Victor Cella is painting his own path

If I taught art, I’d teach it in a different way. I could teach it as an awareness — how to free yourself up.
— Victor Cella

Paintings by Victor Cella of a blue dog, a flower still life and a colorful abstract greet visitors as they mount the steps to The Little Store, an antique shop he runs with his husband, John Ortisi, at 88 Main St. in Great Barrington, Mass.

The shop is filled not only with antiques but also with Cella’s paintings. People stop by to see what Cella is currently painting and to talk with him. He is known for his amiability as well as his paintings.

Cella greets visitors while talking with a fellow painter who comments about his work and Cella himself: “Eclectic, amazing! Victor is decidedly loved in the community and exhibits to everyone his completely open heart.” She added, “He inspires the rest of us who paint.”

Cella began devoting himself to painting about four and a half years ago. He remembers taking art classes in high school. He had finished all his credits early and was allowed, in his senior year, to take art for four hours a day. He credits his art teacher, Mr. Owen, with giving him a good foundation in art.

“Now that I paint, I rely on my teacher’s words: ‘To unify a painting, pick a color and wash it over the painting,’ or, ‘You need to mix the colors!’”

He won a scholarship to New York University to study art, but his parents said no.Instead, he attended North Adams State College, where he also took an art class at Williams College, repeating a pattern from high school in which he finished his required credits early and used the extra time to study art.

He earned a teaching degree in special education and ended up working in schools in Massachusetts and Connecticut for 37 years. He retired in 2019.

Then, four and a half years ago, he got the urge to paint, and the paintings flowed out of him.

He has sold 757 paintings, with 95 of those sold since May 7. “I am having bizarrely good luck with my paintings.” He estimates he has painted 2,000 paintings in four and a half years.

He modestly attributes his success to “I sell low and I have a built-in client base of 51 years,” he said, referring to recurring customers in his antique shop. “A billion people give me feedback.” He has two patrons who each have several of his paintings. “Unbelievably,” says Cella, “one person owns 32 and the other owns 27.”

His studio is in the back of the shop. He paints now on 16-by-20-inch canvases, some of which he recycles, finding them at Goodwill.

Cella’s paintings are tucked in almost every available space thoughout Little Store Antiques. L. Tomaino

To keep his painting fresh and himself interested because, as Cella explained, “I can’t stay with one idea for long,” he has gone through several phases: crazy dogs, grids, flowers with black backgrounds, a geometric phase and “weird people.” The “crazy dogs,” as he calls them, are popular now. One person bought eight, left to go to her car and came back for a ninth, spotted in the shop’s window — the one that brought her into the shop in the first place.

He may even illustrate a children’s book with the “crazy dogs.” A local author liked them so much she asked Cella if he’d illustrate a story about three dogs if she wrote one.

Cella was also approached recently by a person who said, “Do you know you were my favorite teacher?” She came into The Little Store, attracted by the paintings in the shop’s window. It turned out the former student owns Crystal Essence on Railroad Street in Great Barrington and has asked to sell Cella’s paintings there.

Cella, who will soon be selling the building where The Little Store is located and move it nearer to his Southfield home, was glad to be offered a new venue for his paintings.

An artist he knows, Scott Prior, a painter from Nantucket, bought one of Cella’s paintings and gave him this advice: “Never go to art school. You are an artist. Let it pour out of you.”

Cella said, “You have to follow your own path.” He mused, “If I taught art, I’d teach it in a different way. I could teach it as an awareness — how to free yourself up.”

To see more of Cella’s work, visit The Little Store (88 Main St.) or Crystal Essence (39 Railroad St.) in Great Barrington.