Lured by the endless summer bliss of Florida sunshine and a dream of animating for Disney, artist Doug Rhodehamel moved to Orlando from Ohio in 1993 to put his education in industrial design to use. Rhodehamel quickly realized his approach to art wasn’t a good fit for the world of Walt and refocused his creative energy toward making art from the discarded materials around him.
Working primarily with discarded cardboard as a necessity soon developed into a signature style that blends an elegance of abstract forms with the rough imperfection of reclaimed materials. Rhodehamel creates objects that are both engagingly odd and comfortingly familiar.
Rhodehamel has been building objects and creating installations in unique and unexpected spaces throughout Orlando for 30 years. “I just like to make stuff and I like to make people smile and wonder. The stuff I make is from discarded everyday objects. I try to make them playful and whimsical to bring everybody out of their crappy days, even if it is just for a moment or longer,” Rhodehamel explains.
Rhodehamel’s work can be seen throughout Orlando; he has mobiles installed in the Orlando Public Library, Orlando Science Center and the Orange County Administrative Building. His work can also be seen adorning the walls and hanging from the ceilings of many local businesses, like the flamingo at Will’s Pub or the myriad of creations he’s hung both openly and surreptitiously at Stardust Video and Coffee. Renowned for limited runs and one-offs, Rhodehamel’s smaller works can sometimes be found at discerning boutiques like Veer Artist Collective. Rhodehamel has a deep and longstanding connection to the local arts and culture scene, and his work has a way of popping up in the most unlikely of places.
Pieces of Spore Project, Rhodehamel’s ongoing paper-bag mushroom series, have been “planted” on every continent, including Antarctica. Created from brown paper bags and laid out in natural amorphous patterns ranging from just a handful to hundreds of individual mushrooms, these outcroppings “bloom” frequently throughout Orlando but most notably during the Fringe Festival.
“That came out of nowhere. I used to brown-bag my lunch for high school and one day I made the bag into a mushroom and I started to plant them in the ground and people loved them and I thought, ‘OK, it’s like I just TP’ed someone’s yard’, but people liked them and then people wanted to pay me to install them,” says Rhodehamel. “I love that I created something that is so simple and brings so many smiles.” Always eager to foster collaboration and creativity, Doug encourages everyone to create their own mushroom installations. (Find directions on his site.)
Beyond mushrooms and reclaimed objects, Rhodehamel is renowned for his imaginative and unique installations. 2005’s Bamboo at Coma Gallery consisted of 14 bamboo trees constructed of toilet and paper-towel rolls, straws and thousands of hand-cut leaves. His Migration 1-3 series (2007-2008), exhibited at CityArts, Say It Loud and the Maitland Art Center, respectively, featured 4,000 matchbook camel sculptures, 2,000 clay badger figurines and 41 running lederhosen. Always looking to push forward the possibilities of art, Rhodehamel’s Jellyfish series installed 1,000 jellyfish at CityArts and incorporated floating installations at several private pools in the area.
“I like the immersive things because it is fun to go into a different world and [if] people come in and gasp,” pauses Rhodehamel for a second, “I’ve done my job right.”
“I really enjoy it. Most of the time it’s cool. I have this idea, but then planning the whole thing is a mess and then putting it together is awful. When I did my Jellyfish show I just hated it until I turned on the lights and thought, ‘Oh my god, it looks amazing!’ The tedium is very impressive; you can see the amount of work that goes into something,” adds Rhodehamel. “People see my installations and they think, ‘Wow, you had to build every one of those.’ Installations are fun because they can be a whole bunch of something. They don’t even need to be that good [individually], but if you have thousands of them, then it is impressive.”
His latest installation, Flight of the Picklefish: A Tribute Installation for Dave Plotkin, continues this tradition of immersive world-building. Initially approached by curator Justin Luper at the Casselberry Arts & Sculpture Houses to do a solo show, Rhodehamel enlisted close friend Dave Plotkin [ed. note: also a former OW staffer, WPRK DJ, political activist and cultural mover] to work together on a concept for the show. Unfortunately, before they had the chance to solidify any concepts, Plotkin unexpectedly passed away in May. After contemplating canceling the show, Rhodehamel opted instead to make the show a tribute to his friend and collaborator.
“We had plans to get together that weekend to float around the pool, eat pizza, listen to B-52’s and discuss the show. We never got a chance to discuss preliminary plans so I tried to conjure up Dave in my head. ‘What would Dave have liked?’ He was on a pickle kick at the time and had these old drawings that I called war pickles, which were just these pickle-shaped things with thorns on them. So I thought I could build war pickles and then they turned into these things which are … not pickles. But I still liked the pickle thing, so I thought I could have a whole bunch of picklefish swimming around, and then I made a pickle moon as well.
“I wanted to make something that Dave would see and laugh at. I feel like it is my job to bring out the creativity in and show people that the world isn’t always an awful place, and there is always something nice about it. Even if it is just for a moment.”
Flight of the Picklefish opens Friday and runs through Aug. 29.
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This article appears in Jul 16-22, 2025.