Rodi

Rovner:

The

Artisan

"I often feel it's a privilege to consider yourself an artist, but I feel like it's--it's like there's an artist in all of us."

Rodi Rovner always knew that art would be a part of her life. She never imagined that it would become her life.

Art: A Family Heritage

Rodi Rovner can undoubtedly be called a product of her culture. Raised by an artisan mother in the pre-mecca Soho district of NYC, Rodi always knew that art would be a part of her life.

Rodi's mother had centered her own life around various forms of art and artists. Traveling from Illinois to California, Rebecca Chroman, Rodi's mother, worked with everything from painting, silk screening, and most recently, the graphic arts.

Soho is short for "South of Houston Street."

 

Click on button to visit Soho

Houston is pronounced "house-ton."

When Rodi was 13, her mother brought her and her brother to NYC to start up an east coast version of a west coast art magazine. The magazine was called T.R.A., which is art spelled backwards. At that time, it was still illegal to live in the run-down, industrial-zoned Soho district. But, for pioneer artisans, the large lofted structures were just what they were looking for. Rodi's family and friends were some of the earliest settlers.

"In our loft we had what was called the front room, which was basically a studio for (my mom) and we had lines going across where she would screen the t-shirts and we'd hang them up to dry."

"She actually made, which I think is historic--right now--the first Soho t-shirt. She did something with a friend--they photographed one of the buildings and they have columns and they're kind of known in the area for these old-style, cast iron columns that are built there. And so they took a portion of that and put Soho across it."

"My brother and I were still young. We would go out and try and sell them out in the street. My brother followed people down the block saying 'You need to buy a t-shirt--your conscience is telling you to buy a t-shirt.' It was hysterical."

Though Rodi grew up in a haven for the arts, she never really considered art as a future career, but rather as a creative hobby.

"New York City, I think, because it was my teenage years, had a real impact on me. And living in that community, being around friends of my mother's--other artists -- my upbringing was just, sort of observing all this and being around all of it and it was just a part of my life--the arts, artists, people discussing (the arts)."

In Search of Glass...

After high school, Rodi was still unsure of what she desired. She did acknowledge that it did have to do with some form of art--after all, it was all she had ever known. Rodi was not interested in going to college, but since it was the last year that NYC offered free tuition, she felt inclined to do so.

"I didn't even, at that time, take art in--in maybe a more serious way, as something that I was going to pursue because it was just, sort of always a part of my life and I was still creative and so I just dabbled in it."

"My mother, even though she's an artist and she's worked in all these different mediums and managed to struggle through with it--she never encouraged me to pursue the arts because she said it was too difficult to make a living. I always felt the arts would be a part of my life, that I would always be involved with it. But I just felt, somehow from her influence and from knowing the way we lived, that it was too difficult and I would have to find something else to make a living. I never found that 'other thing', so I kept trying (and searching)."

Rodi tried print making, ceramics, oil painting and dance--all to no avail. She even dabbled as a bookbinder apprentice at one time and studied the old-style of book art. She made her own paper and bound her own journals--this too would not be the end of her search.

Note of Interest:

The same storefront owner who taught Rodi book art,also established the famous, now elite Center for Book Arts in New York City.

Click here for a visit to the CBA website.

Continuing to search for a creative outlet and her path to the future, Rodi relocated from NYC to Vermont. She started out at Bennington College on scholarship.

"About everything they had to offer--I tried it."

Once again, she did not find what she was looking for--even though she had no idea what it was. At the time, her brother was attending Goddard College and she visited him quite frequently.

" I would go and sort of hang out and watch the glass blowers in class...I transferred and started to do glass, but I still had no concept of making a living."

Rodi transferred to Goddard and thus became a "glassaholic."

"Once I started with it, I got hooked on it...I just knew--it was really difficult to do and I don't know why--I'm just so stubborn--I just kept doing it."

Rodi Rovner received her Master's in glass from Illinois State University and completed an artist fellowship at the Creative Class Center of America in Millville, N.J. She continued as a glass assistant for artists' studios, including Venetian Master Gianni Toso.

 

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