Mike Rodino

Artist Statement from "R3, Rodino: Recycle Rehab" (2018)

The title of my exhibit relates to the fact that four of these assemblages have been rehabbed, thus making them recycled art works of recycled materials. "Blue Brain Rehab" received quite a bit of damage in the flood of 2008. Three others sustained various degrees of damage in moving and storage mishaps over the years. I've finally cleaned, repaired, and added stuff to them to make them presentable. The five other wall assemblages are all from this year.

My styrofoam assemblage odyssey started about 1974. The first piece is in this show: "Ready, Set, Go" which seems an appropriate title since I've been working in this discipline off and on ever since that time. I actually didn't make any sort of art during twenty-plust years of running my picture framing business, but I did continue to amass a formidable collection of styrofoam shapes and plastic stuff - much to my wife's dismay.

The process can start with an idea, a specific shape, a type of "adornment," or some other motivation, and then it becomes part treasure hunt, part puzzle, and part model building. I try not to cut or alter the foam shapes other than attaching multiples together. I also rarely buy anything to use on a piece. The challenges come from finding just the right pieces, developing color schemes, finding ways for attachment, and knowing when to stop.

It should be obvious that I have a great deal of fun creating artwork with recycled "stuff." I hope you have some fun viewing and pondering my art!

Artist Statement from "Recycled, Not Retired" (2015)

The actual beginning to my solo exhibit happened around 1973. I glued together two pieces of packing foam (from my Zenith "Circle of Sound" stereo), painted and glued convex mirrors and Legg's eggs onto it. This sparked a creative idea that burned brightly and then smoldered for over 40 years. 

In those years, I had spurts of doing artwork, mostly photography, some painting, and a 30 year stint as a picture framer. Twenty years of that I owned and operated WallWorks Custom Framing and Gift Gallery on the square in downtown Pontiac; all while collecting Styrofoam shapes and thousands of varied throw-away materials. 

The plan, after helping raise two children and running my business, was to someday recycle myself into the artist I am supposed to be, and the materials into the art pieces they can be. This plan has finally come to fruition. I closed my framing business, not to retire, but to devote myself to my art. Hence the title: Rodino - "Recycled, not Retired."

by Jeremy Peissig

I first met Mike Rodino a number of years ago but it was not until many years after that I had a true conversation with him. The conversation surrounded his closing of WallWorks in 2012. I assumed, quite falsely, that he was retiring. I was wrong.

Mike had been educated and trained as an artist at Illinois State University; however, necessity compelled him to pursue a utilitarian craft and open his own business. Many consider opening a business and serving a small community in rural Illinois a career. Mike did not.

“I opened WallWorks as a means to support my family. It was a job but not my career. The distinction for me lies in passion. As such, I reject the notion that with the closing of WallWorks I in turn retire in the sociocultural context of moving into the next phase of my life. The closing of WallWorks signifies a return to my actual career which is that of an artist.”

That distinction is embodied in Mike Rodino’s first solo show, “Recycled, Not Retired,” which opens August 1, 2015 at the Pontiac Community Art Center (PCAC). It has been a long time since I have looked forward to an opening. I attribute this to the sincere honesty in which Mike approaches his work as an artist in contrast to the highfalutin conceptual art mass produced from emerging contemporary artists and debt-ridden MFA students. That’s not to say his work is not conceptual but grounded in the sincerity of an artist who presupposes nothing of his audience.

This exhibition features a collection of assemblages which Mike created utilizing, in part, utilitarian objects often viewed as disposable – packing foam, plastic utensils, and plastic caps – instead recycled. Assembled in abstract forms the disposables become noticeable only so much as to convey an awareness of the materials; however, the viewer quickly loses them in the whimsical allegory presented in the object. Often that allegory illustrates or provides direct reference to classical literature and/or its motifs. The discernible innuendos seem to challenge the viewer with the question of the artists’ intentions – aphorism or iconoclasm? One thing not in question is Mike’s ability to subvert traditional notions of art in a rural community art center without being polemical.

Mike Rodino, “Recycled, Not Retired,” opens August 1, 2015 at PCAC.