The Rural We: Bobbie Fachini
The market manager, yoga instructor and bartender finds a common strand running through all of her jobs.
A Becket, Mass. resident, Bobbie Fachini embodies what is colloquially known as the “Berkshire Shuffle” — that practice local creatives have of juggling multiple jobs, gigs or assignments to make a living. She has a full-time job as market manager of the Moscow Ballet with offices in Pittsfield, but she also teaches yoga and tends bar at the Gateways Inn in Lenox. There is a thread running between all of her jobs, she says. “Curiosity and appreciation of the arts connect all parts of my life,” as she explains here.
I grew up in Savoy (Massachusetts) and went to Simon’s Rock, studying fine art. But what do you do with an art degree? After graduation (and later) I worked at the Norman Rockwell Museum. That’s where I fell in love with museums, and decided to go back to school and find out more about the museum world, and how to make a living in that environment.
The Berkshires have a way of drawing you back. After grad school I went back to the Norman Rockwell Museum and also worked at Arrowhead, trying to blast off in a career in that world. But life gets in the way, so I went back to food service work. I was working three or four jobs, and I still do that. I go back and forth between wondering if that’s okay or not okay. Most of the time I feel it’s okay.
As market manager for the Moscow Ballet, I do a lot of box office work and promotion of events. We have about 150 cities on the Great Russian Nutcracker tour each year, and I watch over 40 or so. It’s a massive operation run by a small local team.
Somewhere along the line I started studying yoga. That’s my love. It’s art history — I teach a lot about yoga history, images of early people connected to the tradition, and talk about philosophy. Every class I teach is connected to the life we live. What we do on our yoga mat is a reflection of the life we live off the yoga mat. I teach at Cutting Edge Fitness and Martial Arts in Adams and Berkshire Yoga Dance & Fitness in Pittsfield.
This is my fifth season as a bartender at Gateways. That’s connected to the arts, too. People come to hear the music on their way back from Tanglewood, or they come in as tourists and want to know what the Berkshires has to offer.
In all my jobs, I try to identify what people are needing, and try to offer it to them in an open, compassionate way. My work life, varied as it is, has been a true opportunity to meet a lot of people in a lot of fields. It’s more than my work life, it's my social life, the way I meet people.
