Click here to subscribe today or Login.
ALISON ROSKOS BACK MOUNTAIN CORRESPONDENT
Thursday, January 27, 2000 Page: 3
Designer of the Children’s Wing displays ship replicas at the library
DALLAS – Paul Rodda has a “general fascination with the world.” “Things
interest me,” he said. “How they get to be. What you can do with them.”
This fascination with “things” prompted the Dallas resident to take up
various hobbies, including model shipbuilding. Four of his intricately
detailed, historically accurate creations are on display at the Back Mountain
Memorial Library, where Rodda is a volunteer. The four vessels on display –
like most of his ships – took much thought and approximately 1,000 hours of
work each. An all-natural-wood model of the Scottish Maid from 1838 sits on
top of the display case. The most prominent boat in the case is the Bluenose
II. The real Bluenose II is a fishing boat rigged with sails built to match
the famous original Bluenose. “The Bluenose is a beautifully graceful boat,”
Rodda said. “She’s a humdinger.” Rodda included a whaling boat, made in the
style of those from 1850-1870. He named it Jean Dawson, after his wife. His
interest in whaling boats came when he read “Moby Dick,” along with other
whaling stories. Rodda created the Jean Dawson on a large enough scale that he
was able to make the whaling equipment quite detailed. The fourth boat in the
display is a 1910 harbor tugboat called the Brooklyn. This type of boat ran
until the 1960s, and Rodda is sure that he saw it when he was a child. “She’s
typical to the harbor tugs of the era.” All the boats Rodda builds begin with
an interest in a particular type of boat. He has no formula for deciding which
boat to build. “It just up and happens. I become intrigued.” Rodda, an
architect, also designed the new Children’s Wing of the library, along with
several other buildings in the Back Mountain area.
His journey through life has been a full one, taking him from Virginia to
Dallas, with a few stops along the way. Rodda was born in Virginia, on the
back steps of a dormitory at an all-boys military school, where his father
taught. He spent most of his growing-up years in Brooklyn, where his family
moved when his father got a job as dean of a small, private high school.
“Basically, I was raised near saltwater,” Rodda said. “We used to bike on
down to the docks and bike on down to the shore.” All this time spent near
the water gave Rodda an interest in boats. He learned to sail when he was 9
years old. He built his first model ship around 1937, before he was even 10
years old. He built his first few boats with cherry bombs inside, so he could
blow them up when he was finished. “The act of creation is the important
thing,” he explained. He believes that the thinking takes place during the
creative act, when the intuitive process takes over. The actual ship is not so
vital. “The product is, after all, nothing more than an artifact of an act,
very much like a building.” In fact, his ships may be compared to the models
he makes for his clients to help them visualize what a building will look like
when it’s completed. “When I designed this Children’s Wing, it took a lot of
pictures to convince people that it was desirable not to do an architectural
wonder, but to do an addition to a real building in a real place at a real
time and to have it not shock the community,” Rodda said. The finished
product might be interesting to look at and perhaps instructive for some, but
the creation of the ship is what matters, says Rodda. Although those who see
Rodda’s collection at the library might think of him as the man who builds
model ships, he said, “This is just a very minor sideline of my life. This is
just one of those things I do.” FOR THE BACK MOUNTAIN LEADER/JOHN E. KASKO
Paul Rodda works on the hull of the tall ship Niagara, Commodore Oliver Hazard
Perry’s vessel. The original is being restored at Presque Isle, Lake Erie.
Every detail of the whaling boat is historically accurate.