vastness of the beauty of the West and I carry that with me wherever I go.”
Her pastels were exhibited and collected across the United States and Europe. In Denver, her work that focused on her European adventures was shown in many galleries and for brief periods in the Colorado Capitol building. Carole was particularly proud to have been designated a “Signature Member” of the Pastel Society of Colorado, one of the largest and most renowned pastel societies in the world.
Following in the footsteps of her parents, Carole was also an award-winning art educator. She taught at the Stanley British Primary School in Denver and for eighteen years at Colorado Academy. In 2000 she received the Yoeman Fisher Award for Teaching Excellence. She was also awarded the McHugh Family enrichment grant and earned the faculty rank of Master Teacher. Of teaching, she said that art enabled her students to recognize themselves as artists.
Carole Buschmann passed away on September 23, 2021.
In a blog post dated April, 2013, Carole wrote:
“….much will be written of new beginnings. It is spring, after all. Just to prove that is so in my family, we are expecting the birth of our first grandson. Then just a wee bit later we will celebrate another family event – the wedding of our first daughter. I am full of happiness and I have much to think about and much to write but as with all of us, I also have a full day. What could be better. So I have turned once again to a wonderful thought voiced by the American Indians.”
We are all creators.
We breathe.
To speak is to form breath and make manifest sound into the world.
As I write I create myself again and again.
Re-create, and breathe.
And I see that I am not one voice but many:
All colors, all sounds, all fears, all loves.
Park Hill Treasures is honored to have Carole Buschmann’s work for sale. Please visit us during store hours to view.