It is with heavy hearts that we remember the brilliant life of Elizabeth Watt, who passed away on January 31st, 2023. Through this blog she shared some of the core aspects of her approach to art, creativity, and most of all, life. Though this life was taken too soon, anyone who knew her can appreciate how her open heart and loving approach ensured her time here contained multitudes.

From a young age, Liz developed a fascination with beauty. Within the natural world around her childhood home in Syracuse, NY, she learned to discover it in all things, even the most unexpected. This grew into a fascination with beauty’s unspeakable power to transcend our thought patterns and emotional states.

Throughout her decades long career in New York City, Liz was among a handful of female photographers who pioneered a new approach to editorial still life that has become all but ubiquitous today. As a true artist, she saw beauty and shared it in new unexpected ways while always maintaining a connection to what is universal, timeless and unchanging.

Liz was able to do this effortlessly – not to mention her incredible intelligence and work ethic – because she was so deeply connected to that timelessness. Later in life she would articulate how her pursuit of beauty was similar to a spiritual doctrine, linking the high and the low, the ground and the sky, the dark and the light, as a way to establish presence.

And perhaps her biggest gift, evidenced by this platform I now reach you, is the generosity with which she brought all this insight forward. As a photographer,  friend, collaborator, wife, sister, teacher, mentor, author, mother, muse, her unique way of seeing empowered others to find beauty within themselves. It is from this bitter shadow of her absence that we can see how the people and creations she brought to light confirm that she will live on forever.

In honor of this beautiful soul I invite you to recite the following blessing out loud, written by one of her favorite thinkers, John O’Donohue. In doing so, may we direct the beauty she fell in love with and multiplied while here on earth back to her, from beyond the veil.

For Beauty

As stillness in stone to silence is wed,
May solitude foster your truth in word.

As a river flows in ideal sequence,
May your soul reveal where time is presence.

As the moon absolves the dark of distance,
May your style of thought bridge the difference.

As the breath of light awakens color,
May the dawn anoint your eyes with wonder.

As spring rain softens the earth with surprise,
May your winter places be kissed by light.

As the ocean dreams to the joy of dance,
May the grace of change bring you to elegance.

As clay anchors a tree in light and wind,
May your outer life grow from peace within.

As twilight pervades the belief of night,
May beauty sleep lightly within your heart.

This blog is maintained by her daughter, Lucea Spinelli.