As I drove to my interview with this issue’s cover artist, Cherry Roussel, I recalled what she told me about how I could recognize her house: “It’s the only one on the block that looks like an artist lives there.” As I continued to drive, all manner of thoughts about what that might mean began to fill my head. It could be anything from plastic pink flamingos to priceless sculpture by Renaissance masters; there was no way of knowing until I got there.

Soon, I turned down the cul-de-sac as directed and saw the house. It was actually astonishing, because in a sea of houses painted in grays or muted earth tones, there stood this house bathed in a warm and inviting terra cotta color, tastefully decorated and well kept. It did look like an artist’s house.

As I got out of my truck, Cherry was already waiting for me on the stoop. She greeted me with a warm and jovial “Hello Jay-meeee!” in a pleasant Mississippi accent. We went inside, where she introduced me to her husband, former NFL linebacker and Saints player Tom Roussel. Then we made our way back to the nerve center of the house, Cherry’s studio. If the outside of the house looked like an artist dwelt there, the studio left no doubt about whose space this was!

The walls of the studio were bedecked with framed watercolors and several studies in progress. Two large drawing tables were similarly covered with drawings and artist’s tools. Cherry showed me around the studio while we talked, pointing out its many hidden features. As she revealed each one, a new bit of her personality and ambition was revealed, as well.

While demonstrating the custom-built flat file that stores her watercolor paper, Cherry explained that it was the late artist Robert Wood who inspired her to become a serious artist. Though she had dabbled in arts and crafts since childhood, it was a Wood workshop in New Orleans’ City Park that kick-started her professional career.

“He was a magician with paint and paper,” she recalled. “He stood there in City Park and said to us, ‘I am just on the threshold of learning about art and creativity.’” This declaration, coming from a man who was then in his late sixties, had a profound effect on Cherry. “I had tears in my eyes and knew then I could become a painter if I worked hard.” It was only much later, as she began to become more established in her craft, that she came to fully understand what Wood was really saying to his workshop class that day. “You never get to the end with art; there is always something to learn,” Cherry said, echoing his words.

Showing me into a large pantry-sized room off the main studio where her art magazines and large framed paintings are neatly kept in custom-made racks, I was struck by the organization of the area. “It looks like a teacher’s room,” I thought to myself, and another facet of Cherry’s personality was revealed. “I taught art to gifted students for thirteen years and started the Talented Art Program for the Jefferson Parish School System in 1990,” Cherry offered, practically reading my mind.

Before she retired from the school system last January, Cherry had expanded the gifted and talented arts program to include over 1,000 students. More than 27 teachers currently participate in the program. In November, the Louisiana Art and Education Association honored Cherry with its “Distinguished Service within the Profession Award.” “I’m really proud of that, says Cherry. I feel like I actually accomplished something with my teaching career.”

Looking around the studio walls, I noticed what appeared to be an evolution of Cherry’s style. There were florals, abstracts, portraits and still-life paintings–all equally well crafted, but noticeably diverse in their subject matter. (Interestingly, I later found out that the studio is the only place in the house where she displays her art. The other rooms in the house are filled with the works of famous and emerging artists.)
Though some artists claim to be inspired only by themselves, Cherry freely admitted that the works of Robert Wood, Virginia Cobb, Pat Dearman and Winslow Homer have made a positive impression on her as both an artist and a lover of art.

As we moved back to one of the drawing tables where she was working on various paintings in progress, including this issue’s cover, I asked whether she chose watercolors as her medium of choice or if watercolors had “chosen” her. She explained that when she was a child, her parents traveled and often took her and her siblings on trips to Chicago to expose them to the arts there. On one of those trips, Cherry saw watercolors by Winslow Homer that made an impression on her. “I just loved them; they were so fluid,” she recalled.

Years later, after she and her husband had moved into their first home in New Orleans, Cherry decided to take art classes. She received instruction in the almost obligatory charcoal, oil paint, acrylics and the like; ironically, she never took any instruction in watercolor. It was much later that she began her career in watercolor, but when that day finally arrived, it was almost a mini-epiphany. “I took a class in watercolor and it changed my life,” Cherry recalled. “I love the excitement that is created when you wet the paper and drop the paint in. I love that!”

She explained that a lot of people tend to shy away from watercolors because of the great deal of control the medium requires to keep delicately formed images from becoming a runny mess. For Cherry, however, her “eureka moment” came after much practice, and even more trial and error, but the control she sought was ultimately hers. “I practiced and practiced. One night I called my watercolor teacher around 11 p.m. and told her ‘I got it!’–because I had. I had just learned how to do it (control the watercolor). It’s just like any other skill you learn; you just know when you’re there and then the sky’s the limit!”

As she shared more pictures of paintings she has done, Cherry declared that she is eternally grateful to herself for not waiting until her retirement to begin painting. “I know that being a professional artist made me a better art teacher because I was able to practice what I was preaching.”

Cherry also gives much credit and admiration to her parents for having encouraged her to develop more than a passing appreciation of the arts, as well as the sincere support and encouragement of her husband Tom, who she says continues to be a blessing to her.

Cherry’s advice to those who would follow their dream of being an artist: “So many people say they want to paint after they retire. My advice is to start now–why rob yourself of a joy in life?”

Copyright 2003, M&L Publishing, all rights reserved.