 Rafart
represents a very important familiar tradition. His family has been
in the profession. I remember his brother very dearly, his other brother,
another master. We have known each other since we were kids.
He has the wisdom of his tradition, a city, a world, that is the world
of Barcelona, a world of great culture, great crafts, great duties
of crafts: ceramic, glass, enamel and mainly craft-jewelery.
It comes to him through that cultural experience and it also runs
in his blood for he comes from a family of craftmen. They are not
only craftmen, they are also men of intellingence. Pepe is a man
with a great sensibility, holding a contained personal culture that
he does not show off but it is in his work.
His work has all the reality of the most ancient tradition, all
the force and power, all the impact of the most modern creation.
Pepe has also the skill, which is the most important thing. He has
the skill because some people dream something and then make something
else, not him. He does his work and it is beautiful to see that
transformation in the sheet of pure silver threads, whose laws he
makes sure are the best and highest thus going to Taxco and other
cities where it is still done according to the best tradition.
 We
see him designing, dreaming and sculpting his pieces. He has that
possibility that others do not have. He usually links other elements
of nature like: marble, hardwoods, stones: hard, semiprecious and
even the most beautiful ones. He has an enormous human sensibility
and a proverbial generosity. Few people I have seen that in love
with its own work, disregard all economic considerations by the
work and for the work. At least in my own experience.
He has what he deserves, but Cuba is in debt with him. I think
that his work is not yet loved enough. Although at the moment of
the trascendental encounter in the Vatican between Commander in
Chief Fidel Castro and the Holy Father John Paul 2nd the gift in
the hands of a whole nation to His Holiness is a work by Rafart.
And this has an extraordinary meaning, to have that splendid snail,
that nacreous Nautilus which moves like a living creature be part
of one of the most important collections in the world.
That is, among others, proof of the appreciation of those who know
Rafart and at the same time the awe felt by those who receive, order
or have one of his works, whether on a ring, necklace, a mirror,
a cigar box or a monumental sculpture.
I have asked him to sculpt several monumental pieces for Havana,
so that Havana has a monumental work by him. And in the Church of
Paula where every artist have brought one of their works, the artists
of a great generation, there is a votive lamp and a cross that he
took to Peru to the International Meeting of Craft-jewelers and
applied arts that explain themselves who he is, where he comes from
and what does Rafarf aspire.
See more information on Pepe
Rafart and other plastic artists in
La
Peña.
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