PICTURED: segment of Wonder Horse, an assembled sculpture by artist Ron Rodriguez
Interview with Detroit area artist Ron Rodriguez
by Debora Stanczak for On Meaning
(This SPRING INTERVIEW, conducted in April of 2021, was originally published in ARTHAUS:Detroit's subscriber newsletter, May 9, 2021 edition. Inquiries can be sent to Debora Grace Stanczak at arthaus.detroit@gmail.com)
ARTHAUS:Detroit (AD): Ron Rodriguez, welcome to this edition of On Meaning. I've invited you here to tell us about your sculpture Wonder Horse. But first, tell us a little about your background, about yourself (background, training, affiliations...) and how you came to being an exhibiting artist.
Ron Rodriguez (RR): Well, I have a sister and I was raised by a single mother. I was the first, but not the eldest, of many grandchildren to go to college. I started out by taking classes that were mostly math and science. But after that first year, I had a couple relationships that were heartbreaking for me, the way they had ended, and I took a year off of college. And during that year, I realized that I dealt with my emotions by expressing myself creatively. So, when I returned to college after that year, I started taking art courses. I knew that that was the direction that I wanted to go.
AD: What about, in terms of what you do now, where you work, the affiliations and connections that you have...what can you say about those?
RR: While I was in college and after college, I mostly dealt with two-dimensional imagery. And I still do. But I’m a sculptor for one of The Big Three, and since becoming a professional sculptor, I’ve been doing a lot more three-dimensional work. And I find that I have a good knack for doing that. And other people seem to appreciate it, so I like to get my work out there for people to enjoy.
AD: Okay. We’ve spoken briefly before. And I didn’t know that you were a sculptor, you say, for one of The Big Three. But I see a future article coming out of that, so we may be talking again in the future.
RR: Okay.
AD: Okay.
AD: So, listeners at this moment [as we speak now] can't see the piece because we’re on Zoom – the whole world is on Zoom. But since listeners, and readers, may or may not be able to see the piece, I still would like them, with yourwords, to be able to envision Wonder Horse. This sculpture is neither your typical singular, you know, bronze or stonework mass, and it’s not your typical welded metal structure that we often see outside of an office building or inside of a corporate environment. It appears to be what one would call an assembled sculpture, and it’s not a atypical one either. Can you break it down for us? Give us a physical description of it, its dimensions, appearance, and form, etc. Just a basic description.
RR: Alright. I’ll do my best. Well, it stands about six-and-a-half feet tall. If you looked at it from the side, it’s a large triangular shape. The base of it is 70-inches long and 22-inches wide. What you see here is a…the primary element in there is the body of a rocking horse. The famous rocking horse that was very popular…forever. The plastic molded rocking horse. But it sits up much higher than the store-bought rocking horse does. And that’s because I rebuilt the frame that holds it up, so that the whole piece is held up much higher. So, at its base is a painted plywood surface that’s meant to look like a stylized rug, like a prayer rug or a religious rug, like a weaving. And that actually is elevated off of the ground by about three inches. So, there’s a deep shadow underneath it. On top of that, sits the black frame that holds the horse, and within the frame is a white outline pyramid that is about two-and-a-half-feet tall. And within the pyramid is a suspended platform that’s about four inches by four inches square, that has a rectangular opening in it, and a acrylic, a clear acrylic – or polycarbonate – staircase that descends from that opening. This is in the pyramid. The staircase itself is only about four inches and in length and it kind of drops off. And the image of that -- and the landing is in black; the staircase descends from that. The landing itself, the shape of that is repeated three times in the base/rug underneath it. The rocking horse itself, I had actually cut in half and it’s midsection – so, its legs and belly – are on the lower half. And that is actually where the dowels that come with the rocking horse -- and they connect with springs to the frame -- those are all connected with that. And then, there’s the upper half of the horse which sits about 18 inches above the lower half. Within that section – and I should also state that the horse itself is a polished silver in color --
AD: So, it doesn’t have the traditional brown, brown with the white saddle. The whole thing is silver.
RR: The whole thing is silver. Within…between the two hemispheres of the horse, is this acrylic world, really. I segmented the space with polycarbonate and so I created some walls and many different staircases. And the lower section and the upper sections of the floor and ceiling have mirrored surfaces. So the staircases, when they go down to the surface of the mirror, you see the reflection, and so the actual image continues beyond that surface. And the same with when you look above. Whatever you see is the mirror image above. And it just kind of continues reflecting back and forth. Now, on these staircases in there I have, I believe, 17 cast aluminum figures. They’re all male figures in suits. Each one is the same person. I made a mold and cast in aluminum each one of these. And they all have…I’ve articulated the body and moved their clothing around, and maybe moved their tie and opened the jacket from the suit. And they’re climbing the staircases. Some of them have fallen off the staircases. Some of them have had parts of them amputated as they fell through the floor. Or, if they reached out beyond the confines of the horse, then that [extended] part of them is not there. It doesn’t fit into the tight shape. But if you continue on up to the top of the horse where you would…where originally there was handlebars for the rocking horse, I removed that dowel and replaced it with a one-inch thick acrylic dowel that heated with a blow torch to get it to bubble up, and I was able to bend it. And it looks like a set of horns. And in between the horns I put a slot, and I have another acrylic staircase ascending from the top of the horse’s head, and there is another cast aluminum looking defiantly up at the sky above him.
AD: That’s a very provocative description. It would get anyone wondering and imagining, just trying to envision what sounds like a fantasyscape. (AD acknowledges Wonder Horse photos presented during interview). This is just poetry in the making, and essays and all kinds of commentaries waiting to happen…
ABOVE: Wonder Horse, an assembled sculpture by artist Ron Rodriguez
AD: I thank you for describing the work physically. I have to say, a riding horse -- because it's been a classic and popular childhood toy for many of us…for such along time…for generations – it’s the kind of piece that’s going to get your attention when you walk through a space. It’s something that’s familiar, and comforting even.
RR: It’s placed in a gallery setting too.
AD: And because it’s placed in a gallery setting and it’s been painted silver, it looks like a trophy horse of gargantuan size. It’s definitely an attention getter. And then once the eyes catch all these figures in the middle and above, you know, you can’t help…you’d have to be brain dead to not wonder what’s going on here, you know? And to wonder what meaning lies behind it. So, one thing I want to ask is -- seeing all of this, I [initially] wonder…where did you find the horse? Was it something you had in your family? Something that belonged to one of your children? Something that was passed down? Something you found at a garage sale? Where did you find the horse in the first place; where did it come from?
RR: Well, I drive a truck, because that’s the best thing for my lifestyle, for the things I like to do. And so, sometimes when I’m leaving my neighborhood, on trash day in the morning, I see things discarded on the side of the road that have potential. And that definitely had potential. I threw it in the back of the truck. And I put it in my art studio at 333 Midland. And I didn’t do anything with it for many months. I just had it elevated up on this shelf that I put up, way up high on one of the walls until I was ready to do something with it. I really didn’t know exactly [what]. I knew I needed to make some kind of initial change to it, to start the ball rolling, you know?
AD: You sort of had to let it sit there and sit and wait and acclimate to your environment and let it speak to you for a while, I’m assuming.
RR: Well, at first it was just out of sight, out of mind; it was just up there. But [later when] I was preparing for a show with other pieces going on, and I think maybe at that time I looked up and thought, that’s got a lot of potential. It’s got a lot of wow factor, potentially. So I brought it down and, I have plenty of power tools, and I decided I’m just gonna go ahead and cut this thing in half and see what that brings me.
AD: Well, this is Michigan. That’s definitely a move after Tim Taylor’s own heart, with the power tools. When – at what point in the process -- did you decide you would dissect the rocking horse to make your statement? And would I be correct that you'd dissected it first and then painted it?
RR: Yeah, the paint came afterwards. I think maybe by this time it’s probably been about…two years? Right, because the show for this was just last year. So, it’s not even a full two years [since I found the horse] when I first cut it. I cut it and gave it a light sand and primed it. And then sat on it longer trying to figure out my next step. But once I figured out what I wanted to do, or at least the direction I wanted to go with the interior of the rocking horse, ideas just kept coming to me each and every time I would pick up that piece again – because remember I had other things going on, other works -- everything was just rolling together. It wasn’t where I finished one piece and went on to the other. I had things going on simultaneously and I had different work stations for each thing within my studio space.
AD: That’s definitely multi-tasking. Could even be what’s called slow-motion multi-tasking. You had a lot going on. Why silver? What drew you to the color silver for this?
RR: Well, primarily because I wanted to limit the colors that I was going to use. I wanted…I didn’t really want to have a variety of colors and any psychology that really goes behind them. I mean, there’s psychology that goes behind monochrome as well, but I really wanted to limit the colors I was going to introduce. And since I knew that I was going to cast these figures in aluminum, having it silver just made sense.
AD: It’s a beautiful choice and everything ties together beautifully in terms of tone. I must say, the men, all the little silver men, the silver men that walk, and march, and climb, and appear to tumble and, in some cases, are submerged, and ascend and descend inside of the cavity you created -- some of them even seeming to be falling or semi-submerged...all of them seeming to walking with assertive purpose. And when I first glimpsed them, I thought – it just looked like poetry. It looked like maybe there was some kind of commentary going on about work, maybe even about life. A piece like this certainly is not a piece that is solely about physical composition [for composition's sake], or just a composition of parts, or pleasing arrangement. There’s definitely -- I would describe this as pregnant with meaning. So I’m wondering, what was your motivation for using the men, in the first place?
RR: Well, I wanted to use men, because I don’t often use real people in the things I do. I do do it, but don’t often do it. I try to create things more abstractly or just invent things on my own. But for this, I did want to say something about humans in a labyrinth, trying to find their way out or find their way through or, for this, to find purpose. For their own individual purpose. And the figures in there aren’t meant to convey, like, a group of people. It’s meant to convey oneperson or all people as individuals, but not necessarily as a society. And what worked out for me, with some of the thoughts, is having the figure in a suit. I remember years ago when I was in New York City and there was a graffiti artist – and I don’t know his name, or her name for that matter -- that did these suited figures that were placed on buildings and sidewalks, and sometimes the arms and legs stretched out, which was straight black. I don’t think they spray-painted it, I think that they maybe initially had, like, a stencil they spray-painted [with], but they would elongate the legs or arms. And I remember following this image, because this took a path, like a route through the city. And I thought it was really clever. Sometimes the tie was flapping behind them. But it was just a straight black image with whatever color. It might be a concrete color or the building color --
AD: They were like silhouettes.
RR: Exactly.
AD: About how many men are [suspended in the cavity between the upper and lower hemispheres of the dissected horse] in your sculpture?
ABOVE: Artist Ron Rodriguez stands beside, his prize-winning sculpture, Wonder Horse.
RR: I believe there are 17 on the interior of the sculpture, and the 18th that actually makes it through the labyrinth and sits on top of the Wonder Horse.
AD: That’s a lot of little people to create. What was the process to make them? Granted, those who are sculptors, they’ll be able to understand better your process in creating each of the men, because you didn’t go out and buy them and find them this way. Like you said, you cast these and you created them. And you did a lot of work to manipulate their positions and motions, even what their clothes and ties were doing, and their accessories etc. But for those who are not familiar with the [sculpting] process, give a little insight into how much work you put into this [casting].
RR: Well as I said, I was working on may projects at the same time, preparing for an exhibition. And I knew that I wanted a figure in there. I knew that I wanted a figure wearing a suit. I decided that I was just gonna go find one out there. I needed it to be a particular size in order to get the number of them that I wanted in this space. I didn’t want to make the gap between the upper and lower hemispheres to be, you know, crazy tall. I think 18 inches is a good gap. So, I actually shopped around quite a bit and, eventually, I found a secondhand toy store that had exactly what I was looking for (which turned out to be a David Duchovny X-Files figure). And so I purchased it, I took it back to my studio, and I cut it in half at the waist, leaving the tail of the coat draping just below the waistline. And I cast the upper and lower sections separately. I made a mold from both of those out of plaster of Paris. And then, with that mold, I would soak the mold in water, once it had hardened, and fill it with molten wax. Once I opened up the mold [and] pull the wax out, I would not wait too long for the wax itself to get firm, so I would articulate the legs and arms and clothing the way I wanted -- even the head position -- the way I wanted it to be. I knew that I wanted so many of them to have a leg lifted for climbing steps or lifting their arms, or moving their arms away from their bodies. You know, just some kind of a natural-looking motion.
AD: Yeah, and variations in movement.
RR: Right. And then adding and subtracting some of the wax in places where it would [or wouldn’t] need to be. If you’re climbing a staircase, your kneecap, the bone underneath there, tends to protrude a little bit more than if you’re standing. So, I would add more wax there, so when I finally went to cast all that wax in aluminum, it would look more realistic.
AD: So, you had a lot of things going while you were doing this. So, it wasn’t like you were focusing solely on this and wasn’t like you started making the men and you continued until they were all finished. But -- I want everyone to appreciate how much manual detail work went into every part of this, because you didn’t just go out and buy them all -- if you had to take, if you were working on one of the men from start to finish without interruption, from the time you made a plaster of Paris mold to the time you were pouring the wax, then manipulating the wax, and then casting with aluminum, roughly how long would it take to make just one?
RR: Well, that would really depend on if I had accessibility to a facility for casting at the time. I was taking a continuing education course over at the College for Creative Studies, in foundry, and so when they’re ready to go, I just gotta have work ready to go. When you have your wax ready for casting, that process…which each one of these things of wax, I needed to create a ceramic shell and have the wax burnt out of that, so it was a hollow void. It was a mold. And that actually tales quite a bit of time. Because you have to layer that ceramic up, and that takes several days. Each layer has to thoroughly dry before you add the next layer. And I think each one of these had eight layers of ceramic shell. And then that has to be fired, so that it becomes solid enough to handle molten metal going into it, be it iron or bronze or aluminum.
AD: Well, we call a lot of things a labor of love. This appears to be a labor of passion. I’m grateful you stuck to your guns, followed your inspiration, and followed the muse. I want you to tell us, if you can, briefly, about any meaning conferred upon the base of the sculpture. The base under the horse that you refer to as evocative of a prayer rug.
ABOVE: overhead view of Wonder Horse, a prize-winning sculpture by artist Ron Rodriguez
RR: Now, the base, I already had the meaning of the overall piece [in mind], which is a man searching. Man – or I should say people, I’m sorry – people in general looking for purpose. Be it through personal philosophies, or through religion. The base actually was the last thing that was created. And it was created, really, overnight. The show that I was preparing for, the owner of the gallery had come into my studio just to see how things were going, ya know, we’re all getting ready to show these works. There were four others at this large show that I was exhibiting with. So, he came into my studio and he noticed that the frame was black and he said that his floors in the gallery were black, and he didn’t know if I knew that. And that that might get a little lost in there, but [that] it wouldn’t be a problem; we’ll paint a nice circle around it, or something like that, to illuminate the frame, which I thought was a great solution. But I was still working in my studio for that whole day and evening. But rather than him putting paint down there, and the show is very soon…I don’t want there to be wet paint; maybe somebody’s gonna step in it…to avoid [him] having to do that, I decided to go ahead and build my own base, and add to the allegory of Wonder Horse. So, I decided to add another layer, nodding to a religious practice. That being a prayer rug. So, the whole thing would sit on top of, like, an Islamic prayer rug, or like a religious Navajo weaving. I just created my own décor on top of it, painting it using the same color that I was using for the rest of the piece. And there are stylized lightning bolts which is more of a reference to the Navajo weavings. But it’s also, when you look at it, they look very similar to all the staircases that are in the pyramid and in the shell of the Wonder Horse itself. And then there are three stylized onions on that base. And that was just more of an idea of something that has many layers to it. And in the center of each of the so-called onions is kind of a reproduction of a top view of that inner platform or landing that’s inside of the pyramid. And then spiraling out from that platform is this kind of stylized yin and yang, which is yet another nod to personal beliefs and people trying to find that balance within their own lives.
AD: There are a lot of overlapping references just in the base alone.
RR: Yes. Well, there’s a lot of overlapping references in, I find in, just religion. They do borrow from one another.
AD: Yes. They do. There are places where they sort of meet in the middle. They take from one another or they just have value similarities. It’s really interesting that you have what’s like a metaphor for life that could also be a metaphor for work, and these overlapping references of the faith structures that people also often use to structure their lives around. So, I’m curious. I’m driven in my response to artwork by balance, balance of line, balance of form, and balance of color, balance of meaning. And I’m really stoked by the prospect of the evolution of meaning that may be present. So, perhaps you worked with a particular focus or a singular inspiration as you went through the creation and the completion of Wonder Horse. But it sounds like it did sit there for a little while, for that inspiration to come to you. Or…you picked the piece up at the side of the road, you knew that it had potential, you brought it to your studio, it sat there for a while, it sorta hung out with the rest of your resources until inspiration struck. But it sounds like once that inspiration stuck, you stayed on track, that singular passion that you had to communicate some kind of a commentary -- or I like to use the word treatise -- on man’s search for…man’s -- what word would you use rather than ‘search?’ These men are marching through the cavity that’s created, in this world that exists between the hemispheres of the horse --
RR: Could be a quest.
AD: That’s a good word for it. So, what kind of exposure and response has Wonder Horse received?
RR: Well, my fellow residents over at 333, they’ve actually been very positive about it. Right now, it actually sits in the large common area at 333 for all of them to enjoy. And recently – I’ve shown it, I think I’ve shown it four times now. Each time, people are very enthused about it, they ask a lot of questions about it, and it’s quite obvious that I’m very proud of what I’ve done. I showed it, most recently it was at the Anton Art Center in Mount Clemens. It was their 48th Annual Statewide Art Exhibition, and it took Best In Show. And I was very happy with that.
AD: Congratulations.
RR: Thank you. Got a little money [which] paid for all the materials to build it and cast [it], and all that stuff. And then, I also, because of that, I was given a certificate. Senator Gary Peters gave me a Certificate of Senatorial Recognition. I guess he’s a big supporter of the arts in our state, and it was nice to get that. Again, very proud that that all happened as a result of my work.
AD: That’s quite an honor. That is quite an honor. So, what's next for Wonder Horse? Right now, it’s sitting at 333 Midland and many people are enjoying it on a daily basis as they’re doing their work or passing through. Is there a next venue? A next home?
RR: Well, that really kind of depends on jurors, various shows. I do intend on submitting it to a large regional exhibition and I hope that it gets entry. But, you know, sometimes you don’t know what the juror’s gonna go for, you know? They bring their own thing along with them.
AD: They have their own filters.
RR: Yes, they do.
AD: Well, what's next for Ron Rodriguez?
RR: Well, the very next thing is I’m having bicep surgery on my bicep tendon tomorrow. And so I’m gonna be out of commission for a few. It’s on my left arm.
AD: Your non-dominant arm?
RR: No, I’m a left-hander. I can’t even draw.
AD: Oh man. Do you already have thoughts of how you’re gonna kill your time, or pass your recovery time?
RR: I do. I don’t have much…at this moment, I don’t have much of a social media network working for me. So, I already have a lot of photographs; I just need to compile them and get myself out there for more people to see. But, once I’m able to, I already have a number of canvases that are stretched and they’re partially finished, or some that are right on the edge of being finished. I have a particular theme for these paintings right now. So, I would actually like to have a show on my oil paintings. And I’ll probably throw in – not throw in; that sounds a little haphazard – I have some wooden sculptures that I’ve been working on. Carved wood. Some of them are combined with cast metal, and…we’ll see. I do plan on exhibiting. Maybe it’ll happen this year. Maybe it won’t. We’re gonna see.
AD: Well, I think you have a long future ahead of you. And I have to say that it has been a pleasure and a privilege to be able to learn from you today about Wonder Horse. So, I congratulate you on your success, thank you very much for sharing about the process of creating this magical sculpture, and wish you all the best. Thank you so much for talking with me today for On Meaning.
RR: Thank you. I was glad to do it.
*"The truth is out there," is a tagline for the 1993-2002 FOX X-Files sci-fi series.