Meet Rosetta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rosetta.

Rosetta, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
It’s a cliché among artists, but like most clichés, it’s true: We always knew that I would be an artist. Asked recently what was my first memory of something artistic, though most of my childhood seems to have escaped my recall, I did remember a little kids’ “art” class (probably around age 5) where I was making animals out of clay. I had absolutely no inkling then that I would eventually have a very rewarding career as an animal sculptor!

Fortunately, I had very supportive parents. My father was artistically talented though once established as a patent attorney with a specialty in mechanical engineering, his drawing skills were mostly applied to mechanical drawings for patents and to helping his budding artist daughter with her drawing skills.

Though I realize now that my early creative explorations all seemed to incorporate my dual passions of 3-D art and animals, I had no idea then that combining them would be an option for me as an artist. My Mom, bless her heart, was happily anticipating my future as an “artist”, painting at home while I raised my kids. I just never did take to painting (though I loved drawing) or to the concept of having babies.

Growing up, birthdays and Christmases always included gifts of art projects and additions to my collection of little animal figurines, my preferred toys were “stuffed animals” rather than baby dolls and my personal art/craft explorations produced animals carved from soap and paper sculptures of small critters. But by the time I was ready to head off to college, I had bought into the admonition that I would have to study “commercial art” so that I could make a living as a designer. Back then, in the 60’s, the idea that a woman could be successful as a fine artist was not widely accepted.

Fortunately, I really enjoyed being a designer. I didn’t feel that I had the unique vision that a fine artist would need to share with the world, so I was happy to work within a specific set of criteria in a design project, rather than creating a concept from scratch, totally on my own.

That changed only after a B.A. Degree in Design, two years at Art Center College of Design, marriage to the love of my life and a very enjoyable 17-year first career as a lettering designer, working free-lance with ad agencies and design studios in San Francisco on logo and packaging design. Having admitted to myself that I would never be happy working 9 to 5 in an office, I had determined to overcome, with the help and encouragement of my husband, my tendency to be terribly introverted and basically uncomfortable around most people. My innate abilities to be organized, reasonable and sincere blossomed to the point that I was finally ready for a more challenging and fulfilling endeavor, self-employed and in total charge of my direction and process.

Until then, my experience with sculpture had been limited to one class in college where we did a figure and a portrait in clay and sculpting a clay bust of my husband, just for fun, but I knew that I really enjoyed working in three dimensions. Admitting that to a painter friend, he suggested that I do a sculpture of him while he painted me and I jumped at the opportunity to get my fingers back into some clay. After completing a nice portrait of the friend (he never actually did my portrait – he was an abstract expressionist!) we agreed on a trade. Since I don’t paint, I would get his bust cast in bronze and trade it for a large painting for our bare living room wall. Knowing nothing about bronze casting, I asked around and it was suggested that I call the local community college where they had a foundry. I called: “I have a clay portrait bust – can you cast it in bronze for me?” “No, but you can sign up for the workshop casting class and do it yourself.” So I did.

I loved the process – or rather, the results – and after completing the portrait bust, with a little time left in the class to do another piece, I sculpted a small seated cheetah in the unique style that came naturally as a result of my design education and career (especially doing trademarks) that is my signature style to this day. I got such a good reaction to this first piece, entering it in a few shows and winning awards for it, that I came to a life-changing realization for myself: Rather than requiring some original, deep “message” to share with the world in order to be a “fine” artist, all I had to do was create something that pleased me visually and conveyed my sincere, individual vision about my subject and others would respond to it.

Right around that time, the new computer industry was slowly putting me out of the hand lettering design business. Up until then, all alterations to static typefaces had to be executed by hand with ink and pen or brush. Now it could be done on the computer and I had to decide if I wanted to switch and spend the rest of my career in front of a computer screen and train my hand to create mechanically rather than tactilely. No! I would rather be doing sculpture.

A brief stint being “published” by a group that failed miserably in establishing my career but did get me awkwardly into the world of sculpture production and marketing, discovery of and a move to the sculpture casting community of Loveland, Colorado (from our hand-built house in a redwood forest north of the Golden Gate Bridge), entering juried group shows, attracting the attention of galleries around the country and representation with them, joining artist organizations and networking within the vibrant art community here in Loveland has all brought me, over the last 35 years of hard, steady work, to where I am now.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Once I established in my own mind and heart that this was what I wanted to be doing with my life, I didn’t think of the process as a struggle but rather the fulfillment of a dream. That said, yes, of course there were obstacles to be overcome. One was my shyness which has only diminished as a result my gained experience and therefore confidence that I can communicate effectively with clients and colleagues and that all glitches are surmountable with reason and patience.

I suppose the biggest “problem” was that I am a woman – however, I like being a woman. Realizing early on that the system (not just in the art world!) was set up to grant the most “success” to the masculine characteristics of ambition, ruthlessness and expediency, I created my own definition of and route to “success.” I simply wanted the opportunity to create my art from the heart and make a modest living from it. Being sincere, reasonable, patient and organized has gotten me through, though perhaps more slowly and not as far as I might have been as a man. I’m glad that I paid attention to what I wanted out of this path and stuck to how I wanted to go about it. That said, I have to give a shout out to the wonderful American Women Artists organization that has researched and documented the unwarranted lack of work by excellent women artists in the world’s art museums and is working to remedy that, to some extent, by its “25 in 25” project: 25 museum exhibitions for its members in 25 years. It is off to a great start, with enthusiasm and acquisitions by many museums already, and counting!

Alright – so let’s talk business. What else should we know about your work?
“Rosetta Sculpture” is a one-person business creating and producing bronze sculptures of animals (mostly but not exclusively feline) but which is dependent on a whole world of colleagues and sub-contractors (and the help and support of my husband, professional photographer of 3-D fine art, Mel Schockner) to function. What I do is create sculptures in clay and then usher each piece through the extensive bronze casting process handled by other professionals: a rubber and plaster mold is made, a wax poured and finished (chased) for each casting to be made, sprues and ceramic shell mold applied at the foundry and then molten bronze poured, the shell broken off of the cooled bronze, welding and finishing (chasing) of the bronze, a chemical patina applied to produce the surface color, a custom base made, professional photography used for marketing and entering shows and finally crating and shipping to its final destination. After creating a sculpture, my job is to orchestrate the successful and timely completion of all of these processes, plus marketing, entering shows, meeting deadlines and dealing with galleries and clients so that the work can be shown/seen and therefore find a forever home with an appreciative art lover.

I think that what sets me apart from others is my unique hard-edged yet fluid style of depicting the animals I sculpt. Fortunately, that “style” emerged naturally from my personal background in graphic design and my visual fascination with, and empathy for, certain animals, free from being influenced by what other animal sculptors were doing, since I was unaware of the whole animal sculpture world until I accidentally wandered into it.

I am proud that I have remained true to creating the work that comes from my heart rather than the work that I think the market demands. But I think what I am most proud of is that I have been able to stick to my principles of sincerity, fairness, reliability and mutual respect in my dealings with clients and colleagues and have those qualities reciprocated most of the time. This makes for a very personally fulfilling existence. Somehow, not being overly obsessed with the financial aspects of the career seems to make that part go more smoothly as well.

What were you like growing up?
Starting out in a very small, secluded neighborhood (in Bethesda, Maryland) where everyone knew everyone, I spent my days playing outdoors with the other kids, hide-and-seek, roller-skating, bike riding, catching tadpoles and butterfly’s down by the creek, or making saddles and stables for our plush horse toys. When I was 7, I established that my lucky number was “3” because I “won” my first kitten at a birthday party with that number. (Even though I found out much later that the whole thing was rigged with prior consent from my parents, I will always believe that my lucky number is 3.)

After we moved from that very comfortable little enclave at age 9, I think that’s when I became more introverted, not making new friends very easily. That was exacerbated by an extended time recovering from a 7-vertebrae spinal fusion surgery at age 12, spending months alone in bed doing art projects and watching TV westerns. I very much enjoyed my pets which included parakeets and a miniature poodle. Unfortunately, my parents weren’t interested in outdoor vacation activities that might have given me the chance to see wildlife which I did so desire.

I have a brother who is 3+ years older than me but, though I believe we probably had a normal relationship as little kids, once we got a little older, he seems to have decided that little sisters weren’t good for much except tormenting. We never got along well until after he went away to college, but by then we lived far apart, so never became close. I’ve often wondered how two siblings growing up together could be so different, he being a computer engineer and I an artist.

Though my parents were generally supportive of my being “me”, I think my mother was disappointed that I wasn’t more socially outgoing. Not interested in following the “fads” of pop culture or fashion, lacking a clever and quick wit and basically being afraid of boys, I just didn’t feel I could be popular with my peers. I got good grades but had to work hard at it due to a slight dyslexia which I didn’t diagnose until after my very difficult time in college, not being able to get through all of the assigned reading. That taught me, however, to listen well in class and take good notes instead, graduating with honors.

Pricing:

• Prices for my bronzes range from $355 for a miniature to $45,000 for over-life-size.

Contact Info:

• Address: Studio:
  405 8th Street S.E., Unit #15
  Loveland, CO 80537
• Website: www.rosettasculpture.com
• Phone: 970-667-6265
• Email: rosetta@rosettasculpture.com

Image Credit:
All photos by Mel Schockner except: J & M @ S.I.P.: Laurie Wells, Rosetta Studio (both): Rosetta

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