Inspired by Joseph Raffael – December 2, 2021

The finished painting on my kitchen counter. Each square is about 5 1/2″ and the over all is about 34″ square.

I learned that he was gone via a text from Patti:  “Did you see that Joseph Raffael passed away?”

Patti Sulewski is a beautiful artist and beautiful person from Auburn, WA who tracked me down during the pandemic. She joined us on Zoom when we were only meeting there.  She learned of Joseph Raffael and his work on our Zoom sessions.  And like many of us, she became a big fan.

Patti texted – “I’m sad – no more Joseph paintings.”

The stream of beauty and aliveness that this one singular creator gave the world has come to its end.

I wrote this on the condolence page on his website:

Joseph and his art were towering figures for most of my life.  His paintings are a legacy of the way he saw and appreciated beauty and are an enormous gift to humanity.  I am grateful beyond measure for his giant spirit and the inspiration his art has given to me and so many other painters, especially watercolorists, to make our own beauty.  I wonder if he ever knew how much permission he gave us to just go ahead and paint beautiful flowers with washy colors.  Joseph, I hope you are in peace with Matthew and Lannis.

I wrote a post several years ago where I share my connection to his life and work throughout my life.  I am painting beauty (as I see it) in watercolor, largely because of the inspiration I received from his paintings.  This inspiration is shared by my mom, Niz and it ripples out through the artists who all paint with me in Larkspur. 

We all love his paintings, which inspired us to respond in the way we know best – by painting.  The idea came for each of us to take a small piece of one of his paintings and paint it ourselves.  We poured over the books, exhibition catalogs and artist magazines for a section of a painting.  The aim was to not paint a “thing” per se, nothing in its entirety, so that no one square would grab the eye too much.  

The result is 36 5 1/2″ squares, each the work of 29 artists (some of us painted two) – of varying degrees of experience and differing styles. 

The most common response amongst us, to having done this, was how intricate his paintings were and how fascinating it was to sort of get inside his creative mind by re-tracing his brush strokes – each in our own way.

I love that there is a full sampling of his work – older work as well as one he painted this year.  Flowers (of course) but also, water, fish, shells, his pets, and his wife Lannis all show up here.  My mom, Niz painted the last square – a piece of one of his colorful borders. 

Thank you to everyone who participated in this project – and of course to Joesph Raffael for being the reason for it all.

Here are a few more photos of the painting, from interesting angles.