In the world of professional art consistency is highly valued. Consistency demonstrates the development of an artist’s style or signature. According to Kim Barnett, owner of Oregon’s Bronze Coast Gallery, this signature style is the most difficult thing for an artist to achieve. It is unique and instantly identifies a work’s creator. Barnett believes sculptor Rosetta, an AWA Master Signature member, has this instantly recognizable signature style. “Her work is stylized and on this geometric plain, and still anatomically correct – very few people can create realistic sculpture that is so interpretive,” Barnett says.

Puma Prowl

“I didn’t want to play with dolls…”

Rosetta’s work almost entirely depicts animals, but she says that growing up in the suburbs didn’t allow her much exposure to the wildlife she found so fascinating.  “Much to my mother’s chagrin I didn’t want to play with dolls, instead I carved animals out of soap and made paper sculptures” Rosetta remembers. “It was always just there – art, sculpture, animals.

Rosetta credits her father for recognizing her artist talent early on and enrolling her in drawing and painting lessons. In college Rosetta she chose to study graphic design, a field she made her living in for 21 years. Sculpture remained a personal passion and Rosetta continued to sculpt and even began casting her work in bronze, after taking a class through her local community college in Marin, California.

Rosetta’s calls it a natural evolution from her graphic design work to her sculpture.  Type-setting, trademarks and logos previously done by hand were slowly being made obsolete by computers, but Rosetta was able to translate her aesthetic from design to sculpture.  “The work I was doing required you to distill shapes down to their simple essence with as little detail as possibly – so the way I stylized my sculpture came out that way as well,” says Rosetta. In 1985, after she won an annual competition at the National Sculpture Society, Rosetta began to invest more of her professional time in sculpture.  “That award let me know I could do sculpture that I love and people would respond to it,” says Rosetta.

One of the top bronze artists of her generation…

For many gallery owners, like Barnett, Rosetta was something of a pioneer in bronze sculpture and is now considered one of the top bronze artists of her generation. “Rosetta was an anomaly – she wasn’t doing realism, instead she had this stylistic approach to representative art,” Barnett says. “It is much easier to follow the crowd but she really made her own way.

Rosetta believes the art world is more open to women than when she began her career almost 30 years ago, and changes to the art world will reflect the redefinition of traditional gender roles.According to Barnett, there was a time when realistic Western art seemed to be the only thing gallery owners and collectors were interested in purchasing, a genre dominated by men.

“At the time I started in Colorado, sculpture was all western wildlife and dominated by men,” Rosetta recalls. “I felt shut out until I realized that my work didn’t belong in those Western shows and organizations that hardly had any women artists.”  During those early years of her career, as she gained more recognition for her work, Rosetta was invited to exhibit alongside of the founding members of American Women Artists. “I was very new to the scene and so grateful for an opportunity to show with really good artists,” Rosetta says. “I believe it helped my career get going”.

Artists often create in solitude and each creation can be a very personal thing to the artist, so it can be difficult for an artist to appreciate the value and benefits of association, community and networking, according to Rosetta. “Showing with high quality artists can give newcomers legitimacy and encourages them to strive forward in their own work,” Rosetta says.

Art of the National Parks published in June 2013.  

Rosetta notes:  When the city of Dowagiac, MI called in 2009 (they had purchased a Lion sculpture from me years earlier) and said they wanted some running cats for a long strip next to the railroad tracks, I knew that it had to be cheetahs. Depicting three stages of the cheetah’s famed running style, I’m told  that the conductor on the local Amtrak run points out the racing cats to the passengers on board as they approach Dowagiac Station.