MASTER MOSAIC MAN
Nine by Aureleo Rosano
Streetlight Society Meeting by Aureleo Rosano
artist spotlight
A Conversation with Aureleo Rosano by Suzie Agrillo
H
ome is a working studio for Aureleo Rosano, whose peaceful space in the far northwest desert is surrounded by his art. He built the house himself, including making his own bricks. His unique and vibrantly designed glass art is ubiquitously present. When Rosano was growing up, both of his parents were admirers of the arts. While his parents pushed the arts strongly as something important in life, his father instilled in his son’s mind the concept that one can’t make a living creating art. Proving his father wrong, the selftaught artist has created glass and sculpture works that he has been perfecting over a lifetime of experience, many of which are exhibited and sold at Toscana Studio and Gallery (Toscana) in Oro Valley. Rosano was born in New Britain, Connecticut in 1939 to Italian immigrant parents. In 1960, he was going to register for college, but when he looked out a window and saw snow, slush and a light coating of soot, he told himself, “I just can’t do this.” Instead, he went to a bookstore and bought a map. He tore off the northern half of the map and looked at cities along the south. He settled on two cities, Tucson and San Diego, because they were both close to Mexico. Flipping a coin to make the decision, it came up Tucson. “Twenty-four hours later, I was here,” he recalls. His first job was working as a dish washer at the Arroyo Café for 10 days. After that, he was hired to wait tables at the old El Conquistador hotel in El Con shopping center. At the time, Rosano’s sister had just started doing mosaic work with Italian glass, and he decided he liked the medium. Still working his day jobs, in 1973 he became a journeyman steamfitter after a five-year apprenticeship. 24
Tucson Edition
NaturalTucson.com
A lot of that trade involved welding, and he now combines metal and glass in his art. A spry octogenarian, at 82 years old, he is grateful for his life journey. “I never thought I’d reach 60, because I led kind of a wild life. When I turned 60, I told my kids, ‘60 is the cake and the rest is icing.’ I’ve had a wonderful life full of experiences and crazy things,” he reveals. One of the most salient of his adventures transpired in 1960, which was memorialized in Rosano’s book, Scoot Across the USA. While he was a waiter at the El Conquistador, he met an airman who was being transferred. He bought a slightly used 1959 Lambretta Motor Scooter (Italian-made, like the Vespa, top speed 43 mph). Upon learning his sister was getting married in Connecticut, Rosano took a zig-zag path from Tucson to the east coast on his scooter. This impulsive and somewhat perilous journey involved a
Now That Was a Good One by Aureleo Rosano
