framed
"Joe Patrick was a professor of mine in grad. school at the Univ. of Iowa. He gave me a huge break early on by choosing me as his Teaching Assistant, at a time when I was in a "financially precarious" position. This was in 1973-74. We kept in touch over the years-I invited him to be a Visiting Artist at both Northwest Missouri State, and at Arizona State. He (and other faculty) invited me to return to Iowa as a Visiting Artist in 1999, the year after my wife Gayle died. When Jane and I began driving back and forth to Mich. 9 years ago, we would stop in Iowa City and visit Joe and his wife Genie at least once a year. Joe and Genie came to the opening of my first solo show at Tory Folliard in Milwaukee in 2010. I had a small painting in the show with a landscape and the word "try" carved into a centrally placed white rock. As I was walking around with Joe at the opening, he dragged me over to this painting, pointed at the word and said- "pure genius." I'll never forget that. He was an amazing guy, completely alive, and interested and excited about everything. He battled stage 4 prostate cancer for the last 3 years of his life, dying on Jane's birthday, Nov. 6, 2019. He was 81. I miss him a lot." - Robert D. Cocke
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