Provided by Mara Charron
John Wall Schaefer
July 5 1940 - May 18 2019
 

Born in Olympia, Washington, John Schaefer lived and worked in many places including New York, California, and New Mexico. The majority of John’s life was spent in Washington state, where he had studios in Seattle, Twisp, the Skagit Valley, and finally, Port Townsend where he spent the last twenty years of his life.
John was known by, and friends with, many Northwest artists. John’s close friends included Richard Gilkey, Michael Clough and Leo Kenney.
Especially in the last twenty years, John was a dedicated and prolific painter working from the time he got up, until evening, when he would take a break to walk to a pub for a beer before dinner and sometimes continue painting after dinner. His living room was his studio, and on his table were books of poetry, always one by Charles Bukowski.
John’s method was to first create a loose, expressive underpainting using brushes and palette knife, over which he would apply more (mostly) muted colors, and, finally, primarily done in palette knife, he painted a powerful structure-creating motif such as: color-infused bands of off-white; small circles juxtaposed over larger squares; larger circles—often sectioned, to name a few. These are highly layered works, the under-painting subtly showing through, with intricate surface treatment, all
deceptively flat. While speaking broadly of his work, John mentioned that an aspect of it, an underlying action, is the movement from chaos to order. The numbers of bands, or squares, or circles in each work are not random.
John was survived by his brother Norman Schaefer, daughter Mara Charron whom he deeply loved and cherished, son-in-law Lee and two grandchildren, Cassius and Franke.