Studio Spotlight | Soteris Sam Roussi

Catch a glimpse of the space in which creativity is born in this artist studio tour.

As a five-year-old, my focus was on making art. I mostly and exclusively painted in a spare room that served as an oasis and safe harbor for me—a place free of restrictions. I’ve found that there are practical advantages to this arrangement as the urge to create happens at all hours and for varying lengths of time from a few minutes to a half of a day of pondering.

My studios have always had the essentials—a sturdy wood panel used as an easel, paint-spattered rugs, half-spent jars of acrylics and tempera paint, and a bucket of murky residue that provides the subtlest range of grays. Finished paintings lean against the closet wall; older paintings hibernate on the attic floor.

There are oddities and rarities in my studio, resources that cram shelves and cover benches and boxes. They populate my studio as a multitude of “stuff” just like the newspaper clippings that covered the walls of my father’s Niagara Falls candy-making shop. At times these objects conspire to take the room over. Yet, when I’m not painting, I tinker with these odds and ends using scrapers, nippers, files, wires, glues, etcetera, to make “things” according to my earliest intention, to be ingenious and creative.

Soteris Sam Roussi was born in Niagara Falls, NY, USA, in 1945. He has an MFA in painting from Ohio State and is currently based in Westfield, MA, USA. Visit www.samroussi.com