Photographer adds artistic twist

Photographer and designer Stephen Rovetti asks visitors a simple question that awakens a host of ideas and inspiration: “So, what’s the deal with you.”

His work is equally challenging and enlightening. A single photograph is manipulated many times; he zooms in, out, digitally adding another photo, creating a composition that could have more than a dozen layers. Observers look, then look again, scowl, raise their eyebrows: “What the heck? Are those teeth? It couldn’t be a pumpkin.”

Although his photos are cloaked in mystery, they are also, on a deeper level, recognizable. Even the simple portrait of his 3-year-old daughter, Fiona, wrapped in white fabric and surrounded by the star-shaped seeds of a dandelion is hauntingly familiar.

“I like to center on the things that we either intentionally or unintentionally don’t see, then I change them,” said Rovetti, 30, “People force themselves to look closer. Then, they can see … little worlds, fantasy, curled, knotted, wet green brown slick clover strings wood pine … all in a quarter-square-foot bit of earthy-smelling beauty.

“Whether I change a color, mix images together, or completely trash an image, there are some fundamental items; nature, beauty, the mixing of elements…light and dark, similar or different, big and small that sort of scratches the surface.”

Rovetti was raised in a family of artists. His aunt is well-known artist Holly Hobbie, his mother painted, and his father directed the William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut for 20 years.

Growing up surrounded by art motivated him to see beyond the lines, ask questions and push the envelope.

He earned a degree from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, not in art, but in sociology and criminal justice. His art education came from years of exposure to many mediums through which he learned that tunnel vision is no way to see. His later studies aided him in learning more about human nature and its connection to art and the natural world.

Rovetti, his wife, Jenny, and Fiona moved into their Newman Lake home about a year ago. Ten months ago, their son, Cullen, was born “right here,” said Rovetti as he pointed to a spot on the floor. It was a natural birth in the hearth of a home surrounded by 10 acres of nature and beyond that, a world of possibilities that Rovetti is looking forward to exploring.

His résumé consists of designs, logos and advertisements for companies, and his work has been in outdoor magazines. He ran a successful design business, but moved on in order to explore other possibilities. “My work is highly personal and very much tied to nature,” he said.

Currently, he works at Adventure Tech in Liberty Lake as sales/marketing manager and art director. He also is very involved with the Spokane Valley Arts Council and has designed the Web site for the group’s studio tour in October (svsat.org) where he will be showing his work.

Rovetti’s goals are to inspire others and to find commission work.

“I want to evaluate a client’s space and then shoot their immediate surroundings to build artwork that is highly personal.”