Equine artist Carol Ratafia is sitting in her retail booth at a large Arabian horse show, surrounded by her watercolor paintings and prints. Her husband Les, is away for a moment. She says she needs him there to talk her 35-year career in art: he tells it with more flair. “Neither of us tells each other everything “ she jokes.

He doesn’t know what I know; I don’t know what he knows, between the 2 of us make almost 1 complete person.

Article from "The Arabian Horse Express " Magazine

How it Began

Les arrives and Carol begins her story. She thinks for a moment, then says, “I was… well…” “I think we should tell him the whole story” Les interrupts. “Let me tell you the whole story” “See I told you” Carol says. “Didn’t tell you? I’ll correct him, but it’s more interesting if he tells it.” He pushes up the sleeves on his navy blue sweater and he’s off. “OK, Carol studied art in high school in New York City. Then she went to an Art college there. After that she took a job doing layouts for Lord & Taylor.” “No. It was Saks,” Carol says. “I told you I’d correct him” “OK, so I made a mistake. It was Saks Fifth Avenue. Then she got involved with TV, and then I married her. Then she stopped doing that nonsense and had children” “But I was still doing pastel portraits” she interjects.

Les rolls on. “Yeah, they were nice. But then, Carol, our little Carol, started working in the thea-tuh.” The last word rolls off his tongue in an English accent. “It was off-Broadway,” Carol laughs. Like about 200 miles off-Broadway.” “But it was the same Broadway. Broadway changes as it goes through the Bronx and Riverdale, then it has to go through Yonkers, and then it goes into Dobbs Ferry, and that’s where Carol was off-Broadway. She was playing a song and dance lady: Miss Marmelstein in “I Can Get It For You Wholesale.” Carol shrugs and leans forward. “The reason he’s saying this is it’s the reason I started painting.” Les continues, “Three or four weeks after the play started, we were going to an art show in Dobbs Ferry. We saw all these ladies with their paintings hung out on a wire.” “I said, isn’t that neat? Lets stop. I studied art. Let’s see what they’ve done,” Carol says. “So we stopped, and there was one that caught her attention, a watercolor. She was looking at it and the artist looked at her and said, ‘You played Marmelstein!’” Carol smiles. “So we were talking, and she said, ‘why don’t you study watercolor with my teacher?’ So I did.”

We Became a Real Business

Then I won a prize at the “Greenwich Village” art show; a scholarship to study with Ed Whitney, who happened to be the teacher of my teacher” Carol continues. “He also happened to be the world’s foremost watercolor teacher.” “Yeah, he was like …” Carols voice trails off. “…The major guru of water colorists,” Les finishes.

Then we joined all these art leagues and guilds and societies,” Les says. “The idea there is that they have competitions and prize money for the winners. So we painted for that and made a living out of that. Well, Carol made a living out of it.” “That was before Les got involved in it. Once he got involved with it, it became a real business.

“At the time he owned a burglar and fire alarm company. He put fire alarms in public places, like orphanages, old age homes and hospitals,” she says. “So every time someone tripped the alarm, he went down at 3 o’clock in the morning to set it straight. So we got out of it.”

How Painting Animals Came About

“Then when my son was born. We got a motor home and all of us—three Afghan hounds, a 20-pound cat, three kids, Lester and I—we went in our 21-foot motor home and sold pictures. For five years we went all over the country.” “We were selling pictures of children mostly,” Les says. “I don’t know how the animals came about, really.” “You gave me lousy paper,” Carol reminds him. “Yes. One of my suppliers came up with paper they couldn’t unload.” “And Lester said, ’Oh, I’ve got paper for you.’ It was thick,” he admits. Carol looks at her husband. “It was like linoleum.” “So Carol started having fun with the paper, just to get rid of it.” “And people started buying them.” “They all had funny titles,” Les says. “A painting with three basset hounds we called ‘A bunch of dirty bassets,’ – that sort of thing.” Then, Carol says, for a change of scenery, the Ratafias moved to California in 1981 and sales slumped. Her art had a following on the East Coast, but she was unknown in California. And the models for her paintings weren’t as cute and cuddly as they had been. “My kids were getting too big. Nobody wanted to buy them,” Carol says. “Who wants to buy a teenager? So I couldn’t do my kids anymore and I did animals.”

“But the horses didn’t come along then.” “Yes, they did,” she says firmly. “I’ve always done horses. Always.” “That’s right, we did horses, but you didn’t get into them that heavily until…” “Until someone saw some of my horse paintings and said, ”You should go to a horse show, ’I didn’t even know they had horse shows. But we went to the Scottsdale show in 1981, and it took off from there.”

Featured in the Movies

Carol’s reputation in the equine art world grew and she continued attending Arabian shows. In 1983, she did the artwork for the cover of the Arabian Horse Fair program, and since then her work has been featured on many horse-related magazines, including INSIDE INTERNATIONAL. This month one of her watercolors is featured on the cover of the EXPRESS. Carol pauses for a moment, trying to think of interesting facts. “Let’s see…. One of our pictures is in ‘Poltergeist.’” The Ratafias weren’t aware that Carol’s painting was in the film until they saw it for themselves. “In California, people come up to you and say, ‘this is going to be in a movie’ fairly often,” Les says. “But everybody in California is making a movie of some kind, so we never have any idea what it is.” The plot of “Poltergeist” involves a young girl who is taken away from her parents by evil spirits. Carol’s painting, of Les cradling their son, appears in the background a number of times while the parents discuss their missing daughter. The only other film including Carol’s art that the Ratafias are aware of is “Superman 3.” Again, they did not know it was there until they saw it for themselves. “In one scene, Lana Lang is in her living room, then Clark Kent—Superman—walks in and there’s my painting on the wall,” she says. “It was fun to see. My kids went hysterical. Thank heavens we saw it in a drive-in, they screamed. They went bananas.” An announcement on the loudspeaker hanging over the Ratafias’ booth says it is time to vacate the exhibitors’ area.

Horse in a Former Life?

She starts one last story. “You can put this in: I was a horse in a former life. Not only that, but I was an Etruscan slave and I painted the eyes on the horses.” “Everybody else in the world was a princess, my wife was a slave. I’ve got the only slave from a former life,” He turns toward Carol. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to be a princess in former lives? Everybody was a princess.” She shrugs apologetically. “Anyway, we don’t believe this for a second.” She pauses. “But it could be.” Les nods. “It’s possible.” The Ratafias don’t own any horses. “Not long ago someone offered Carol a gelding and she said. ‘I just had the rugs cleaned or I’d take him,’” Les says with a smile, “If she had a horse, it would be in the house. The first rainstorm, it would be in the living room.” Carol nods and says when she needs a reference model she goes to a farm near their home.

Every time I go there, there are four horses that come up on the hill and look at me,” “Probably relatives from your former life,” Les deadpans. With a silencing glance toward her husband, Carol continues. “My daughter, my husband, everybody has gone, and the horses never come out to see them. Isn’t that wild?” “You’re the only one that sees them. They’re going to put you away.” “I’m not the only one that sees them.” “They materialize,” he says in a spooky voice. “I’m sure they’re there all the time, they just don’t want to look at my family or my friends. Who can blame them?” “I paint from memory, but I take some photos and use them to jog my memory,” she continues. “But I don’t focus very well. I take fuzzy pictures.”

“Those damn horses keep moving,” Les, says.