Joseph Rossano knew he’d found a home when he moved to the Pacific Northwest.
The Arlington artist was educated in the South (“hot and flat”) and lived in upstate New York. In 1987, he earned a scholarship that took him to the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, bringing him into contact with such glass luminaries as Dale Chihuly and William Morris. Just as important, it introduced him to the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest: the trees, the water, the hills and mountains. He was hooked.
“As I became more of a Northwest person, that hard armor of being a New York person came off of me,” Rossano said in a telephone interview. “As time progressed I understood how much the forest has had to do with the native people of the Northwest.”
How to protect the environment became a concern. As an artist, he wanted to express that concern “in an elegant and sophisticated way.”
He’s done that through a series of mixed-media assemblages that combine a variety of natural and man-made elements to explore the connections between the natural world and people.
“I wanted to put together art work that would have that impact,” he said.
His art is shown in galleries around the country including Seattle at the Bryan Ohno Gallery. In Everett, three of his works are part of the city’s permanent art collection at the Everett Events Center. And three more are on view in a just-opened exhibit space located in the historic Van Valey House in north Everett.
On Wednesday, a major piece of outdoor sculpture by Rossano, fashioned from a cedar tree that washed up on the banks of the Sauk River, is scheduled to be installed at the corner of Wetmore and Hewitt as part of Everett’s rotating outdoor sculpture display.
Rossano took the timber to Dan Rankin’s mill in Darrington where it was cut and shaped. The trunk was cleaved down the middle and the sides are held together by a circular saw blade that the artist made from a composite material. It’s imbedded in the wood.
One side of the tree has been worked by an adz, the other half is raw. Images of trees, fish and a logger are burned into the wood.
The sculpture, which will be between 14 and 17 feet tall, will be installed with help from KPFF Consulting Engineers, Rossano said.
The work is meant to show “how much of our lives are intertwined with our environment. We are all still interconnected,” Rossano said.
“The thing I like about it is that it is interactive,” said Wendy Becker, the city’s cultural arts coordinator. People can walk through the opening, and it will get them talking, she said.
“What does it mean? Is it about the environment, about salmon, about old-growth forests?”
Rossano begins his mixed-media wall hangings with shimmering veneers of old-growth cedar and fir taken from salvaged timbers. The framed wood becomes the backdrop for found objects, such as an old water dipper, or the head of a spear.
Using his glass-making skills, he further embellishes the work. A glass salmon, crystalline pure in its beauty, represents something that has disappeared from the natural world. A water-divining fork, also made of glass, represents a past way of life – how people once hired “water witches” to locate underground sources of water.
Rossano’s black-and-white photographs of pristine Northwest landscapes – rivers, mountains and woods – add the final dimension.
Rossano’s art is the inaugural exhibit at the new gallery, located in what was once the breakfast room of the Van Valey home.
Light streams in from two walls of vintage multi-paned windows; tinted glass has replaced the original glazing and sleek track lights were installed in the ceiling.
“We want to make it a place where artists will feel comfortable leaving their art,” said Susan DiPietro, a recreation supervisor with the Everett Parks and Recreation Department, which has offices in the house. “This is a place to show quality pieces.”
The Van Valey House is located at 2130 Colby Ave. The scheduled gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday; 425-257-6300.
Mountain scenes: Eighteen oil paintings of mountain landscape by Snohomish artist Roy E. Hughes, a member of the Arts of Snohomish cooperative gallery, are on display through the month of December at the Snohomish Public Library as part of their Year of the Book celebration.
The theme for December is winter wonderland, which is reflected in the art.
The mountain landscape paintings show views from hiking trails in the North Cascades. The artist covered nearly 300 miles in more than 40 outings in 2003, hiking and snowshoeing.
The scenes range from Sahale Arm above Cascade Pass to the Snow Lake trail on Snoqualmie Pass to snowshoeing at Artist Point near the Mount Baker ski area.
The artist’s work was seen locally in such venues as the Edmonds Arts Festival, the Museum of Northwest Art auction in La Conner and the Stanwood-Arlington American Association of University Women Invitational Show. Samples of his work can be seen on his Web site at www.royehughes.com.The paintings are on display through Dec. 31 at the Snohomish Library, 311 Maple Ave., Snohomish; 360-568-2898.
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