Artist Karen Rossi to Join the Torrington Arts Scene

By Ruth Melville

Karen Rossi’s magical creations will soon be flying off to a new home. Although Rossi will keep her Norfolk studio, which is currently overflowing with an abundance of artwork, supplies and equipment, she is about to move most of her business into a new storefront gallery at 27 East Main Street in Torrington. The new studio will include a retail shop, a gallery showing both her work and that of other local artists, and space for workshops, classes and demonstrations for both adults and children.

Rossi is internationally known for her metal sculptures, mobiles, weathervanes and “Fanciful Flights”—little mobile characters embellished with crystal and beads and bits of broken jewelry. She sells her work primarily through trade shows and open houses, and she also licenses her designs.

Rossi was always drawing and creating things as a child, but she got her start in metalwork thanks to her father, who owned an aerospace welding business. He taught her the basics, and gave her space in his shop after she proved her abilities by making him a metal trout (he was an avid outdoorsman).

Rossi delights in color and movement, and her works offer a profusion of fanciful people and animals. “I like sparkles, paints, color,” she says. Many of her motifs, such as her flying angels and mermaids, are inspired by American folk art. The metal sculptures are Rossi’s favorite part. “I really like cutting the metal and painting on it.” But she also enjoys making, and teaching, mosaics and hopes to do more of that in her new studio.

Rossi’s imagination teems with lively, funny images. Her wall piece “Texas” manages to include long-horned cattle, deer, a stagecoach, an oil well, cityscapes, a cowgirl on her horse, cactus, a Dallas Cowboy, the Alamo, a yellow rose, the South Fork Ranch, the space shuttle—and more. A series of mobiles flying over her worktable includes, among others, Amelia Earhart, Mae West, Isadora Duncan, Mahalia Jackson, Babe Didrikson, Helen Keller and Eleanor Roosevelt, all part of her American Women Heroes series.

Before moving her studio to Norfolk over 10 years ago, Rossi had a studio in Windsor Locks, with 10 people working for her and 10,000 square feet of space—which she filled. There she was able to hold large open houses and fund-raisers, which she hopes to do again in Torrington. “I miss those open houses,” she says. “It was magical to have people come through and ooh and aah.”

Rossi’s new location is in the heart of the growing Torrington arts community. She’s around the corner from the Warner Theatre and the Nutmeg Ballet, and just down the street from the Five Points Gallery (a new contemporary art gallery) and the Artwell Gallery, run by an artists’ collective. For hungry art lovers, the Nutmeg Café, Baci’s Ristorante, O’Connor’s Public House and the Venetian are only steps away.

Now, halfway through May, the walls of Rossi’s Torrington studio are still bare. It is an empty white space, filled with light from the high ceilings and the large storefront windows. But soon it will be filled with the color, movement and sheer enthusiasm that is Karen Rossi’s art.

The studio’s grand opening will be on June 28 and 29, to coincide with the Open Your Eyes Studio Tour hosted by the Northwest Connecticut Arts Council. More information on this annual event, which draws over 700 people to Torrington, Harwinton, and Burlington, is available at www.openyoureyestour.org.

Photos by Bruce Frisch