John Rossi’s 30-Year Legacy of Luminosity at Ox-Bow
Looking back, my first memory of John Rossi is a fitting one. I initially met him during April of 2021 when I came to campus for a final round interview for what would become my first job at Ox-Bow. My encounter was brief. He stood atop a ladder in the old inn fixing an antique chandelier in place. He gave me a friendly hello, I returned it, and that was that. My first Rossi sighting.
Two years later, I’m walking around campus with John. It’s a cool sunny day in May. The sky shines blue, but only through a filtered haze of clouds. John wears, as he does most days, a plaid flannel. His hat, like most of his hats, is sun faded. I own the same one he does, a forest green in baseball style, but his has paled several shades from mine.
John Rossi, wearing a sun-faded baseball cap, tends to the canoe stand on campus alongside Nate Skiffington, Assistant Facilities Manager. Photo by Dominique Muñoz (Summer Fellow, 2024).
John has several titles here at Ox-Bow, from his official role as Facilities Manager to the cheeky title of Pricker Daddy. Today I’m here to learn why he’s earned one of his most infamous titles: The Light Wizard.
From the moment one walks onto campus there are lights to guide your way. If you arrive after dusk or before dawn, you’ll be greeted first by strings of pixie lights. In every room, you’ll find lamps intentionally selected and slightly altered to meet the aesthetics of our unique building environments. And of course, the tent under which Friday night dance parties take place has been adorned with the perfect mood lighting to fit the revolving party themes.
John Rossi stands behind a work bench in The Rob (the campus’s maintenance building). Photo by Dominique Muñoz (Summer Fellow, 2024).
John isn’t alone in his adoration of lighting on campus. He notes that what originally drew impressionist painters was the natural light of the area. “It reminded them of France,” he said. For this reason, he’s partial to using warm lighting in the cabins and on exterior buildings. Daylight bulbs he finds too disruptive in how it attempts to imitate the sun. “For most of history, artificial light was warm,” he said, noting how its hue mimicked hearths and candles. Using these warmer bulbs rather than cool lighting helps John’s work imitate what it might’ve once been like to spend time on campus during the days when things were illuminated by gaslights and lanterns.
Of course, some of John’s work is much more bold, not so rooted in imitating nature. When he invites me into his studio space, many of the works in progress are lamps and lights. Just yesterday he spent the evening at the metals studio to work with the plasma cutter. Over the course of the night, he transformed various tin cans into lamp shades. This morning, one of the pieces hangs afresh over the entrance of the studio. The tin can lantern is complemented by a carnival chandelier, purple and orange, equal parts normcore and fabulous. Above that sits a string of blue and purple Christmas lights. Fitting, as that’s where John’s love of lights started.
John Rossi stands outside his studio and looks down at a pencil. Photo by Dominique Muñoz (Summer Fellow, 2024).
When I ask him about this passion’s origin story, John doesn’t hesitate: “Probably around age four or five,” aka the age that memory begins. For all we know, John’s love of lights could’ve been at first sight. He recalled playing with lights as a kid. He’d sneak into the closet where his parents stored the Christmas lights, stage them, then hide the lights away before his parents could find out. Eventually he took on the role of hanging the Christmas lights at both his parents’ and grandmother’s houses. Little did young John know, eventually he’d find a place where this passion would be prized and celebrated.
(left) A chandelier selected by John Rossi for the Talmadge cabin. Photo by Clare Britt. (right) Fairy lights in the trees. Photo by Jamie Kelter Davis.
John takes me to the tent on the meadow, underneath which he’s set up a variety of paper lanterns shaped as stars. He altered them himself to accommodate bigger sockets. While under the tent, John gives me a briefing on the physics of lights, explaining why LEDS produce a stronger spectrum than incandescents, which often fail to produce bright purples and blues. As he throws around jargon like diodes, prisms, and cones it becomes clear to me just how deep John’s knowledge of light goes.
Across campus, other cleverly engineered solutions abound, all the work of Rossi. Some of these include collaborations with other studios: a hand blown glass vase that ensconces its light bulb and a full string of plasma-cut tin cans hanging behind The Rob (facilities headquarters). It can be said without exaggeration that in every building and even along pathways, John’s expertise and artistic touch literally light the way.
John Rossi stands in front of the floral, teal doors of his studio. Photo by Dominique Muñoz (Summer Fellow, 2024).
This article was written by Shanley Poole and was based on interviews conducted with John Rossi in 2023. Banner photo by Dominique Muñoz (Summer Fellow, 2024).