Joe Kafer
As a child, when walking up the hill to St. Mary’s Elementary School, I remember counting the many shades of green that composed the forest surrounding our town on three sides. Even though I never had an art class until my senior year the beauty of western Wisconsin planted a seed of desire in mind, a desire to express myself through art. My first twenty one years were spent in Fountain City. After graduating with a degree in art education, I moved to New London, Wisconsin, meet and married my wife, Cathy, watched two children grow up and taught art for thirty two years. Our daughter Rachel, her husband and three children unexpectedly moved to my home town where they found jobs. My wife and I decided we wanted to be near enough to watch the grandchildren grow up and so we move here as well.
For the most part, my paintings are peaceful and thought provoking pictures of people and places that I like to take time out to think about; to soak up some of the feelings that come through, whether by means of color, or line, topic. An old friend had it right in my book. Whenever I would finish a painting, he would stop for a long time, just looking at it and then express what it was that the painting did for him. Sometimes a realistic painting will tempt a viewer to look at it, recognize it, and move on without much analyzing going on. My goal is to create paintings that are less realistic and become something that the viewer would enjoy on many levels.
