From rafaelcanada.com (archived)
All About Rafael
As with any true artist, the need to create still propels Rafael, who – in the sixth decade of an intensely prolific creative career – still wakes up each day with new ideas and an urgent need to realize them in his art.
Born into a well-established Jewish family in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1938, he lost his entire family to the concentration camps by the time he was three.
His mother and he were the only survivors.
As a young boy, Rafael’s first creations were toys, which he made from the only materials readily available in a country still scarred by war — Russian and American ammunition. By age nine, he was crafting his own style of fountain pens and lighters, from broken and spare parts. These creative seeds would one day fuel an explosion of creative talent, taking hand-crafted jewellery to its greatest heights in his chosen country of Canada.
When Rafael was 11, his mother died and he was basically on his own until he met and married a pretty, young woman he grew up with in Belgrade.
In 1960, Rafael and his wife moved to Israel, where they soon became the parents of two beautiful daughters, Ruth and Dalia. (pictured to the right)
To supplement his income, while he studied mechanical engineering, he once again turned to his natural talents, fashioning sculptures, furniture, aquariums, jewellery and interior designing.
In 1970, Rafael set his sights on Canada. And it was here that his professional artistic career had its unlikely start. Like many new immigrants to Canada, he enrolled in English classes in George Brown college. Out of gratitude to his teacher Barbara, Rafael made his very first copper necklace, with few basic tools, as a gift to her.
It was a fateful move: she loved it. Her fellow teachers loved it. Students loved it… the entire world loved it! Rafael called it – “the original design,” and it remains the most popular and best-selling piece of jewellery to this day.
In less than a year, Rafael became one of the most successful designers of hand-made jewellery in Canadian history. He opened a factory and his own chain of stores, and his popularity and reputation grew exponentially. His work became available in more than 1,000 Canadian retail outlets, and his retail presence expanded to the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan.
Rafael’s jewellery was boldly ahead of its time: with his training in engineering and a lifetime of working with his hands, he brought to his designs a fascination with moving parts. Materials included his favourite copper, as well as brass and sterling silver. He soon added mosaic glass from Murano, Italy, which he made into thousands of shades of brightly coloured stones. With his irreverent and highly distinctive designs, the flamboyant Rafael became a media darling. And his choice of materials — silver, copper, brass and glass — commanded attention as society moved away from a polyester and plastic world into all things natural.
In 1973, he was commissioned to create the crown for the Miss Canada beauty pageant. He worked with Marilyn Brooks, designing pieces to complement her clothing line and participating in some of her famous fashion shows. Margaret Trudeau wore one of his necklaces to the opening of Parliament (February, 1974) and later, Rafael designed a model antique car for her husband Pierre, then Prime Minister. He created jewellery for Lorne Green, Liberace, Muhammad Ali, Redd Foxx, Paul Anka and many other celebrities. He expanded into sculpture, home accessories and clocks. To honour their appearance at a Canadian charity event, Rafael was commissioned in April of 1977 to make a massive maple leaf for both Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, using a total of more than six pounds of 14-karat gold!
By the late 1970s, Rafael had sold over half a million pieces of his trendy, fashion-forward jewellery. (Now highly collectible around the world.)
Inevitably, the business peaked and Rafael closed his active retail empire to move his life and his art to Austin, Texas.
In the 1980s, he turned his artistic focus to designing pieces using gold, diamonds and other precious stones, and, for the next ten years, he enjoyed a life with his new Texan wife. (pictured on the right, also with Famous dancer Mikael Barishnokov) He won many international design competitions and continued to attract the attention of the media.
Interestingly, Rafael’s two daughters inherited their father’s artistic gifts, working and learning with him throughout the 80’s. Today, both women are accomplished jewellery designers with successful businesses in New York and Bali.
By 1990, Rafael had grown tired of both the pace of his business and the rat race of the West. His quest for change led him to India, where he spent eight years in Osho Ashram. This was a time of no work, no selling, NO stress of any kind… only meditation and peace.
In 1999, he married a Japanese artist named Eriko, and together they created a household in Goa, India, which became a magnet for and the unofficial headquarters of an international artisan community.
There, they created a wide variety of art – clocks, sculpture, paintings, jewellery and more.
But in June, 2000, they were shocked to learn of Rafael’s diagnosis with Multiple Myeloma, a rare form of blood cancer. The radiation and chemotherapy treatments severely weakened him. It was time to go home. Rafael was homesick for Toronto, so he and Eriko decided to go back to Canada to continue medical treatments. They returned to the Manulife Centre, Canada’s tallest apartment residence, where Rafael had resided at the height of his swinging ’70s celebrity.
In May, 2002, after many months being bedridden, Rafael made the decision to stop taking his prescribed drug regimen of Thalidomide. Dr. Keith Stewart, a world-renowned hematologist at Princess Margaret Hospital supported the decision.
A few weeks later, his creative soul was reborn and he began making art once again, starting this time with clocks, perhaps more appropriately described as sculptures that also happen to tell time.
The first clock created quite a stir with friends and neighbours. Rafael was delighted – he considers it the best and most beautiful clock he’s ever made and, encouraged by the response, he created over 150 clocks, most of which were sold immediately.
As the clocks gained prominence, the interest in Rafael jewellery was piqued once again. In June 2003, Rafael jewellery was revived as he began making silver rings, which were of the greatest demand. Those creative moments have spurred a wide collection of gold and silver plated designs.
But it didn’t stop there. Always the artist, new ideas began to flourish. Some of Rafael’s most exciting designs are being created today. All of them are hand signed “Rafael Canada 2003”.
Despite his advancing and painful illness, Rafael still has an incredible enthusiasm. This is an artist who has lived a large and fearless life of love, risk and reward – and his latest work exemplifies a man at the peak of his artistry. He will leave behind over a million pieces he has created in his lifetime.
From engology.com (archived)
Rafael Alfandary
Mechanical Engineer and International Jewellery Designer
The following is a short overview of Rafael’s professional career, written as a press release for media who are interested in Rafael. Still in progress is a complete biography of Rafael’s life, which he is working on and plans to post here soon.
PRESS RELEASE: RAFAEL, 2002
It’s said that true artists have a need to create that can inform and direct their whole lives. That truism is a common theme in the life of Rafael, who – in the sixth decade of an intensely prolific creative career – still wakes up each day with new ideas and an urgent need to realize them in his art.
As a boy in Belgrade, Rafael created toys out of Russian and American ammunition – materials that were freely available to a child in a country scarred by war. At 10, he was a local authority on pens and lighters, creating his own new “brands” from broken parts. Seeking a better career opportunity and life for his family, Rafael moved to Israel in 1960 and studied to be a mechanical engineer. In his spare time from his studies, he made sculptures, paintings and his first pieces of furniture.
In 1970, Rafael set his sights on Canada, where his professional artistic career had an unlikely start. He didn’t speak a word of English, and upon moving to Toronto he enrolled in a local language class at George Brown College to accelerate his assimilation into the culture of his newly adopted home. As a gesture of gratitude to his English teacher, Rafael made his very first necklace as a gift to her. It was a fateful move; within four months, Rafael the engineer became Rafael the artist, and quickly became one of the most successful jewelry designers in Canadian history. He opened a factory and his own chain of stores, and his popularity and reputation grew exponentially. His work became available in more than a thousand Canadian retail outlets, and his retail presence expanded to the United States, Europe, Australia, and Japan.
Rafael’s jewelry was boldly ahead of its time: with his training in engineering, he brought to his jewelry designs a fascination with moving parts and non-traditional materials like copper wire, brass sheeting, and Mosaic glass from Morano, Italy, which he made into thousands of shades of brightly-coloured glass stones. His irreverent and highly distinctive designs were as dramatic as Cleopatra’s crown jewels, but with a fresh modern twist. They were flamboyant, they were groovy, and they made Rafael a household name and a media darling.
Margaret Trudeau wore one of his necklaces to the opening of Parliament. Rafael designed a model antique car for her husband Pierre, the Prime Minister. He created jewelry for Lorne Green, Liberace, Muhammad Ali, Redd Foxx and Paul Anka. He was commissioned to create the crown for the 1973 Miss Canada beauty pageant. He worked closely with Marilyn Brooks, designing pieces to complement her clothing line and participating in her major fashion shows. He branched out into sculpture and home accessories, and he introduced silver and semi-precious stones into his repertoire. As a tribute to Bob Hope and Bing Crosby for appearing at a Canadian charity event, Rafael made each of them a massive maple leaf, using more than six pounds of 14-karat gold. By the late 1970s, Rafael had sold close to a million pieces of his trendy, fashion-forward jewelry. Today, many of those pieces are professionally collected and the market for vintage Rafael continues to grow.
Inevitably, the business peaked, and Rafael closed his active retail empire to move his life and his art to Austin, Texas. In the 1980s, his artistic focus became designing pieces in gold, diamonds and other precious stones, and for the next ten years, he enjoyed a life with his growing family in one of Austin’s wealthiest neighbourhoods. He won many international design competitions and continued to attract the attention of the media. Interestingly, Rafael’s two daughters inherited their father’s artistic gifts; today, both women are accomplished jewelry designers with successful businesses in New York and Bali.
By the late 1980s, Rafael had grown tired of the pace of his business and the rat race of the West. He decided to take a break, and that sabbatical took him to India, where he spent eight years on an ashram in the pursuit of meditation and peace. He met and married a Japanese woman named Eriko, and together they created a household in India that became a magnet and unofficial headquarters for an international artisan community.
In June 2000, Rafael was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a rare form of blood cancer. Shortly after his diagnosis, he chose to return to Toronto with Eriko, and moved back into the Manulife Centre, which he remembered fondly from his days holding court in a swinging bachelor pad at the height of his ‘70s celebrity. And – after years of absence from his jewelry-making tools – Rafael once again began to create with his hands, turning this time to clocks.
Rafael’s fascination with time, moving mechanisms and pendulums had led him to make many clocks in his life. Wherever he lived he had been surrounded by clocks, most of them of his own creation – and most of them more appropriately described as sculptures that also happen to tell the time.
In the early summer of 2002 he and his co-creator Eriko made their very first clock together. Rafael was delighted – he considers it the best and most beautiful clock he’s ever made. Friends and neighbours of the couple loved it, and Rafael discovered that his new artistic passion helped his physical strength, as did having a gifted partner like Eriko to do the more strenuous work and collaborate with him. In just a few short months, Rafael and Eriko have created more than 45 clocks in an array of stunning designs, and their output grows daily. Despite his advancing illness, Rafael is thrilled with his latest and last artistic project. It’s an exciting new chapter in the story of an artist who has lived a large and fearless life of love, risk and reward – and the clocks themselves exemplify a man at the peak of his artistry.
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