Tim, Eric, and Kurt:
The Men Behind the Scenes

Joint Effort
In the world of art, it's the behind-the-scenes action that tends to be overlooked. Yet, it's the process and the people involved in the art's creation that hold a wealth of interest and importance. When it comes to creating Karen's large-scale sculptures, there are usually many people involved, with everything from brainstorming ideas to sketching artwork to constructing the large pieces that Karen is no longer set up to make on her own. With her metalworking studio split up between various locations, the recent run on commissioned pieces has become more of challenge than it ever was in the past. Now it just takes a few more gifted hands to add their expertise and knowledge to the pieces in order to get them finished as effectively as possible. With the creation of her latest sculptures, Karen has had the honor of collaborating with several talented guys who work passionately with their material of choice: metal.

Welder on Wheels
Karen remembers the first time she ever met Tim the Welder. She was waiting for him at Terra Gardens with owners, Kim and Jim Chipello, when he drove up in his enormously huge truck. There was no denying that Tim had arrived on the scene. Written across the side of the truck, in big, bold letter were the words, "Tim the Welder." He uses his mammoth form of transportation to make his services mobile. Tim can hit the road with his welding supplies, making his business convenient, portable, and constantly moving. He also has the unique job of doing something different every day. He never knows what projects may walk through this door. Customers come in with a drawing, and then it's Tim's job to make that drawing become a reality in metal.

When Karen dreamed up the idea of creating metal garden arches, she knew that she'd need a bit of help. Although plasma cutting the imagery into the side panels was a task that she was excited to work on, Karen wasn't set up to weld the large framework that was needed to hold the panels together. So, after several inquiries, she was referred to Tim. He helped Karen with the garden arch that she created for congresswoman, Rosa DeLauro, and he's currently working on creating six more frames. Karen can't wait to begin designing these new arches in variety of sizes and themes.

Metal Magician
"I've never seen anything like it before in my life," is how Karen describes Eric Strobel's ability to mold and shape metal. She still finds it amazing to think back to the time she watched him transform a piece of scrap metal into a perfect dome using one, single tool. As owner of a metal shop in Canton, CT, Eric has been using his love of metal to restore old sports cars, by working with sheet metal and remaking parts. He's been at this business for over 15 years, and before making it his livelihood, Eric enjoyed car restoration as his favorite hobby.

Karen found her way to Eric as the result of her recent Pine Grove Elementary School commission. When she began brainstorming concepts for the piece, she decided upon a design using three, large hanging circles. Once she settled upon this plan, she knew that she'd need someone with the skills to create such big, metal rings. Karen contacted friends from Martocchio Music, who spread the word about Karen's project. The search led to Jack Ruzbasan who suggested that Karen contact Eric. When Karen initially approached Eric, he thought that the task sounded like an interesting one. Since his wife is also an artist, Eric is used to being surrounded with art projects of one kind or another. He was certainly open to the idea of helping create such a large-scale art piece, and it looks like his job won't be finished there. With the success of the first set of rings that he created, Karen has asked him to help with a second set, which will potentially be used for the proposed St. Francis Hospital sculpture.

Laser Genius
Although he's currently working on two of the newest Rossi projects, Kurt Maley is definitely no stranger to Karen's sculptures. In fact, he's been laser cutting her pieces for over ten years. Karen originally found Maley Laser when she was selling her original sculptures. When she began working at the trade shows, she was hand cutting all of flying people out of copper. However, as she began to incorporate more and more hand painting onto the sculptures, there was less of a need to use copper. So, she turned to the laser cutting of steel to speed up the process and allow more time for the detailed paintwork. After giving her line art to Kurt, it would then be transferred into the computer by Greg of Maley Laser. From there, hundreds of identical body shapes could be laser cut and delivered to Rossi Studios where the hand-crafted touches of paint and charms were then added.

Most recently, however, Kurt has been helping Karen with two of her largest commissions, the piece for Evergreen Walk and a sculpture for the town of South Windsor. For the South Windsor piece, the new water jet cutter was used in place of a laser cutter. Kurt tells us that the future of Maley Laser lies in this new technology. It gives him the capability of cutting through steel that is five to six inches thick. With the help of this tool, he's been doing a lot more architectural work. However, they make a lot of brackets, fences, and parts for manufacturing companies. Often, they don't even know what the pieces will be used for. They are presented with blueprints, which are used to create whatever pieces are needed. Despite all of the large companies and corporations that Maley Laser works with, Kurt still insists that Karen is his "most famous customer."

Metal Heads
The passionate approach that Tim, Eric, and Kurt have for their metal-working is something to be admired. They certainly have been a strong force behind the scenes of the most recent Rossi metal sculpture. We have no doubt that as commissions continue to role in, their skills will continue to be put to good use.