Quantcast
Channel: Musings of an Artist's Wife
Viewing all 159 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

Who Will She Be Today?

March 24, 2012, 9:11 am
$
0
0

George Rodrigue’s newest silkscreen, Who Will She Be Today?, is a rare style among his prints.  Only a handful of his Blue Dog works on paper originate with paintings.  Usually, as explained in the post “Silkscreens,” he creates the design on tracing paper or, more often, within his computer, printing an original image unrelated to any oil or acrylic work.

However, this new print breaks that rule.  Based on a large original painting, Rodrigue stylized his acrylic colors into shapes conducive to silkscreen ink and patterns.

(pictured, Who Will She Be Today? 2012, 26x35 inches, edition 150; click the picture to enlarge; for info on pricing and availability email info@georgerodrigue.com)


The image includes his signature oak trees, a staple within his artwork since the late 1960s.  In a style unique to him, Rodrigue cuts the trees off at the top, so that their branches create interesting shapes within the sky, and so that the light shines from beneath the oaks.

He paints the dogs as he has from the beginning, like people, at eye level, forcing an exchange with the viewer.

I asked Rodrigue about his newest print, Who Will She Be Today?

“In this silkscreen, the concept of ‘she’ represents life.  Everyday is a new experience.  Will it be a bouquet of roses or an alligator whose fierce temperament might change with love and caring into a pleasant, understandable creature?  Or, in dealing with the surprises in life, could it be a mad red dog?

“These are everyday challenges faced by every person.  Sometimes all we can do is burn some candles and pray to somebody, maybe God, maybe Buddha, maybe my long dead Aunt Bertha, that we get through the day.”

Because we live in New Orleans, I thought too about costumes, about disguising our true selves, not for protection, but for fun and, frankly, for freedom.  Costuming is a daily occurrence in New Orleans somewhere in the city, whether an Easter parade, a birthday party, or just because…


(pictured, George Rodrigue staged this photograph in front of his painting in our living room on the day of the Krewe of Muses parade last month.  Read the story here-)

In this city, I’m thinking, perhaps a better title is….

Who Will I Be Today?

Wendy

-Also this week, I hope you enjoy my latest story for Gambit Weekly, a look back at the King Tut exhibit of 1977.  George Rodrigue’s sculpture, pictured below, now sits in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden adjacent to the New Orleans Museum of Art, where the long Tut line snaked years ago.  Read the story here-


↧
Search

Farmer's Market

April 1, 2012, 9:05 am
$
0
0

Since the early 1970s George Rodrigue set out to preserve onhis canvas Louisiana’s Cajun heritage. Following his return to New Iberia from art school in Los Angeles, henoticed dramatic changes in the southwest parishes, and he feared that theCajuns, his people, faded quickly as a distinct culture within America.

Growing up, he remembers residents traveling by horse andbuggy in towns like Carencro, Erath, Scott, and other areas around Lafayette,shopping at small town grocery stores. But by the mid-1960s he saw only cars.

The young artist witnessed the disappearance of family dancehalls, where generations, from grandparents to great-grandchildren, gathered onSaturday nights, and where musicians like accordion player Iry LeJeuneentertained the crowds.  (SeeRodrigue’s painting of LeJeune here-)

“The whole French language and influence drifted away,”explains Rodrigue.  “French used tobe the dominant language at the stores on downtown Jefferson Street inLafayette.  Television and other outside factors sparked a basic eroding of the Cajun culture.”

Using symbolism, Rodrigue painted his people withoutconnection to time.  His Louisiana oak tree, pushed to the front of his canvas, protects and frames his figures,trapping them within a pre-modernized culture.  Instead of standing in shadow, the Cajuns glow with aninterior light, timeless symbols of days and customs forever gone.


-click photo to enlarge-

In Farmer’s Market(1984, oil on canvas), for example, farmers and fishermen offer their freshproduce and seafood beneath the trees in pre-grocery store Acadiana.  The figures stand framed by thebackground, locked into bushes and oaks, unable to move without destroyingRodrigue’s complex, specific design. The Cajuns become part of a puzzle, pieced together with strong positiveshapes formed between and beneath the trees, defining not only a canvas world,but also a slice of Louisiana.

“I tried to capture the Cajunpeople in their home life, workspace, hunting and fishing, and their participationin fairs and festivals throughout the small towns.  Nobody else was doing that --- not from the region, noroutside of it.” – G.R.

In many of his Cajun paintings,such as the Aioli Dinner and the Mamou Riding Academy, Rodrigue beganwith early photographs, designing Louisiana’s landscape around the figures.  (Click on the painting titles above to see those images and photos-).

However, in Farmer’s Market he fabricated a scene entirely from hisimagination, staging friends and family in costumes in the backyard of his Lafayette home and gallery. 

Diane Bernard Keogh, who works today at Rodrigue's gallery, poses as a shopper, distinct from the farmers in her traditional blackdress.  Her presence too issymbolic, as an Evangeline figure, the Cajun heroine from Longfellow’spoem.  (Rodrigue painted Diane as Evangelinemany times; for the images and history, visit here-)

Finally, it’s interesting to note that George Rodriguepainted his Farmer’s Market the same yearhe painted his first Blue Dog, an image illustrating a book of Louisiana ghoststories, celebrating the World’s Fair held in New Orleans in 1984. 


The style of the two paintings is the same, as the loup-garou sits like a person before ahaunted red house, its figure framed by the surrounding shapes.  (Read the full story in the post “Blue Dog In the Beginning.”)

This began many years of Cajun-Blue Dog crossover onRodrigue’s canvas, as he added this distinct dog-like shape to his Evangelinesand Oak Trees, not yet realizing that he too, like his community, would change forever.

Wendy

-Please join me onfacebook for more paintings and discussion

-I also write a weeklyblog for the New Orleans newspaper Gambit, linked here



↧
↧

Blue Dog and Intellectual Property (Guest Blog Entry)

April 5, 2012, 8:49 am
$
0
0

Guest blog entry byJacques Rodrigue, George Rodrigue’s son. He currently serves as House Counsel for Rodrigue Studio and ExecutiveDirector of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts.  He is a graduate of Tulane Law Schoolin New Orleans. 

Greetings everyone! Jacques Rodrigue here. Wendy is taking a much-deserved break this week from blogging while onvacation.  So, I volunteered tofill in and do a guest blog entry!

Last Wednesday, the Louisiana State University Law School’sIntellectual Property Law Association invited me to give a guest lecture.  I spoke to about 100 law students abouthow we use U.S. Copyright Law to stop people from illegally copying mydad’s artwork. 

Additionally, in conjunction with my lecture, LSU Law Students raffled off a Blue Dog print to help buy art supplies for a project that they did with a local Baton Rouge school through the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts.  Thank you to all of the students for their support and helping to keep the arts in education!  (click photos to enlarge)


(pictured, Jacques Rodrigue lecturing at LSU Law School wearing his "Blue Dog Shoes" that were seized for violating George Rodrigue's copyrights.)

So, what am I going to blog about today?  Well, Wendy always does such a great job giving a great “artistic”perspective of what we do.  Now, this seems like the perfect time to recap my lecture and let you know about one of the “legal” sides of our business.  Protecting copyrights is a very important task that we all deal with on a daily basis.

Don’t worry guys, I am not going to drown you all inlegalese, however my dad’s artwork does bring up many unique and interesting legalissues that everyone should enjoy.

First, I made it a point to trace my dad’s entire life in mylecture from growing up in New Iberia, going to art school in Los Angeles, then coming back to Louisiana to visually interpret the history of the Cajuns and finally theorigins of the Blue Dog and where the Blue Dog is today.


(George Rodrigue c. 1970 with a typical landscape from his early years as a professional artist)

I wanted these aspiring intellectual property lawyers tounderstand that all of their future clients (artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers)have an equally important and interesting story.  They all have a “life’s work” that they don’t want others tocopy because artists don’t want anyone else to wrongfully profit from their creations or harm the integrity of what they originally made.

However, oftentimes artists are intimidated by a confusinglegal system and they don’t know what their rights are.  Therefore, it is the attorney that must vigilantly protectthe artist’s rights so that the artist has a “peace of mind” knowing that thefruits of their labor are safe.

In fact, that is why we have all intellectual property law.  It is to provide the right incentivesfor creative people to put their new ideas on paper so that all of society canbenefit from what no one has ever seen and what has never existed before.

So, that is what I do. I protect my dad’s intellectual property rights so he doesn't have to worry about the past.  He is able to fully focus on the futurein order to take the Blue Dog on an artistic journey that has never been donebefore. 


(pictured, "Swamp Dog #4" a series printed on metal new for 2012)

Additionally, I have a duty to protect the investments thatall of our clients have made in our artwork that we sell.  They have to know that the market valueof their silkscreens and paintings will not be diminished by the illegal actsof others.

For example, if we would let anyone make t-shirts and fake paintings the market would be flooded with cheap Blue Dog images.  Consequently, clients would no longer see the value in the rare prints and one-of-a-kind paintings bought directly from George Rodrigue.  

As you may know, Wendy has said that we don’t license the Blue Dog image.  There are no BlueDog t-shirts, products, lunch boxes, or cartoons.  Our only true mass produced item are our nearly 15 books thatserve to spread my dad’s artwork to a wider audience in what we think is the“right” way (like our newest revised and updated “The Art of George Rodrigue” new in paperback for 2012).



People from around the world email or call every week for a licensing deal.  Oftentimes, they think that withtheir idea they will be doing us a favor by licensing the Blue Dog for use on their product.  They think the extra publicity of theBlue Dog being associated with their brands will make our artwork morevaluable.

However, our view is quite the contrary.  Though perhaps one day when his artistic legacy is solidified we may entertain other licensing agreements, for now, my dad’s images and artwork areunmistakably his own.   If wejumped at every partnership that came along we would run the risk of cheapeningwhat my dad has spent his entire career creating.  That is why we rarely partner with other entities unless theproject really feels right (like with Xerox and Absolut Vodka). 


(pictured, "Absolut Rodrigue" by George Rodrigue)

But, what can we really protect?

Unfortunately, we don’t have exclusive ownership to the ideaof a Blue Dog*.  Copyrights onlygive authors protection to their ideas once they have been “fixed in a tangiblemedium of expression.”

Basically, anyone can paint their own blue dog and we can only stop people from making a "Blue Dog" that looks “substantially similar” to George Rodrigue's Blue Dog.  In other words, would the averageperson think that another person’s blue (or green or yellow) dog looks like itis a copy of ours?  To do that, youwould look at the specific outline of the shape of the dog, the eyes, the nose,the mouth, the interior of the ears, the color etc.

In practice, this is actually a pretty easy test forus.  We know almost immediately ifsomething is an illegal copy or not. So, when we see an illegal copy out there, we seize it, destroy it, andif it was sold, we collect whatever profits that were made. 


(pictured, an illegal Blue Dog papier mache copy seized from a store in the French Quarter, New Orleans.)

Also, important to note is that we actually find out aboutmost copyright infringement from our clients and fans.  They are an army of eyes scanning themarket that want to either protect their own investments in our work or are just big supporters of artists' rights.  We can’t thank all them enough for beingour eyes and ears out there!

That finally brings us to the fun part that people areinterested in seeing.  We then looked ata few examples of infringement over the years.


(pictured, seized "Blue Dog" cell phone cases that were made in China.)

One issue that we deal with constantly are pages cutout of our books** and framed to look like prints that we sell in the gallery.  For now, this is our most importantissue that we stop anytime that we see in flea markets and on eBay. 

We are on pretty solid legal ground to seize these items as "derivative works" because of the very similar facts in the case Mirage Editions, Inc. v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co.***

These pieces are essentially worthless, yet people pay $30to over $100 for them because they think they are real hand-signed printsthat look big when matted and/or framed. In actuality, they are just printed pictures of signed paintings that have novalue.  We have taken downliterally hundreds of eBay listings and seized thousands of these matted pagesover the years. 


(pictured, a typical box of one-hundred matted pages cut from books that we seized. These particular cutouts were listed at $30 each)

Thankfully, when we seek to seize these items, whoever madethem hands them over without a fight and eBay is also great to take down illegal listings almost immediately. 

Next, I touched on the high profile case of when miniaturecows were illegally made depicting the Blue Dog image.  Originally, my dad made a life-size cow for the Chicago Cowparade and some of their organizers sold miniature cows across the country in Hallmarkstores without permission.  My dad eventually seized the illegal cows and used them in a display at the New Orleans Museum of Art (full story here).


Also, there are plenty of outright fake paintings that wefind around the country.  Rarely, aperson is actually painting their own Blue Dog copies and trying to make a profit themselves.  More commonly, someone unknowingly buysone of these paintings at a thrift store or estate sale and tries to resell them (two of many examples below). 



Plus, I can’t tell you how many times I've heard from anunsuspecting heir, 
“My Grandma had this painting in her house and we want toknow how much it is worth.  How rich are we?”  
Unfortunately, most times, I have to tell them that Grandma had an illegal painting (like the fake "Blue Suede Shoes" below) and what you have has no value.  In addition, you can’t sell it and I need to take it from you because we can't allow fakes to exist in the marketplace.  


Finally, the last thing I touched on in my lecture was some very scary infringement.  A few years ago, wefound a Chinese website that claimed they could paint any Blue Dog paintingever made for about $100.  After doing some research, we learned that there are in fact a fewvillages in China that are full of artists who can copy any painting to sellacross the world.

This is scary because oftentimes the Chinese government doesnot usually recognize foreign intellectual property rights.  Luckily, in this case, the website was hosted by an internetservice provider owned by Google and we were able to get Google to shut thesite down.  However, it is prettyscary to not have any idea how many fakes are circulating in China.  


(pictured, a fake Blue Dog painting painted in China that we ordered to see how good of a copy they could make.  As you can see, the copy is pretty good.)

All in all, I think the lecture went very well.  The students seemed really engaged bythe things I had to say and show them. Plus, this lecture got me to organize my thoughts for what I had to dothe next day.
 
On Thursday, I served as resident “expert” for the HistoryChannel’s reality show “Cajun Pawn Stars” filmed in Alexandria, Louisiana.  I can’treveal too much about the show that airs this summer, but I had to evaluate aBlue Dog print that someone was trying to sell in the shop. 

In my appearance I got to say something that most of theseexperts on similar reality shows both can’t say and don’t have the authority to saywhen they evaluate a piece’s authenticity.  The producers there really liked having this extra wrinklein the story.   

“Jimmie, I really hope that what I am about to see today isreal.  Because if it is a fake andit was not made by George Rodrigue . . . I will have no choice but to SEIZE itand DESTROY it!” 


(pictured, Jacques Rodrigue with Jimmie “Big Daddy” DeRamus from the Silver Dollar Pawn and Jewelry Center and "Cajun Pawn Stars")

Just another day in the life of a copyright enforcer . . .

Thanks for letting me be your guest blogger this week!  I hope now everyone has a new appreciation for the importance of copyright enforcement.  Because ultimately, if we did not diligently enforce our rights we would be at risk of losing the protections granted to us by Copyright Law.  

Wendy will be back soon!  She did blog from Jackson, Wyoming this week for the New Orleans paper Gambit Weekly, in a funny account, linked here-

Jacques

*Nor do we own the generic words “Blue” and “Dog” under Trademark Law which is outside of the scope of this blog entry even though we do have other protections granted to us through our registered Trademarks

**Please note the difference between a framed page from a book and a framed note card.  Unfortunately, the law does not allow us to seize framed note cards.

**Mirage, 856 F.2d 1341 (9th Cir. 1988)


↧

Museum News (Rodrigue on the Walls)

April 13, 2012, 6:00 am
$
0
0

If you were lucky enough to see the Rodrigue retrospectiveexhibitions in 2007 in Memphis and 2008 in New Orleans, then you know the powerof such shows.  For those whosought the Blue Dog, the Cajuns and Portraits piqued their interest, as theylearned of Rodrigue’s twenty-five year pre-Blue Dog career for the firsttime.  And for those who came forRodrigue’s earliest years and darkest landscapes, the bright Blue Dog canvasesheld, to their surprise, the same rich quality. 

Time and again I overheard people comment, "not what I expected," some skeptical as theyentered, but collectively awed as they left. -click photo to enlarge-


(Watch a virtual room-by-room tour from the New OrleansMuseum of Art of their 2008 blockbuster: “Rodrigue’s Louisiana: Cajuns, Blue Dogs and Beyond Katrina” at this link.  The exhibition originated in 2007 as “BlueDog:  The Art of George Rodrigue”at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.) 

In the near future we combine Rodrigue’s paintings, bothfrom his archives and borrowed from collectors, in new large-scale exhibitionsin Texas and California at the Amarillo Museum of Art (opening August 2012) andthe National Steinbeck Center (opening October 2013).

In addition to borrowed paintings, Rodrigue works at hiseasel inspired by these shows.  Hislatest canvas, for example, anticipates our upcoming visit to one of hisfavorite states.


(pictured, Take MeBack to Texas, 2012, 72x48 inches, acrylic on canvas)

In Louisiana, the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) recentlycompleted an eighteen-month statewide tour of their Rodrigue collection inexhibitions ultimately spanning 40-90 works each at museums in Baton Rouge,Alexandria, Monroe, Shreveport, Slidell and Lake Charles (see the links under“Rodrigue in Louisiana” to the right of this post for highlights from thoseexhibitions). 

This tour was so successful that it spawned unplanned stops,occurring now.  The Hammond Regional Arts Center hosts Blue Dog paintings from NOMA’s collection throughApril 28, 2012, and the West Baton Rouge Museum hosts Rodrigue’s Saga of the Acadians through June 24,2012.

-click photo to enlarge


(pictured, Rodrigue’s Sagaof the Acadians, as the series looked at the Imperial Calcasieu Museum in LakeCharles last year; read the history of these historical paintings here;  Rodrigue returns to Lake Charles for an exhibition of his drawings and prints, fall 2012.)

Finally, in addition to solo exhibitions, Rodrigue’spaintings hang in numerous American museums and often within group shows.  Two of his paintings tour with theAbsolut Art Collection in Europe, soon settling permanently in Sweden at the newHistorical Museum of Wine and Spirits.  


Here in Louisiana, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art unveilsMay 10th, 2012 George Rodrigue’s most important Cajun painting, the Aioli Dinner (1971).  At the opening reception* the artist shares the story of this gourmet dinner club, his first painting with people,which remains at the Ogden until September.


(-click photo to enlarge; read the history of the AioliDinner here;  photo credit, Judy Cooper)

Also in New Orleans, the National World War II Museum exhibits within its permanent collection Rodrigue's Victory on Bayou St. John, a large scale (12 feet) historical painting of General Eisenhower and boat builder Andrew Higgins, commissioned in 2008 by the museum.


(-click photo to enlarge; read the story behind this important painting here-)

At the New Orleans Museum of Art, while their Rodriguepaintings remain on tour, his Blue Dog statue stands permanently among themassive oaks and other fine works of art in the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden adjacent to the museum.


(Read more about the “Blue Dog in Three Dimensions” here;  photo credit, Karen Moyes)

Finally, George Rodrigue’s museum participation is notlimited to his own paintings. Recently, for example, he sponsored through the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts a video production of “Hard Truths:  The Art of Thornton Dial,”* featuringinterviews and reactions from O. Perry Walker High School students within the NOMA exhibition.  I leave you with this inspiring video,reminding us of the power of the Arts and the importance of supporting themwithin our community.


Wendy

-Meet George Rodrigueas he unveils his Aioli Dinner at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, May10th, 2012, 5:00 p.m.  Tickets $10,or free with a museum membership. For info call (504) 539-9650 or visit www.ogdenmuseum.org

-Don’t miss “HardTruths:  The Art of Thornton Dial,”on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art through May 20th, 2012

-Also this week, I hopeyou enjoy “Art in Biloxi,” my latest story for Gambit Weekly, linked here


↧

Blue Dog on the Defensive

April 17, 2012, 11:13 am
$
0
0

Twenty-two years ago I moved from New Orleans to Carmel-by-the-Sea,an easy decision even for a gal with little knowledge of California beyond The Grapes of Wrath (hardly a ringingendorsement).  In the tiny artist’svillage I grew, over time, a little less naïve, facing the controversynaturally attached to an art gallery full of blue dogs amidst art galleriesfull of seascapes, garden paths and feathery children.

Visitors, nearly all tourists, gawked, “What’s with thisBlue Dog?”  At one point I recall aman expounding to his friends outside our window, “Only in California!”

That was the early 1990s.  People thought George Rodrigue was crazy for abandoning hisCajun paintings, and they thought I was crazy for thinking him brilliant.  In those days, I spent seven days aweek, oftentimes ten or more hours a day, in Rodrigue’s gallery, because therush of witnessing shock followed by acceptance was like no other.  I loved the art but barely knew the artist, and so I defended without defensiveness.


(Dog in a Box hung in Rodrigue's Carmel gallery in 1991; click photo to enlarge-)

Over time, things changed.  The Wall StreetJournal front-page article in 1992 saw a distinct increase in bothcredibility and curiosity regarding George’s art.  But it was Absolut Rodrigue, part of the Absolut Art campaign launched with Andy Warhol in 1985,that hit every major U.S. and European magazine beginning in 1993, transforming“What’s with this Blue Dog?” into “Hey! I know that dog!”

Without realizing it, I expected everyone, whether theyliked it or not, to appreciate this artwork or, at the very least, to be kind.

Instead, the naysayers grew louder and the criticismharsher, oftentimes to my face, as though now I wasn’t just crazy for thinkinghim brilliant; I was crazy for thinking this art.  No one embraced this mindset more than those familiar withGeorge’s Cajun paintings (see the links under "Cajuns" to the right of this post).

I recall a man, angry because I wouldn’t sell himRodrigue’s Louisiana Cowboys for halfthe asking price, pointing his finger in my face and shouting before his meek wifeand a gallery full of visitors:

“You idiot! Don’t you realize what I’m offering you?  You’ll never sell this other trash.  Put your boss on the phone.  You obviously have no idea what you’redoing!”

I explained softly, fearfully, that I am the boss and the priceis firm.  The man stormed out,dragging his wife, in my mind’s eye, along the floor by her hair.  I was so shaken that I closed thegallery and took a walk.


(When George and I bought the galleries from his formeragent in early 1998,* we pulled LouisianaCowboys, pictured above, off of the market.  Today museums frequently borrow the historicalpainting.  When not on loan, the10-foot canvas hangs in the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts.  For more on this and other similar paintings, see "The American Cajun"- )

My youth and the flighty-blonde look that had/has been mineall of my life (no doubt aggravated by the hot pink skort suit and black go-goboots) were my worst assets during these times, as I struggled to be myself,that person who drew people into wondrous conversations about art, versus theaccepted notion of a business woman, that person who remains unsmiling, navyskirt below the knee, and talks art-speak or, worse, art-as-investment. 

Unlike my then-co-workers in New Orleans, I was unable to “ask for the sale” (a textbook technique, according to the numerous salesmanuals pushed by George’s then-agent); rather, I talked and listened regardingthe art.  Without any concentrated sales push on my part, people dreamed about the paintings, discussed the art with friends overdinner, and returned the next day to buy. No question:  this is atestament to the quality and sincerity within George’s artwork, as are thereturning clients, the people who paid, for example, $6500 for a painting in1993 and not only still love their painting and resist selling, but often addto their collection at $65,000 for the same size today.

(pictured, Rodrigue at his easel, Carmel, California, 2012; click photo to enlarge)


As happens in life, I grew attached to the artist as much asthe art, and I fought internally, as I do today, an increasing and unwittingdefensiveness.  It was fine ifpeople didn’t like George’s paintings, but their anger, despite this pattern inthe history of art, confounded me.  Whyvisit the gallery if you hate the art?, I recall asking one woman after hertirade. 

Fortunately, these incidents, although vivid, are rare overthe years.  Most people, I believe,do avoid galleries (or museums or websites) carrying work they dislike. 

It’s also interesting to note that George’s art ismisunderstood, for better or worse, frequently and on more than one level.  In the long run, this misconceptiondoesn’t really matter.  What therest of us see in the work is just as important as George’s intent, perhapsmore so, in fact, if one considers the life of the art versus the life of theartist.  However, since he’s aliveand talking, I asked George Rodrigue for his thoughts.  He laughed,

“Art is in the eye of the Blue Dog…

“I applied from the start an abstract quality to the oak tree and brought that concept not to Louisiana, but to California, fresh on mymind after art school.  That was abig goal for me, whether or not I could create something abstract, when allthat most people see in the painting is a landscape.”


(pictured, 4x9 feet, 1971; click photo to enlarge)

“I face the same problem with the Blue Dog.  Others may or may not see a dogin my paintings; but I’ve never seenone.  It was exactly the same issueas the oak trees.  How do I makethis Blue Dog a contemporary piece?”


(pictured, 4x8 feet, 2011; click photo to enlarge)

“The only way to accomplish my personal artistic goals is onepainting at a time.  Aftertwenty-five years of creating Oak Trees and Cajuns, followed by twenty-fiveyears of creating Blue Dogs, the everyday challenges still excite me.”

Just as George enjoys these challenges within his work, Istill feel a rush, in the same way I did all those years ago, in sharing hisart with others.  However, today Ichoose blogging and public speaking over sales, visiting the galleries merelyto share by request with school or group tours.  It’s a safer way to go, because unlike the early days, whenI didn’t know him personally, today he’s my husband.  My exercises in avoiding defensive behavior get enoughpractice in our everyday lives without facing a tyrannical Rodrigue-hater whojust can’t pass the gallery door without voicing their opinion.

“Your husband is quite the marketing genius,” noted a woman thisweek, seated near me at a local fundraiser.  “But I understand that he used to be a serious artist.”

As usually happens, the hair on my neck raised, fortunately toa lesser degree than in the past. Following a deep breath and a slow walkaround the room, I returned to our table and, fearful of my tone in response toher comments, asked instead, with genuine interest, about her recent travelsand family.

Wendy

*George Rodrigue remains agent-free since 1998; he avoids products (other than books) and does not mass-produce prints (with the exception of benefit silkscreens such as those for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the Red Cross following September 11th, 2001 and assorted humanitarian and cultural organizations following Hurricane Katrina).  He still sells only from the same two gallery locations in Carmel and New Orleans, with a small gallery open by appointment in Lafayette.  It has been almost twenty years since he last worked with an outside gallery or wholesaled his work-

-for a related post,see “Jealousy in the Art World: from Rauschenberg to Rodrigue,” a story for Gambit Weekly, linked here-

-for more art anddiscussion, please join me on facebook-

↧
↧

Read Me the Blues

April 24, 2012, 8:57 am
$
0
0

I’ve loved libraries from the time I was a kid.  During the mid-1970s I worked at the library at New Heights Elementary School in Fort Walton Beach, Florida for extra credit, and it was there that I discovered James Michener and, at age ten, read Hawaii, a book that shocked me to my young, innocent core, but that told me what books could be, beyond my childhood favorites, Nancy Drew and Trumpeter of the Swan.


(pictured above, Read Me the Blues, 1999, acrylic on canvas, 24x20 inches; below, Friend Me, 2010, silkscreen edition of 500, 22x28 inches)

Libraries are a different world in the digital age.  As a blogger, I’m stunned when I think of the reference materials at my fingertips, compared to the hours I spent in college in front of microfilm and within the stacks.  Although research is faster today, in some ways the experience is similar, as I search quietly through this frontier-like screen, rather than pour through books, piled on the floor around my cross-legged seat in the back corner of a quiet library (an experience I enjoy recreating, actually, within my office).

Instead, libraries are “sense-makers,” writes library architect Maria Lorena Lehman, “a dynamic center for idea interaction.”  They attract not only book-lovers, but also information-lovers.  A librarian provides research assistance and an alternate viewpoint.  Within a library, we surround ourselves with voices and knowledge, as appealing today as it was to Cleopatra some 2,000 years ago, as she studied papyrus scrolls.

There are those who ponder the end of libraries...



...however I argue that libraries, like many things, are merely changing.  Like the increasing appeal of independent bookstores, once thought nearly extinct, libraries nurture not only our passion for knowledge, but also our sentimentality.  Through lectures, children’s events and other programming, they engage and stimulate our communities.  With their very presence, they provide brain food and promote cultural dialogue, crossing all generations.

(Tonight George Rodrigue and I visit Abbeville, Louisiana, presenting a lecture for the Vermilion Library*; among other things, we'll discuss his new book, a revised and updated version of The Art of George Rodrigue, published 2012 by Harry N. Abrams, New York and available for purchase through your favorite independent bookstore, linked here- )


During last year’s exhibition at The Morgan Library, "The Diary:  Three Centuries of Private Lives," I thought about not only changes in libraries, but also the apparent death of cursive.  Will our grandchildren understand Marie Courrege Rodrigue’s handwriting, saved within her diary and letters in my keepsake box?  Will they read the "Declaration of Independence" without a typed translation?

(pictured, a mixture of type and cursive from the personal sermons of Marion Edwards, circa 1947, who preached, along with his brother, former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, for the Church of the Nazarene; related post here-)


My well-meaning and generous sister gave me a Kindle two months ago, and so far I’ve downloaded one book, John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, a reading experiment I’ve yet to begin, although the leather-covered, lightweight computer-book traveled already twice across the country within my carry-on bag (where it remains, awaiting the next trip).

Instead I’m just finishing the biography of Edith Piaf(1915-1963), a gift from my equally generous and bookish friend Emer, a first edition protected from the elements and my hand lotion by one of the clear plastic covers stored flat behind my bookshelves.  She was named Piaf by her agent, a man who guided her for only a few short months before he was shot in the eye and killed by gangsters.  The word "piaf" in French means "sparrow," and the reference reminds me of a painting of Esther Bigeou, the Creole Songbird, by George Rodrigue (1989; click photo to enlarge-).


Yet, my old-fashioned book attachment is far from all-inclusive.  After all, I’m a blogger.  And, more than once, as I read the story of the tiny French woman with the enormous voice, I run to my computer for a musical intermission-


Wendy

*also this week:  "Artist Miranda Lake Celebrates Louisiana," in my latest story for Gambit Weekly, linked here-

*for more art and discussion, please join me on facebook-



↧

Rodrigue’s Bicentennial Poster

April 27, 2012, 4:28 pm
$
0
0

George Rodrigue painted the Aioli Dinner in 1971 based on photographs of a gourmet dinner club, the Creole Gourmet Society.  This was his first painting with people, and during the six months that he painted their portraits and a landscape on this single canvas, he developed a style uniquely his own and recognizable today, forty years later, as Rodrigue.

In honor of Louisiana’s bicentennial year, 2012, George Rodrigue offers for sale a special version of the Aioli Dinner, his first $100 retail reproduction since his Jazz Fest posters of the late 1990s.  To create the print, he photographed a re-worked version (1992) of his Aioli Dinner, increasing contrasts and highlights, resulting in a higher quality reproduction than his earlier posters of the same image.

-click photo to enlarge-


He also adds the Blue Dog, rooted in a Louisiana legend, an important shape and icon within his work of the past twenty-five years.  Both the Blue Dog and the Aioli Dinner suggest a melding of Louisiana’s traditions with its contemporary art, a blend that also describes Rodrigue himself.

“Of all of my paintings, it’s the Aioli Dinner that best commemorates 200 years of statehood,” explains Rodrigue.  “The men around the table came from many backgrounds --- French, Spanish, Italian, German --- and together they planted the seed for modern day Louisiana.”


“This early 1900s influx of various European cultures greatly influenced my hometown of New Iberia and, by extension, my paintings of Cajun folk life.  My mother (born 1905) often spoke of the various ethnic markets offering everything from pasta to bratwurst."

(pictured, Rodrigue’s Farmer’s Market, 1984; for a detailed history of this painting, click here-)


Both the Creole Gourmet Society and Aioli Dinner have rich histories, including specifics of Rodrigue’s style development.  Rather than repeat those details here, I direct you to the post “The Aioli Dinner and a Cajun Artist,” which includes photographs, diagrams and vignettes surrounding Rodrigue’s most famous Cajun work. 

The post also includes the 1992 re-worked version of the painting, a canvas George kept for himself after adding the Blue Dog and nicknaming it Eat, Drink and Forget the Blues.

Most exciting, the original Aioli Dinner of 1971 finds a new home this year at The Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, where it hangs on loan beginning May 10th, 2012.  That evening Rodrigue shares the history of his painting during a special public event (5:00 p.m., $10 admission).

(pictured, the Aioli Dinner, 1971; click photo to enlarge; for more info and additional Rodrigue museum news, visit here)


George Rodrigue is not the only Louisiana artist honoring our bicentennial. Lafayette artist Francis Pavy produced a series of works for his recent exhibition Francis X. Pavy:  200 – Art Inspired by 200 Years of Louisiana Statehood (detailed here), and New Orleans artist Miranda Lake premieres her new print, Louisiana, the Pelican State (pictured here), which she describes as “a celebration of the natural beauty of our state, as well as a reminder that we must carefully tend our future --- like eggs in a nest.”

Most exciting, Lafayette student Katie Atkins, a junior at St. Thomas More High School, created What We’re Made Of, a pictorial map of Louisiana.  Her original artwork not only won first place at the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts Scholarship Contest, it also became the official bicentennial poster chosen by the Louisiana Bicentennial Commission.  (details here-)


Finally, I leave you with a full version of Rodrigue’s Bicentennial Poster (18x24 inches; click photo to enlarge), combining the Blue Dog and early Louisiana in a celebratory design.  Available beginning today,* this commemorative print represents one artist’s Louisiana homage, a tribute honoring the state he loves.

Wendy

*Rodrigue’s Bicentennial Poster is available only through Rodrigue Studio. The price is $100 per print, unframed and unsigned, offered for one year or while supplies last.  For further information call Rodrigue Studio or email info@georgerodrigue.com-

*George Rodrigue regrets that he is unable to sign these prints-

*For more art and discussion, please join me on facebook-



↧

Crawfish Dreams and Artist Friends

May 3, 2012, 5:12 pm
$
0
0

George Rodrigue loves crawfish primarily as a symbol of Cajun culture.  The shellfish itself is deadly to him, inducing a closed throat and limited breathing.

“Soon after I did my crawfish festival poster, I developed practically overnight an allergy to crawfish.  Even the smell of the boil leaves me wheezing and my wife running for the phone and 911.” – G.R.


(pictured, Cajun Feast, a silkscreen from 2000)

Alas, we miss crawfish boils, lest George lose his life, a trade I weigh every spring with regards to the seafood and tradition I love. 

As a kid, I recall sitting with my cousins on the curb anticipating the Grela Mardi Gras Parade on the West Bank of New Orleans.  We ate boiled crawfish from a large plastic trashcan, sometimes as early as 8:00 a.m., as we awaited the parade.  Today I miss that excitement, but I settle for my annual ride with the Krewe of Muses, a welcome distraction (story here).

(pictured, André and Boudreaux Boiling Crawfish, oil on canvas by George Rodrigue, circa 1980; click photo to enlarge-)


For George, the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival, celebrated this weekend (May 4-6, 2012), is an important distraction for more than twenty-five years.  For his 1984 poster, he painted friends, including his high school buddy Ed Vice (as the crawfish), Diane Bernard Keogh (as the Queen, but most often his Evangeline), and his long-time friend Ray Hay (in the chair, of Ray Hay’s Cajun Po-Boys, a restaurant in Houston).

-click photo to enlarge-


Although posed in his backyard, George transfers the figures on canvas to a camp on the bayou, carefully aligning them within the tree, cabin and other elements, so that they stand timeless, trapped within a tradition.

Any thoughts on this poster?  I asked George Rodrigue.

“I love the Breaux Bridge sign and especially the zip code,” he said, with his trademark Snagglepuss-type laugh.

Years later, George contributed three works to the Schaeffer Eye Center/Beam’s Crawfish Boil in Birmingham, Alabama, all celebrating the Cajun favorite.

Boiling My Blues Away (1998) shows Birmingham’s signature Vulcan statue in the distance.


Dancing With the Crawfish (1999) looks back to Rodrigue’s earlier festival posters, along with a link to Cajun music.


The print Crawfish Boil is Rodrigue’s farewell gesture to the world of festival posters --- not only his last for this festival, but also the year (2000) of his last poster for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and his last for Neiman Marcus.  The period marks an end for Rodrigue of any commission-based series, as he turns the following year to Blue Dog Relief following September 11, 2001, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and finally the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, established in 2009.


We’ve thought a lot about the Crawfish Festival poster lately and the history of Louisiana festival posters in general as we watch artist Tony Bernard fill a long-empty niche.  As he explains in his Jazz Fest history, George Rodrigue feels these festival posters should be a venue for exposure for Louisiana artists.

“He’s the ‘Louisiana Festival Poster King!’” he exclaimed, when I asked George about Tony Bernard and his recent Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival poster.  The comment came not with jealousy or sarcasm, but with pride and admiration, from one artist-friend to another, as George watched Tony develop within his art.


(pictured, the 2012 Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival poster by Tony Bernard; read more about Tony and his posters in my latest story for Gambit Weekly, linked here-)

“Ten years ago Tony decided he wanted to get into portrait art,” explains George Rodrigue.  “So he took some portrait classes from an artist and after five weeks ended up teaching the class.  That’s the sign of an artist with confidence, making a difference.”


(pictured, Tony Bernard with his portrait of George Rodrigue’s sons, Andre and Jacques)


(pictured, Jacques Rodrigue (George’s son; Executive Director of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts), Tony Bernard (Artist, George’s friend of more than twenty years), Bobby Jindal (Louisiana's Governor, and the subject of Bernard’s official governor’s portrait), artist George Rodrigue)

George Rodrigue abandoned festival posters because his art took him in different directions.  Although he enjoyed the challenges for a while, he now looks back with a different attitude, including a powerful respect for the ‘festival poster artist.’

 “After creating dozens of festival posters, I know the problem first-hand.  The artist faces the committee, general public, and his own ideas.  Tony Bernard's art bridges all of these obstacles, and he continues creating artwork in a way that pleases everyone while also pleasing himself.”


Wendy

-pictured above (click photo to enlarge), a wall in George Rodrigue’s studio, Lafayette, Louisiana, full of his Louisiana festival posters, all honoring small-town celebrations; for more info, visit here-

-also related, my latest story for Gambit Weekly, “Tony Bernard:  Louisiana’s Festival Poster King, ” linked here-

↧
Search

Aunt Wendy and the Cones

May 13, 2012, 5:45 am
$
0
0

It was five years ago that our nephews, age four and six, summoned me from the kitchen where, while cooking dinner, I strained my ears towards their whispers in the den.  What on earth?,  I thought, imagining the content of this intense powwow:
How do we change Aunt Wendy’s mind about Transformers?  How does the tooth fairy know we’re in New Orleans? What did Papa mean about the hoochie mamas?

They invited me to sit between them on our small red sofa.  I thought I would burst.

“Aunt Wendy,” said William.  “Me and Wyatt wanna know why you and Uncle George don’t have kids.”

(pictured, I Love My Mother, 2007, acrylic on canvas by George Rodrigue)


They stared intently as I explained slowly, while thinking frantically, about George’s sons, André and Jacques. 

“Besides,” I continued, “this way you’re the most important children in our lives.”

“Oh,” said Wyatt.  “I like that better!”

“What did you think?” I asked.

He shrugged.  “We thought Uncle George was too old.”

(pictured, Uncle George with William and Wyatt, the subjects of the post "Painting with Uncle George" and of their mother’s blog, “Adventures of a BMX Mom”)


I grew up in the Deep South, and it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t have children.  “Who’s going to want you now?” asked Granny Wolfe when, at age twenty-five, I split with my boyfriend and became, in her mind, an old maid.  We followed southern traditions and Sunday School lessons and rarely, if ever, questioned either.

During my senior year of high school I met with my best friends on Wednesday afternoons at Baskin Robbins in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.  We dubbed ourselves “The Cones” and wore t-shirts announcing our favorite ice cream flavors, our nicknames for the day.  My shirt was chocolate brown, and I was “Rocky Road.”

(pictured, Winning Cakes, 1975, oil on canvas by George Rodrigue, from the collection of the University Art Museum, Lafayette, Louisiana)


Thinking back, I don’t recall conversations about boys or our parents.  Instead, we discussed our futures.  Lisa, the smartest student at Fort Walton Beach High School, never mentioned kids.  She spoke of Law School and a judgeship.  Today, however, she’s the mother of two and co-minister with her husband of Fernwood Baptist Church in his hometown of Spartanburg, South Carolina.

However, it was Scarlet who stuck in my head this week as I thought about Mother’s Day.  Of the five Cones, she was the most beautiful.  Think classic Liz Taylor, ala Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or, better yet, think Evangeline. 

(pictured, Evangeline on the Azalea Trail, mid-1970s by George Rodrigue; click photo to enlarge)


Like the others, she was bright, and she was miles ahead of her parents.  However, I don’t recall her vocational dreams.  Instead, she pursued conceptual goals:  independence and happiness.

Scarlet lived with us as another sister in high school.  At night, following my shift at the movie theater’s concession stand and hers as a restaurant hostess, we lay on the beach and (BIG CONFESSION) drank from a gallon jug of Ernest and Julio Gallo red wine while (BIGGER CONFESSION) smoking menthol cigarettes.  I don’t know what we discussed.  I only recall the stars and the friendship.  We sought privacy and placed our blanket between the dunes rather than near the shore, avoiding the lascivious spring breakers trolling the beach.

It was sometime in our early twenties that Scarlet declared her homosexuality.  I was clueless, even after the years we shared the same bed and the same beach blanket.  We were each away at college, Scarlet in Pensacola and me in San Antonio, when she told me over the phone. 

The following week, while driving through Yellowstone National Park on a family vacation, I broke the news.

“Everyone, I have an announcement.  Scarlet is a lesbian.”

I pulled out a postcard and suggested we write words of love and support.

“What is she?” asked Grandma Helen.

 “She’s gay, Grandma.  She likes girls,” explained Cousin Kelly.

“That’s nice, Honey,” replied Grandma, writing those same words on the postcard.

 “How does she recognize other lesbians?” asked Kelly.

“I asked her that!” I exclaimed.  “She said it’s easy, because everyone’s wearing the same type of shoes.”

“I’m engaged,” wrote Kelly on the postcard.  “Interesting about the shoes.”

“Whatever makes you happy, Dear," wrote my mother....

....who, like my sister Heather and me, felt a bit neutral, wondering if it was a phase, but knowing it couldn’t be a phase, because, as Heather noted recently,

“Scarlet was never a phase kind of gal.”

Uncle Jack, driving this truck full of women through the wilderness, wisely remained quiet.

(pictured, circa 1985:  Grandma Helen (mother of Mignon and Jack), Heather (mother of William and Wyatt), Mama (mother of Wendy and Heather), Uncle Jack (father of Kelly and Chris), Cousin Kelly (mother of Justin and Molly), Scarlet (Mother of Luzia), Me; click the photo, if you dare, for a closer look at the Dynasty fashion-)


Like Reverend Lisa Wimberly Allen, Ph.D., Scarlet Bowen pursued a higher education, earning her doctorate in English from the University of Texas at Austin.  Today she’s the Director of the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Queer Resource Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.

She’s also a mother to her young daughter Luzia, raising her with the kindness and wisdom of a parent heralding from the Bible Belt, while embracing the conviction of her authentic path.  Her bravery and background, a liberal and conservative reality, make Dr. Scarlet a remarkable, sensitive, and tolerant mother.... and citizen.  Furthermore, I am confident that she joins me in describing Reverend Lisa in the same terms.   Either way, it's broad-mindedness born and bred in the Deep South.  Go figure.

(pictured, The House Where My Mama Was Born, 2009, oil on canvas by George Rodrigue)


And me? I hardly remember my dreams.  I pursued Philosophy, Math and English and assumed I would teach.  Art History was too obvious, too easy after life with Mignon, and it was several years before I took it seriously. 

At age forty-five, I’m the only Cone without a child.  Do I have regrets?  Yes, more than a few.  Yet today, as I rubbed George Rodrigue’s aching arm when he paused at his easel; as I opened a Mother’s Day card, “To Aunt Wendy,” signed with love from William and Wyatt; and as I wrote this post, thinking about the wise mothers among my family and friends,  I understood completely that,...

..... even with regrets, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Wendy

-How did George Rodrigue’s mom feel about his paintings?  Find out in “The Artist’s Mother,” this week at Gambit, linked here-


-for more art and discussion, please join me on facebook-





↧
↧

Landlocked Pirogues & Blue Dog’s Eyes (The Art of Improvisation)

May 19, 2012, 12:20 pm
$
0
0

“People are moving in time and in history, in a pirogue, on land...” 

...wrote George Rodrigue in 1975 about his painting, John Courrege’s Pirogue.

The painting is one of seventy-eight images featured in the book The Cajuns of George Rodrigue, the first book published nationally on the Cajun culture (Oxmoor House, 1976, detailed here). 

From the beginning, Rodrigue imbued his paintings with symbolism, from his hard-edged, topless oaks to his glowing white figures.  His rivers and roads blend as one.

“When the Cajuns arrived in Southwest Louisiana,” he explains, “the bayous, creeks and other waterways were the only roads. The people used them in the same way the Native Americans did for centuries before.  All early settlements were on the bayous – Bayou Teche, Bayou Lafourche, the Vermilion River, and the Mississippi.  People needed this transportation for trade.”


(pictured, John Courrege’s Pirogue, 1973.  Oil on canvas by George Rodrigue, 36x42 inches; click photo to enlarge)

“I named the painting after my cousin, John Edward Courrege, who, the minute he got his driver’s license, drove me to Catholic High every day for four years.  Later on, he worked in the junkyard with his father and sisters.”

(pictured, John Courrege sits in his father’s truck, New Iberia, Louisiana; also, his sisters Susan and Catherine, uncle Clifton, and father Emile; click photo to enlarge)


Oddly enough, it was an unrelated photograph that reminded me this week of George’s surreal concept of a boat floating on the land.  What is a Photograph? is a new exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Through a series of images and processes spanning more than 150 years, curator Russell Lord shows us why “photography, it seems, is not one medium, but many.”

Amidst this wondrous variety, a small dark image caught my attention.


(pictured, Untitled (portrait of a family in a studio’s prop boat) c. 1885. Hand-colored tintype; click photo to enlarge)

Lord writes,

“In this humorous example, a family poses for their portrait indoors with studio props and a contrived backdrop intended to make them appear to be enjoying a leisurely outing in a boat.”

It turns out that George Rodrigue modeled his painting after a similar family photograph (circa 1910, unfortunately lost).  The figures, probably members of the Courrege family, sat in a pirogue on the bank of the river and posed for a picture.

What’s more, the 1885 NOMA photograph includes subtle hand-coloring, pale reddened cheeks suggesting the healthy effect of the outdoor air. -be sure and click the photo above for a closer look-

This charming application sent me on another tangent, as I recalled George Rodrigue hand-coloring the Blue Dog’s eyes in his earliest silkscreens.  As with photography, his method hinged on technological limitations.


(pictured, Femme Fatale, 1991. Silkscreen with hand-painted eyes, 22x28 inches, edition 20)

In the early 1990s, silkscreen ink and colors dictated, to Rodrigue’s frustration, both quality and variety.  Therefore, he preferred paint, pulling his prints by hand and applying each color individually.  

The expensive materials and time-consuming process, further complicated by the frequent scratches, dings and splattered paint, necessitated improvisation.  Rather than pull the prints again, he used a simple paint pen, adding yellow pigment to the dog’s eyes, thereby reducing both expense and damage.


Traditionally, artists conceive new methods of fulfilling their creative goals and conveying their message.  Whether the symbolism of a land-locked floating boat, the illusion of a contrived studio portrait, or the practical application of hand-applied paint to a printed image, this improvisation spurs us forward. 

Nowhere is that more obvious than the technological advancements within photography, from the daguerreotype to digital, as laid out in What is a Photograph?.  I hope you’ll join me next week at Gambit Weekly for a closer look at this fascinating exhibition.

Wendy

-pictured above, George Rodrigue painting Ice Cream at SLI, 1971, Lafayette, Louisiana; click photo to enlarge

-don’t miss What is a Photograph? at the New Orleans Museum of Art through August 19th, 2012; for further information visit the museum’s website

-for more art and discussion, please join me on facebook





↧

Hopeful (Discomfort)

June 1, 2012, 4:38 pm
$
0
0

“Medicine is an art, not a science,” explained a friend recently, as I struggled with misdiagnoses and conflicting reports.

“Fifteen people looked at my wife’s images,” he continued, “and only one analyzed it correctly.”


(pictured, 7-foot mixed media on chrome, detailed at this link; click photo to enlarge-)

I’ve thought a lot recently about opinions, specifically about how we view others, how our egos guide us into dangerous errors and, without mentioning specifics, how hero-worship precludes not only effective analyses, but also focused concern.  After trying for years, I've finally mastered answering well-meaning, impossible questions like "How's George?" or, worse, "How are you?" with a question, lest I drift into overreaction or, worse, reality.

The word “hopeful” haunts me within emails and conversation, losing its meaning in repetition.  Articles and websites mention the latest medical procedures as “hopeful,” not to mention the word's proliferation within personal health blogs, support groups and, until this realization, my own email updates.  As I sat in another hospital waiting room today, author Liza Campbell admitted, “I do not feel at all hopeful,” on the pages of A Charmed Life, a gift, pre-crisis, from my sister Heather.

I asked George about the word, but he claims not to have noticed.  

“Discomfort,” he declares.  “That’s the word of the month.  If one more doctor or disclaimer mentions ‘discomfort,’ I’ll scream.  ‘Discomfort’ means pain for days, especially the promised ‘discomfort’ as they send you home on the Friday of a holiday weekend.  Discomfort, HA!”


(pictured, Doctor on the Bayou by George Rodrigue; detailed at this link-)

I wonder, had I questioned the hopeful doctors and fought with the hopeful nurses, would my mother be alive today?  Instead, my ego guided me, as I worried more about interrupting the stressed health care workers than addressing her discomfort, an issue that even I, a medical novice, noted with suspicion.

The oil paints and especially the spray varnishes that assaulted George’s body with hepatitis in the mid-1980s returned with a vengeance in recent months, despite his switch years ago to acrylic paint. 

“Many nights I fell into bed as the room spun around me.  It’s the reason I moved my studio from Jefferson Street to Landry’s,” explains George. “I couldn’t breathe anymore in the attic.  I don’t know if it was those forty paintings or what…”

… recalling the paintings from the book Bayou, a project for the 1984 World’s Fair, including the first Blue Dog painting.  Despite the move, however, George continued to poison himself, painting the Saga of the Acadians, several presidential portraits, and numerous early Blue Dog works all in oil before a doctor diagnosed the source of his illness.


(pictured, George Rodrigue at his easel, mid-1980s; click photo to enlarge-)

“I don’t want to hear about these problems anymore,” said George recently. “I only want to make art.”

Twenty-five years later those same toxins ate away his L-1 vertebrae, nearly collapsing his spine until a savior, a single doctor, recognized the crisis on an MRI last week, after half a dozen others dismissed George’s pain as ordinary discomfort.  The surgeon filled his vertebrae with concrete, securing George’s spine just days before paralysis.  

I asked him before surgery if George would be fine.  The doctor replied,

“We have every reason to be hopeful.”

Are you depressed? If yes, explain…, asks the hospital forms.  I hesitate, Of course he’s depressed! I want to scream, Who wouldn’t be?!  But that would be a tirade, so unlike me, and, for better or worse I mark “no.”

 “He is already well,” stated a friend earlier this week.  “Remember that, whatever the doctors say and whatever the test results."

He has a good brain…. I thought to myself as George entered his brain scan the following day.


And I was right.

Wendy

For more art and discussion, please join me at Gambit Weekly or on facebook-





↧

Clifton Chenier and a Cajun Explosion

June 5, 2012, 1:12 pm
$
0
0
In 1985 George Rodrigue painted the great musician Clifton Chenier (1925-1987).  At the time, Chenier was world-famous, crowned a Grammy Award winner in 1983 and summoned everywhere from San Francisco to Switzerland to share his unique Louisiana sound.

Rodrigue’s timing in painting the portrait honors Chenier not only for his music, but also for his passion and perseverance, as he entertained crowds throughout his struggles with diabetes and kidney disease. 

“He inspired me,” says Rodrigue.  “Still does.  He didn’t curl up and let his disease stop him, even after losing a foot to diabetes.  He kept on playing.”


(Clifton Chenier, 1985, oil on canvas, 24x20 inches by George Rodrigue; a recent addition to the collection of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts; graciously donated by Don Sanders of Houston, Texas for permanent display within GRFA’s Education Center, New Orleans; click photo to enlarge-)

I asked George Rodrigue if he ever met Clifton Chenier.

“No, but I often passed him on the highway.  He traveled from Loreauville to Dallas for gigs, and I’d see his convoy when I traveled the same direction selling my paintings.  He pulled a trailer behind his gold 1972 Cadillac Eldorado.  Across the sides it said, “Clifton Chenier:  King of Zydeco,” with a big picture of himself wearing a red crown.”

Gold?  I asked George, imagining the car.

“They were all gold,” he laughed.

Rodrigue’s portrait is typical of both the musician and the artist.  Chenier wears his trademark rings, headband, and smile while playing the accordion.  He stands not on a stage, but framed within the branch and trunk of a Louisiana live oak, a strong shape developed within Rodrigue’s earliest landscapes.

Chenier was the third of Rodrigue’s portraits featuring an accordion player.   The first, in 1971, honors Iry LeJeune (1928-1955), the blind musician who by all accounts influenced every Cajun musician following. 


(Click photo to enlarge; read a detailed history of this painting here).

And in 1983 Rodrigue painted Clay “Baby” Meaux in a painting celebrating New Iberia's Cajun Fun Fest.


“I ran into him performing on stage at the St. Martinville Boucherie Festival and took about fifty photographs of Meaux and his band.  He was a striking figure.  Had to be over 250 pounds, wearing his big white shirt and his cowboy hat.  The typical Cajun accordion became small in his presence, competing with his size, shirt, boots and hat.  Just a great image.”


In 1975 photographer Philip Gould captured the King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier (above; be sure and click to enlarge), at the Cajun Music Festival in Lafayette.  Known for his personal and documentarian interpretations of Louisiana’s land and culture, Gould* is also a musician, partial to the accordion, a passion uniquely linked to his subject, including an ongoing series of "Accordion Portraits."

According to George Rodrigue, it is music, along with food and art, which characterizes Louisiana’s culture as a whole:

“People outside of Louisiana first connected the word ‘Cajun’ to music.  Soon after came Chef Paul Prudhomme, Tabasco, and in 1975, art, when The Cajuns of George Rodrigue became the first book published nationally on the Cajun culture.  The music, food, and art of the 1970s and 1980s introduced ‘Cajun’ to the world.”


Wendy

*With sincere appreciation to Philip Gould for the use of his iconic Chenier portrait; Gould's photographs are the subject of my recent essay for Gambit Weekly, linked here-


-Also, Lafayette artist Francis X. Pavy, dubbed by Rolling Stone “the Picasso of Zydeco,” in a related story for Gambit linked here-

- Melanie Falina with the New Orleans Examiner caught me recently for “A Life Among Art:  An Interview with Wendy Rodrigue,” linked here-

-for more art and discussion please join me on facebook-



↧

Dog in a Box

June 10, 2012, 2:35 pm
$
0
0

In yoga, I spent years within our bedroom practicing tree pose, standing on one leg, arms stretching skyward, until I balanced with ease.  Yet at my first attempt outside, at the edge of our patio in Carmel Valley, California, I fell.  Breaking my own rule, I donned my glasses, focusing on a distant tree, and tried once more, teetering a few seconds before falling again.

Obviously, although I never touched them, the four walls and ceiling of our house supported me psychologically without my realizing it during hundreds of tree poses, as though imaginary beams pressed and stabilized with energy from every angle.  It was easy to reach for Heaven when it extended past the ceiling, all buttressed by the walls of a residential box. 

But outside, the sky left me reeling and unsteady, both on my feet and inside my head, as I struggled for focus within, ironically, the freedom of a wide open space.

(pictured, Dog in a Box, 1990, 30x40 inches, oil on canvas; click photo to enlarge)


The earliest Blue Dog paintings of the late 1980s and early 1990s referenced, without exception and unlike today, the loup-garou, a werewolf or ghost dog that haunted George Rodrigue’s childhood memories:

“If you’re not good today,” warned the artist’s mother, “the loup-garou will eat you tonight.”

From the first Blue Dog painting, Watchdog (1984), Rodrigue imagined the mythical creature under a dark sky and within cemeteries and sugar cane fields.  It ran wild in the humid Louisiana night air, unlike its model, Tiffany, a family pet born and transported in a box.

“Tiffany’s first doghouse was a cardboard box,” explains George.  “We brought her home in it, and she liked it as her house, only venturing into the grass after she outgrew the box.  Even as I painted the loup-garou, at times my mind drifted to Tiffany, until eventually I created a series of paintings less about a ghost story and more about my dog.”

(pictured, The Re-birth of Tiffany, 1993, 36x24 inches, oil on canvas; click photo to enlarge)


Although wont to claim ‘claustrophobia,’ for George, enclosed spaces, unlike my supports and Tiffany’s home, are simply unpleasant and relate to ill health.  This began in his childhood when, while suffering from polio in the early 1950s, he saw other children, those in more advanced stages of the disease, confined within iron lungs. He talks of it today with anxiety as he faces medical tests or procedures, opting for an open tube whenever possible.

“First thing they ask you is what kind of music you want to hear – which doesn’t help at all when you’re trapped for an hour in a pipe.”

My advice fails too, as I suggest he close his eyes and imagine wide open spaces.

“All I think about is those iron lungs,” he explains. “And my aching arms and back, stuck forever in one position.”


(pictured, Box for a Cool Cat, 2003, 24x20, acrylic on canvas, click photo to enlarge)

On his canvas, the idea of a box changed over time as much as the dog itself.  In recent years, both the loup-garou and Tiffany remain mere roots of a series that developed beyond Cajun country and family memories.  Today the series ranges from acutely personal to universal, but always carefully planned, using shape, color and design, as though Rodrigue attacks a puzzle, transferring it from his expansive brain to the space bounded by four sides of a canvas.

“Tiffany outgrew her box; however, as an artist, the box idea never left me.  Every painting starts with a two dimensional canvas-box that has to be filled and dissected and arranged – eventually becoming a three dimensional illusion.  It’s the first problem I face with every painting.”

(pictured, Good Morning, Acadiana, 2010, 40x40 inches, acrylic on canvas; click photo to enlarge)


My yoga practice recedes and grows in the same way. Today I stand half-blind and steady outside, whether overlooking a valley or standing on a pier.  It’s when I close my eyes, however, that the new supports fail again, and I’m falling, flailing as though once more out of my box and new to the world.

(pictured, Higher Places, 2003, 36x24, acrylic on canvas; click photo to enlarge)



Years ago, after four failed MRI attempts, my Grandma Helen, at her doctor’s suggestion, endured my voice throughout her test as I recounted family stories.  I guess it was my first speech, as she remained captive for thirty minutes or more, trapped and unable to respond, while I rattled on about holiday plans, George’s latest paintings, new growth in our garden and whatnot. 

She came through it, relieved, no doubt, to escape my droning soliloquy as much as the tiny tube.

Recently I shared this memory with George and made the same offer.

“That’s okay; I’ll make it,” replied the Blue Dog Man. "Besides, they gave me something for pain."

And I swear he rolled his eyes.

Wendy

- Melanie Falina with the New Orleans Examiner caught me recently for “A Life Among Art:  An Interview with Wendy Rodrigue,” linked here-

-for more art and discussion please join me at Gambit Weekly and on facebook-




↧
↧

Happy Father's Day, George!

June 14, 2012, 7:15 pm
$
0
0

I’ve written before about brothers André and Jacques Rodrigue.  George painted his boys many times, and the paintings, including Kiss Me I’m Cajun with André and Paint Me Back Into Your Life with Jacques, are classics among his oeuvre. 

(For a look at those iconic works, along with a collection of family photographs, see the story, “André and Jacques:  The Rodrigue Brothers.”)

However, for this post, in celebration of Father’s Day, I asked George Rodrigue’s sons about their dad.

 “My dad is one of the most interesting cats I’ve ever known,” says André Rodrigue, age 37, “and I intend that statement as objectively as possible.”


(pictured, Three Amigos, part of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts’ Print Donation Program, raising funds for other non-profits, and spearheaded by GRFA’s Executive Director Jacques Rodrigue; ...note:  it is so like André to refer to the Blue Dog Man as a cat- )

“My interest in so many things is because of his interest in so many things,” continues André, a lifetime scholar of history and science.  “When I was ten, he handed me a Stephen Hawking book and said, ‘Here, read this.’”

I asked George for a memory, and he laughed.

“André was smart even as a baby.  I remember years ago when a dinner guest, a university professor, challenged him, 
            ‘André, what will happen to the earth when the sun burns out?’ 
“My intense son, age four, replied, 
            ‘By that time scientists will know how to move the earth, and we’ll be saved.'"

(pictured, André and George recently at the Mission San Juan Bautista near George’s California studio)


Jacques’s broader interests developed later.  Whereas a young André and his dad discussed space travel and politics, Jacques and his dad shared the lighter side.

“As a kid I hung out in his studio late at night,” says Jacques, “and we played pool when he paused at painting.  Sometimes he set me up with paints and a canvas.  I worked alongside him while we watched Johnny Carson and David Letterman.”


“They were completely different as kids,” explains George, “and they were seven years apart, so they rarely wanted the same toy. 
“One time in the car, André read while Jacques, wanting his brother’s book, threw a tantrum.  I told an irritated André to share the book, hoping to quiet his three-year old brother.  Jacques opened the book, looked at André and asked, verbatim...
‘How you read?’”


(pictured, André, Brandon Poirot, George, Jacques, Shawn Poirot at the Big Texan, Amarillo, Texas during a road trip, 1995; click photo to enlarge-)

“My dad traveled often to shows and visited clients around the country,” recalls Jacques, “and during the summer, my friends and I tagged along in his van.  He was always so great and wanted us to see the coolest sights like the world's largest thermometer, the dinosaurs in Arizona, Route 66 and the Grand Canyon.   
“My friends and I cherish those memories and appreciate how hard he tried to make us happy even when we occasionally killed the car battery in the middle of the night by watching our movies or playing Nintendo when the car was off.  Sorry about that Dad!"


(pictured, Jacques Rodrigue pulls prints earlier this week as his dad signs Big Texan Sky, an original silkscreen celebrating George's upcoming exhibition at the Amarillo Museum of Art; click photo to enlarge-)

This summer the Rodrigue family, these three amigos, hits the road again, returning to Amarillo as we open “Blue Dogs in Texas,” an exhibition at the Amarillo Museum of Art, August 10 – October 14, 2012.  We’ll also celebrate Jacques’s 31st birthday, by his request, at the nostalgic Big Texan.



“Do you think André will try again for the free 72-oz steak?” asked George, as we planned our trip.

But we all knew his question was rhetorical.

Wendy

-pictured above, George Rodrigue and his sons celebrate Father's Day 2012 in Houston, Texas

-also in honor of Father’s Day, a tribute to my dad, John Wolfe, in a story for Gambit Weekly, linked here-

-read about George Rodrigue’s love of Texas and the West in the links under “Rodrigue on the Road,” listed to the right of this story-

-for availability and pricing of George Rodrigue’s newest print, Big Texan Sky, email info@georgerodrigue.com





↧

Summer Distractions

June 21, 2012, 8:45 am
$
0
0

“I know what your problem is, Wendy,” noted Heather, as she endured, as sisters do, my somewhatminor, but nevertheless ridiculous, breakdown over exceedingly minor things.

A whiny, determined adolescent wins out occasionally, lurking, pouting, and stewing within my, one-would-hope, adult mind over dumb stuff.

I am not exchanging a three-year old print purchase for the same print sporting this guy’s new lucky number!  Doesn’t my ‘anonymous’ cyber stalker know that she can’t hide from my stat counter? Where the heck is Downton Abbey, Season 2 on Netflix?

“You’re bored,” continued Heather, squeezing in a word.

It’s not boredom, I’ve decided, but it is a state of mind.  This summer the bigger issues overwhelm my conscience to such a degree that I shove them back, unwilling to face them twenty-four hours a day, filling my mind instead with folly. 

George Rodrigue, as far as I know, has never done this.  While I worry about explaining the paint splatters on our hotel room coffee table, he ponders, so I thought, the colossal quagmire, the very real situation that landed us in Houston for the next several months.  And yet, he counters...

"My concerns are primarily art concerns.  The Blue Dog never really stops talking to me."


Recently, for both our sakes, I pull a subject from the air, as we sit lost without Maggie Smith, looking through hundreds of paintings and letters from children at Liza Jackson Preparatory School from my hometown of Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

Did you ever have a pen pal?

“Of course, everybody did,” George shrugged; “it was the thing.  Somebody told my mama that her son dropped his pen pal, and so I took him up.  He was Turkish, and I could hardly read his writing.  Mostly we sent postcards.”

Did you want to go to Turkey?

“I had no idea what a Turkey was; nor did I really think about it.”


(artwork by George Rodrigue, 2nd grade; related story here-)

I tried again.

Doesn’t sound like much fun.

“No, it wasn’t fun!”

And finally, he started….

“I was interested in airplanes.  I wanted to be a pilot (note:  news to me-).  And I liked buying airplane books--- military, jet fighters, commercial, all kinds.   I wrote to airplane companies- Lockheed, Boeing and others, requesting photographs of planes.  They sent me beautiful 8x10 images.”


(pictured, The Wild Blue Yonder, 2000, part of the Xerox Collection)

“I worked on an airplane scrapbook.  It’s still in my attic studio on St. Peter’s Street. 
“The pictures were better than in the magazines, and it was free, just like the internet!  It was much more exciting than a Turkish pen pal.”

Distracted at last, George remained lost in the 5thgrade, 1954, doodling airplanes as I continued reading get-well letters, 2012.

I like his diversions far better than mine, I thought, recalling my earlier complaints to my sister.  I focused on the hand-made cards.

“When you paint,” reads one, “take a sip of water after every stroke.”



“Use Band-aids and eat soup (or, rather, 'soop'),” suggest others.

At last, refocused, I dropped the petty worry, apologized to my husband and sister, and recalled the important things in life.



Wendy

-with sincere thanks to the children of Liza Jackson Preparatory School, who cheered our windowsills and our moods with their heartfelt words and paintings; we loved meeting you at your school last fall with the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts and the Mattie Kelly Arts Foundation; and we will see you again-


-also this week, I hope you enjoy “What is a Photograph?” my latest story for Gambit Weekly, featuring a classic Rodrigue Cajun painting and an outstanding summer exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art-

-for more art and discussion, please join me on facebook-


↧
Search

Match Race

June 28, 2012, 10:29 am
$
0
0

“The straight sprints raced in heats or in match races where the two riders would balance for long seconds on their machines for the advantage of making the other rider take the lead and then the slow circling and the final plunge into the driving purity of speed.” –Ernest Hemingway*

Because life intended it this way, George Rodrigue and I are with characters in Houston, Texas for the summer.  One couple, Slim and Dot Martin, pigeon racers, formerly horse racers, formerly rooster fighters, formerly dairy farmers, join us on Mondays for the baseball cap and banana bread swap.  We women nod “Mornin’” while the men forego the salutations in favor of the point:

“Years ago, when I was smokin’ and drinkin’ and runnin’ with wild women…”

…offers Slim, beginning the politically incorrect exchanges that flow naturally from a Cajun and a Cowboy trapped in a storytelling match race by chance every week for six hours in a room.

“Call it like it is, Wendy,” says George as I read him this opening.  “A Coonass and a Horse’s Ass.  It was the cowboys that named us Coonasses; so we returned the favor.”


(pictured, Horse Race, 1973, oil on canvas by George Rodrigue; click photo to enlarge-)

For me, the days are full of firsts: 

…the first time I’ve heard of rice, when added to gumbo, called ‘ice cream;’ the first time I’ve heard a heated defense for electing convicted felons to public office; the first time, since my Papa Mac, who died in 1972, that I’ve heard the word “dago” in casual conversation.  (…at which point the seventy year old Dot and I crawl again under our chairs, glancing again with sly smiles of apology).

He kinda looks like Hank Williams, I whispered to George on the day we spied Slim.  We eavesdropped as he spoke to his wife,

“Is it next week we’ll be in New Iberia with those dagos?”

George, hearing his hometown, jumped in.

“You’re going to New Iberia?”

They continued from one subject to the next across the room.

“You remember Moon Mullican?” called George.  “You know they say he wrote 'Jambalaya'.”

          “We got an ol’ boy in Alvin (Texas) plays 'Jambalaya' on the squeeze box,” replied Slim.   
          “Ya' know, Nolan Ryan’s from Alvin,” he continued.


(pictured, Racing at Broussard Farm (Match Race), 1982, oil on canvas by George Rodrigue; click photo to enlarge-)

It was also the first time I’ve heard of a match race outside of George Rodrigue’s 1982 painting (above) and, ironically, an offhand reference within Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, which I finished, also this week, as the geriatric crowd slept.

It was Slim’s recollection of a match race, in fact, which gave me the idea for this story.

What’s a match race? I whispered to George.

“All of my paintings of horses running are of match races,” he explained, shaking his head, where has she been?  “Cajuns race quarter horses, matching one horse and one jockey against the other. 
“Many are ‘claiming races’ – you win the race, you win the other horse.   I saw them first as a kid at the track in Abbeville, and when I started painting horses, I went back to the races again.”


(pictured, A Horse Named Black Oaks, 1976, oil on canvas by George Rodrigue; click photo to enlarge)

“It was a lot like the cock fights, betting against someone else’s horse or rooster. 
“A lot of inside bettin’ on that….,” he continued, rolling his eyes.

          “I fought roosters,” interjected Slim.

“You ever shoot skeet?” asked George.

          “Yup, but we use live pigeons.”

In this weekly match race, George started on one side of the room and Slim on the other.  The first day they flung friendly obscenities.  The second day they sat two chairs closer; and by day three they sat side-by-side, exchanging thoughts on today as though they were days gone by.  Dot and I occasionally get in a word.

You’re laying black top in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana? I asked Dot, knowing George was just as curious after over-hearing her phone conversation about work in the Crawfish Capitol.

“Yeah, but I’m having trouble getting my delivery.  I may have to do it myself.”

You’re a true modern woman, I commented, genuinely impressed. When I was a young girl we all aspired to be First Lady.  It never occurred to us to shoot for the top job.

“When I was a young girl,” countered Dot, “we all aspired to wear an apron and raise kids.  That was the top job.”

George and I discussed our recent passion for 1960s Columbo, before Slim and Dot trumped us with The Waltons.


(pictured, At the Carencro Racetrack, 1980, oil on canvas by George Rodrigue; click photo to enlarge-)

Tell them about the preacher, I urged George. 

“Years ago,” he began, “as I passed through Alexandria, a preacher and his wife approached me in the parking lot of Landry’s Restaurant for a Jolie Blonde print.  The preacher peeled $25,000 in one hundred dollar bills from his pocket, and they bought five paintings and a bronze from the trunk of my Lincoln Continental.  I threw in the print,” he laughed,  “lagniappe*. 
“’Everybody thinks we live with hardly nothin’ in our shotgun house,’ explained the preacher’s wife.  ‘But we sure like our art!’”

With an unprecedented and unexpected pocketful of cash, Rodrigue continued his drive from Alexandria to Shreveport, where he delivered paintings to a collector, who invited him to the Louisiana Downs Racetrack.  There they joined Racing Commissioner Gus Mijalis in his suite, and in less than an hour, betting with the rowdy bunch, Rodrigue lost $22,000.  


(pictured, One Too Many Aces, 1987/2010, oil and acrylic on canvas by George Rodrigue; click photo to enlarge-)

Dejected, he moved to the bar, where he struck up a conversation with a small man hunched over a racing form.

“Got any winners?” asked George.

          “I got ‘em all,” mumbled the bookie through his cigar, showing his form.

“I just need two,” said Rodrigue, holding up his fingers.

Betting his last $3,000, he walked away with $23,000 and a lesson.

“I haven’t bet on the ponies since,” says George...

...who played the slots last time we joined friends at the track.

We all laughed, and Slim and George continued their colorful exchange, one-upping each other, pulling stories from memory in anticipation of this weekly match race.  As Dot returned to her black top negotiations, I opened my book:

“For a long time,” wrote Hemingway, “it was enough just…to bet on our own life and work, and on the painters that you knew and not try to make your living gambling and call it by some other name.”*

Wendy

*Ernest Hemingway. A Moveable Feast, Scribner, New York, 1964

*the word ‘lagniappe’ is a Cajun term meaning “a little something extra”

-note: if you’re offended by this post, you’ll find me “hiding behind displays in the supermarket” with author Patty Friedmann-

-also this week, George Rodrigue’s portrait of Clifton Chenier in my latest story for Gambit Weekly, linked here-

-for more art and discussion, please join me on facebook-


↧

A Star-spangled Blue Dog (from Houston)

July 4, 2012, 7:13 am
$
0
0

Happy 4th of July!

It’s an odd one, this middle of the week celebration, but perhaps that awkward timing renews enthusiasm, as folks have big plans, including barbeques and neighborhood parties despite the hottest summer on record.  We spied decorations in unexpected places, and for the first time ever received gifts and cards as we honor two hundred and thirty-six years of America's Independence.


(pictured, My Security Blanket, 1996, an original silkscreen by George Rodrigue)

I planned for today a post paying tribute to the city and people of Houston.  We’re here seven weeks now, about halfway through our Texas summer, and despite the circumstances, George Rodrigue and I have renewed our fondness for the Lone Star State, a true American neighbor to Louisiana in times of need, harboring our citizens following hurricanes, supporting our economy with weekend Big Easy vacations, and, on a personal level, treating us to a healing, hospitable, and unexpectedly entertaining Summer of 2012.

In anticipation of that post, George photographed the spectacular Houston skyline, dominated by skyscrapers, seemingly more than “mere corporate shells.”  They are “monuments to the arrogant yet philanthropic spirit of America,” writes Patti Smith in Just Kids (an artsy Independence Day gift from my equally artsy cousin Jill Wolfe), viewing New York City as beautiful, “a real city, shifty and sexual,” even as the young Smith sleeps in parks and scrounges for food.

(pictured, Big Apple Blues, 1995, an original silkscreen by George Rodrigue)

George also photographed, although not yet in the right light, the 1950s Sears building, almost seductive in its ugliness, “the old world and the emerging one served up in the brick and mortar of the artisan and the architects.” (Smith)

But that post will wait, because it needs George’s photographs, and he’s still scouting daily, knowing he has the rest of the summer, waiting for the right shadows, the right atmosphere, manipulating for hours within photoshop, yet still not perfectly pleased.

Our plans today are far from a barbeque.  Yet we’re happy, as our loved ones visit virtually through their messages and well-wishes.  We’ll eat homemade chocolate cake lovingly baked and gifted by our Santa Rosa Beach friends Lacy and Andy, topping it with homemade preserves from my cousin Judy Wolfe, a gifted nutritionist out to save our American bodies from our American chain restaurants with her clever website Jeatwell.

Thanks to my college roommate Debbie we’ll enjoy at last the contagious and utterly un-American Downton Abbey Season 2, followed by, courtesy of Rhonda Egan of the Rodrigue Gallery, the classic and purely American Tracy & Hepburn, the Definitive Collection.

During this quiet morning, as I write this, George Rodrigue sleeps behind me after working late on plans for painting a barn (I kid you not! …details when he lets me share-), and I watch the Houston downtown silence, unlike yesterday’s rush hour chaos, from our ninth floor window, the same window granting us an excellent view of tonight’s fireworks.


(pictured, my sister Heather joins her son Wyatt in Birmingham, England last month as they cheer on Wyatt's brother, William Parker, who placed 4th representing Team USA in the 2012 BMX World Championships!  Read the exciting story here-)

Finally, I leave you with an American memory:

Thanks to a clever Saturday morning program called Schoolhouse Rock, each 6thgrader at New Heights Elementary School in Fort Walton Beach, Florida stood at the front of the room and passed his or her history test with melodic ease, reciting the Preamble to the United States Constitution.  Thirty-five years later, like my former classmates, I know it by heart.  Won’t you join me in this reminder of our “blessings of liberty?”


Happy Independence Day to you and yours!  And Happy Birthday to my dad, born on the 4th of July!

Wendy

-also this week, patriotism dominates the Cajun heritage and paintings of artist George Rodrigue in my latest story for Gambit Weekly:  “The American Cajun”-

-for more art and discussion, please join me on facebook-


↧
↧

Starry Starry Eyes: A Runaway Hit

July 8, 2012, 3:58 pm
$
0
0

In 1991 George Rodrigue’s printed artwork bolted forward with new color and precision as he applied the latest in ink and technology to his silkscreens.  This was a substantial advancement over his earlier Cajun posters and Blue Dog silkscreens.  For the first time he created complex original print designs using intense hues.

Prior to the silkscreen Starry, Starry Eyes (1991, edition 175), Rodrigue’s Cajun posters were four-color, offset lithographs.  His Blue Dog silkscreens were two or three colors, dull in shade and thick in texture, as he experimented with silkscreen ink.  He guessed at colors and struggled with splattered paint, scratches and dings, sometimes pulling as many as thirty trial prints to obtain a final artwork without damage and in perfect registration.


With Starry, Starry Eyes, Rodrigue swaps paint for ink and hand for machine.  He experiments for the first time with the computer, increasing the complexity of his designs and, because his silkscreen prints transfer from his mind to his paper without an intermittent painting, allowing him to see the final image and make changes before his printer produces the work.

Starry, Starry Eyesbecame Rodrigue’s bestselling print to date, despite its $350 price, a staggering amount at the time.  A victim of backyard familiarity, the New Orleans gallery sold only a handful of prints to locals – a pattern that began years earlier with his Cajun paintings, as a surprising two percent of his collectors even now are Louisiana residents.  We shipped worldwide, and the gallery phones rang non-stop for weeks, long after the prints sold out.

This was remarkable in those pre-email days, because, other than New Orleans and Carmel gallery foot traffic, we relied on photographs and the U.S. Post Office.  We produced our first high quality mailer, a tri-fold piece with die-cuts, overlaying the eye-filled sky on the dog.  Today these mailers are a casualty of the computer age, as we dismiss the delay and expense in favor of digital photography, websites and facebook.


It is the Blue Dog’s eyes, according to many enthusiasts, that draw them in and create the mystery.  Early on Rodrigue changed the loup-garou’s red eyes to yellow, shifting the dog’s meaning away from the Cajun werewolf legend.  In time the oval dog-like eyes become unnatural round saucers, uniform in their structure and hue, shifting the artwork’s meaning again, this time away from real dog associations.

“Without variation in shape,” explains Rodrigue, “one would think these round saucer eyes would cause a static expression.  But this is not the case.  The other elements in the dog’s face become very important.  In changing those elements, even slightly, in relationship to each other, the dog’s expression varies.   
"In fact, the paintings show a wide variety of interpretations, which is unexpected when one considers the basic premise.  And it’s certainly unexpected if a person has seen only one image.”

It was a gift from artist Mallory Page that started this week’s discussion of eyes, reminding me of Rodrigue's Van Gogh salute. The book, The Look of Love (Graham C. Boettcher, 2012), features late 18th and early 19th century eye miniatures from the Skier Collection, the subject of a recent exhibition at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

(pictured, gold oval pendant surrounded by seed pearls, ca. 1830; height just under two inches; catalogue #68, Boettcher p. 159)


Swept up, I pulled a book of poetry from our shelf and turned to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous lines (1772-1822):

How eloquent are eyes!
Not the rapt poet's frenzied lay
When the soul's wildest feelings stray
Can speak so well as they.


“It’s pure romance,” says Page, known for her own emotive paintings, as she reveals her heart not through a painted gaze but through abstraction and color. 


(pictured, Still So Blue, 2012, 36x60, oil on canvas by Mallory Page; click photo to enlarge-)

I asked George Rodrigue about the importance of eyes in expressing emotion; yet he dwells on character, referencing the timeless stares within his Aioli Dinner, the crazed gaze of Earl Long, and the unwavering strength of General Eisenhower.

Even as I write this post, however, he creates within his computer an eye portrait, sending me his own look of love, a cyber age keepsake.

(pictured, George Rodrigue, 2012; click photo to enlarge-)


In twenty years an artist’s world shifts from paint to ink, from hand-pulled to machine, from guesswork to computer, from elaborate brochures to digital photographs, from snail mail to email, and from a traditional secondary market to….

….reality TV.

This week George’s son Jacques Rodrigue appears as a guest on Cajun Pawn Stars when a customer enters with, you guessed it, Starry Starry Eyes.

“It was great visiting with Jimmy, a true Louisiana character," says Jacques about his experience.  "He’s always liked my dad’s artwork.


“Through his pawn business he collects many pieces representing our culture and history.  I was happy to lend a hand to his Cajun Pawn Stars show, sharing the uniqueness of Louisiana with a national audience.”  

Tune in this Wednesday, July 11th 2012, for Cajun Pawn Stars and the continuing story of the classic Rodrigue silkscreen, Starry, Starry Eyes.

Wendy

-see the books George Rodrigue Prints (2008) and The Art of George Rodrigue (revised, 2012) both by Harry N. Abrams, NYC; the Blue Dog 2013 Wall Calendar (Rizzoli, NYC) features new original paintings by George Rodrigue, available here-

-for more art and discussion, please join me at Gambit Weekly or on facebook-


↧

Success

July 14, 2012, 1:38 pm
$
0
0

This week I read Just Kids, poet/rocker Patti Smith’s personal account of life with her closest friend, artist/photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.  I had planned an essay on Louisiana’s Legends, a series of portraits completed by George Rodrigue for Public Broadcasting between 1990 and 1993, but after finishing Smith’s memoir late Thursday night, I suffered Friday a crying-headache, unable to focus on anything other than hydration (mine and George’s, coincidentally) and Smith’s poem, “Wild Leaves.”

The Legends, along with Tee Coon, the Breaux Bridge Band, the Texan Blue Dog, and any number of other unfinished posts, fall victim to my lingering, as though bruised, emotional state.


If you’re a woman, you know this headache well.

If you’re a man with this firsthand knowledge, then you’re an anomaly, at least in my world, as I’ve never met anyone like you.

“Wild Leaves”

Every word that’s spoken
Every word decreed
Every spell that’s broken
Every golden deed
All the parts we’re playing
Binding as the reed
And wild leaves are falling
Wild wild leaves*

Interesting enough, it was George Rodrigue who said,

“Why do you want to write about the Legends paintings?  That’s boring!”

Yet I knew his comment related to fretful recollections of deadlines and tedious work, as opposed to the subjects themselves, successful, larger-than-life talents like Ernest Gaines, Ron Guidry and Pete Fountain.  Thus, the story remains important, delayed until the day I awake focused once again on Louisiana’s best, yet vested enough personally to make it interesting.

I explained this short essay, an effort to get the 1970s New York art scene out of my head, returning me to Blue Dogs in 2012, to George Rodrigue.

“Nobody knows who she is, Wendy!” 

...insisted my husband, a fifty-year member of the Johnny Cash Fan Club.  

“Make sure you link to Patti Smith's website,” he said...

...shaking his head as I gave him the look.

“He was worried that I wouldn’t be successful if my work was too provocative,” wrote Smith about Mapplethorpe, in her version of our conversation.  “He always wanted me to write a song I could dance to.”

Any artist’s success lies in a mixture of self-confidence and vulnerability. Whether or not this translates to commercial success is in the stars.  However, altering one’s creative vision based on outside commentary spells the worst kind of failure: personal defeat.  Of this I’m sure.

I circled a passage, as Smith recalls seeing Bob Dylan* at her concert:

“Instead of humbled, I felt a power, perhaps his; but I also felt my own worth and the worth of my band.  It seemed for me a night of initiation, where I had to become fully myself in the presence of the one I had modeled myself after.”

Throughout this book, Smith inspires me, not only through the courage of her personal expression in art and music, but also through the simplicity and sincerity of her words.  I believe it was this, as much as the circumstances of Mapplethorpe’s death in 1989, that brought on my sobbing and, afterwards, crying-headache, resonating still.


I asked George Rodrigue for a few words on success.  He thought for only a moment:

“Never believe what others write about you – no matter how great or how bad.”

Wendy

*Just Kids, 2010 by Patti Smith; published by Harper Collins, New York

*for George:  Bob Dylan, the Official Site

-pictured above (click photo to enlarge), Blue Wendy by George Rodrigue; related post here-

-for more art and discussion, please join me at Gambit Weekly or on facebook-


↧

Lucky Dog

July 21, 2012, 2:55 pm
$
0
0

Yesterday morning I sat in the window of a Houston, Texas café, George Rodrigue’s sandwich order in hand, awaiting the counter change from breakfast to lunch.  An Ignatius J. Reilly nearby spoke of high water and broken computers into what I first thought was a hand’s free phone but turned out to be air. 

“Damn this spilled coffee!” he shouted, looking at me.  I shrugged, seeing nothing. He repeated his creed until I nodded in agreement, handing him a napkin which he tossed aside, grinding his teeth and abandoning his tray.

“Hot dogs, hot dogs,” called the Ignatius in my head.  “Savories from the hygienic Paradise kitchens.”*
 

(pictured, Hot Dog Halo, 1995, 30x24 inches, oil and acrylic on canvas by George Rodrigue; click photo to enlarge)

As if on cue, Yusuf Islam, a.k.a. Cat Stevens, began "Don’t Be Shy" over the speakers of the now empty restaurant, sending me againinto a helpless emotional state.

Adding to this surreal scene is our current situation, too private to share in detail, but real, the source of speculation and concern, the surprising “job training,” as my friend Barbara calls it, and the catalyst of a bigger life’s picture:  family, legacy, and love.


(pictured:  George Rodrigue and Thelma Toole, 1981, with his painting based on her son’s novel, A Confederacy of Dunces. Rodrigue painted this portrait for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Flora Levy Lecture Series.  See the painting and read its history here; click the photo to enlarge-)

“Let me tell you how you are…”

…started George Rodrigue as I shared my café-encounter.  I laughed and grabbed my notebook at this unexpected sign of normalcy.

“What!?” he questioned, a bit too loud.

I can tell he’s feeling better, because he’s telling me how I am, I wrote, before tuning out, at feigned attention, for the familiar analysis, my husband’s hands chopping the air as he dissects, for my benefit, my personality.


(pictured, Lunar Buns, 1995, 32x21 inches, original silkscreen edition of 90 by George Rodrigue; click photo to enlarge-)

George, begged my sentimental mood, tell me what you love. Shout it out. 

“What do I love?” he said quietly, and for him, almost shyly.

Yes! What do you love?  Don’t get philosophical on me.  Just say it fast, all in a row.

"I love Blue Dogs!  I love LSU football!  I love modern medicine!  And more than anything in the whole world, I love to paint!"

And in one word, George, how do you feel right now?

“...Lucky," he said, without hesitating.  "Make that damn lucky!"


Have you ever painted a Lucky Dog vendor?, I continued, knowing his love of hot dogs.

“No, you giving me that idea?”

It’s yours.

“I’ll make him a Blue Dog vendor and have him sell paintings from his cart,” he laughed, pulling out his sketchbook.


(pictured, George Rodrigue paints in his driveway, Lafayette, Louisiana, 1995; click photo to enlarge-)

George and I meet regularly this summer with a man whose military reserve unit returned recently from the deserts of Afghanistan, by way of the jungles of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.  He serves, protects, and saves lives from one country to the next, including his skillful operation of the rare machine that brought us together in Houston, coincidentally nicknamed “Hi-Art.”

“I’ve never met anyone like George...” 

...he said last week, explaining the joy and interest of their daily visits, especially George’s stories* and philanthropy, both as appealing as his artwork.

I listened, touched, to this American hero and made notes for this post, another chapter in the story of one lucky dog.


“And in one word, how do you feel?” asked George, after reading my draft.

That’s easy, I said, although still a bit peevish...

...Grateful.

Wendy

*A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole; Louisiana State University Press, 1980, page 243-

*George Rodrigue’s stories are the meat of Musings of an Artist’s Wife, now easier to navigate with a new index down the right side of this page-

-pictured above, George Rodrigue this week with his new Blue Dog 2013 Art Calendar, his first wall calendar in seventeen years, featuring all new paintings and available now at this link; published by Rizzoli, New York-

-for more art and discussion, please join me at Gambit Weekly or on facebook-


↧
Viewing all 159 articles
Browse latest View live
Search