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Capturing Nature: The Cement Sculpture of Dionicio Rodriquez (Rio Grande/Rio Bravo: Borderlands Culture & Traditions) | 
| Author: Patsy Pittman Light
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 69617
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 134
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 10.4 x 9.9 x 0.8
ISBN: 1585446106
Dewey Decimal Number: 730.92
EAN: 9781585446100
ASIN: 1585446106
Publication Date: April 2008
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Condition: Brand New ................................................................................H1
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Book Description
Over a period of some twenty years, Mexican-born artisan Dionicio Rodriguez created imaginative sculptures of reinforced concrete that imitated the natural forms and textures of trees and rocks. He worked in eight different states from 1924 through the early 1950s but spent much of his early career in San Antonio, where several of his creations have become beloved landmarks. More than a dozen of Rodriguez's works have been included on the National Register of Historic Places. Patsy Pittman Light has spent a decade documenting the trabajo rustico ("rustic work") of Rodriguez, along with its antecedents in Europe and Mexico, and the subsequent work of those Rodriguez trained in San Antonio. Rodriguez's unique and unusual art will fascinate those new to it and delight those to whom it is familiar. San Antonio sites such as the bus stop on Broadway, the faux bois bridge in Brackenridge Park, and the "rocks" on the Miraflores Gate at the San Antonio Museum of Art, along with the Old Mill at T. R. Pugh Memorial Park in North Little Rock and Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis, are just a few of the locations covered in this volume celebrating the life and work of a Latino artisan. Students and devotees of Texas and Southwestern art will welcome this book and its long-overdue appreciation of this artist. Additionally, this book will commend itself to those interested in Latino studies, art history, and folklore.
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| Customer Reviews:
apreciating craftsmanship June 30, 2008
A vey complete account of the life and work of this craftsman whose work stands today scattered over the southwest. Excellent research and good photography--well done!
A Visionary Artist from Mexico April 12, 2008
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
Like author Patsy Light, I was intrigued when I moved to San Antonio, Texas by the strange concrete false-wood constructions that dot the city: a jungle hut bus stop on Broadway, an arbor footbridge in Brackenridge Park, a 125-foot long rail fence at the Alamo Cement Company's headquarters. Who, I thought, would do something like this? Architectual historian Light has now provided the answer in this well-researched book illustrated with beautiful color pgotographs. They are the work of Dionicio Rodriguez, a master craftsman trained in Mexico who came to San Antonio in 1924 and went on to create visionary environments all over the United States until his death in 1955. Rodriguez left no papers or plans, and Light spent 10 years tracking down men and women who worked with him to gather material for this book. The person who emerges from her interviews is a dapper and secretive man who worked in overalls pulled on over a three-piece suit and mixed his colors in the trunk of his car so that his helpers could not learn his secrets. He was prosperous enough to buy a new car every year during the Depression, and he and his crew travelled from San Antonio all over the country to create such wonders as a grotto lined with conch shells in Port Arthur, Texas, a 19th-century mill with a 10,000-pound concrete waterwheel in North Little Rock, Arkanas, and a cemetery ornamented with Biblical landmarks in Memphis, Tennessee.
Rodriguez's skill with concrete and color enabled him to create unique environments in the 19th-century rustic tradition that rank with Sam Rodia's Watts Towers and Leonard Knight's Salvation Mountain. This wonderful book will appeal to anyone interested in rustic architecture, folk art, visionary environments, or just plain whackiness.
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