Mark Rossi: Wildlife and Western Sculptor - Epi. 252, Host Dr. Mark Sublette

I had Mark Rossi on my podcast today and we had a really wonderful talk. I've known Mark for almost 30 years and he's been in my gallery almost that long as well. He's known for his sculptures of animals. He's focused primarily on the animals of the Sonoran Desert, but because he's involved in so many museum collections as well as zoo collections, he's gotten to do a lot of exotic animals as well.

If you're in the world-famous San Diego Zoo, you're going to see a Mark Rossi. If you're visiting the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum here in Tucson, you're going to see a Mark Rossi. The Houston Zoo, the Minnesota Zoo, and the Philadephia Zoo - all of these places have Mark's work. So it's fun to go and find out about his story, especially for his father,  Paul Rossi, who was a very well-known sculptor and painter and was the director of the Gilcrease Museum.

We talk a lot about the Gilcrease, as well as Frank Waters, who was a novelist that wrote 26 different books on Hopi and Taos, and the foundation that Mark operates to preserve Frank's legacy. He was an important guy in the middle of the 20th century. 

This was a very interesting podcast with an individual that I've known for a very long time. It's so much fun for me when I get to crack the nut a little bit and see somebody that I've known in a new light. I got that today with Mark Rossi.