Musings of an Artist's Wife

Most folks have seen Casablancaso many times that, unless one happened to visit a theater in 1942, we don’t remember our first encounter with Rick and Ilsa. The film runs together as a nostalgic and romantic constant, a symbol for moviegoers everywhere of why we love the picture show.

In his newest series, Hollywood Stars, artist George Rodrigue pays tribute to the Golden Age of Hollywood with unique, large-scale works on chrome featuring stars of the Silver Screen.

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(pictured, Play it again, Sam 2013 by George Rodrigue, archival ink on metal, 41x62 inches; each piece is unique)

The Hollywood characters played by these stars are larger than life and impervious to time. I thought of this recently as I read Kent Westmoreland’s detective novel Baronne Street* and slipped unwittingly into a Bogie accent as Burleigh Drummond, P.I. hunts the killer of his ex-girlfriend, Coco Robicheaux. The setting is New Orleans, 2000, yet the flavor, regardless of the wheels, is Casablanca, 1940:

“The T-Bird was probably the only thing I really cared about and definitely the only commitment I’ve ever made.” –Westmoreland, Baronne Street, 2010

Explains George Rodrigue:

“These movie stars were under contract with major Hollywood Studios, and their images, in most cases, were managed and promoted as characters associated with their films.”

Rodrigue’s Play it again, Sam depicts Rick and Ilsa who, ironically, never utter that most famous of movie lines.

“I use the Blue Dog on either side of the figures, indicating one as their Hollywood image and the other as the real person behind the myth. Just as the dog has two sides, so do these actors, their true self and their screen self.

“As an example, Marilyn Monroe is the Blue Dog screen image, while Norma Jean is her Red Dog real self.”

Hollywood Stars is a unique collection of artwork on metal, not to be confused with an edition. Although based on the images within this post, Rodrigue makes each piece individually on chrome, altering the images slightly by hand using silver paint, so that no two are identical. He then signs the finished works with his name and the notation “unique.”

(pictured, Some Like It Hot, 2013 by George Rodrigue, archival ink on metal, 41x62 inches; note, a version of this image is also available as a silkscreen print; details here-)

After all these years, I should know better than to ask George about his favorite from this or any series. Yet I wasn’t willing to accept his standard answer, “the painting I’m working on now,” and pushed him.

“Well, I wasn’t going to show you this ‘til it’s finished,” he grinned, “but I designed this one just for us.”

I guess he was inspired after last week’s post-

Wendy

*Kent Westmoreland’s Baronne Street (2010) is an entertaining New Orleans read…..a fun ride through favorite restaurants, old neighborhoods, and NOLA stereotypes; more info here-

-for a related post, see “Some Like It Hot,” linked here-

-for more on the Red Dog, visit here-

-for questions about Hollywood Stars, including price and availability, contact Rodrigue Studio-

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

By the mid-1970s George Rodrigue painted on average forty canvases per year, all scenes of Cajun folk-life stemming from his first painting with people, Aioli Dinner(1971), while incorporating the distinctive oak trees from his landscapes. Although he rented a gallery in Lafayette, Louisiana, he sold most of his work on the road in Houston, Dallas, Birmingham and other cities, usually from the trunk of his car to collectors he met on referral from restaurants, banks and jewelry stores.

Following the birth of his son André in 1975, George longed for new clients without the road trips. He sought gallery representation, but options were few in those years, especially in the South, and his efforts in New Orleans, with the exception of a short stint at the Reilly Gallery, proved unsuccessful.

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(pictured, George Rodrigue with his son André, 1982, Lafayette, Louisiana, featuring Rodrigue's Mamou Mardi Gras and his books, including The Cajuns of George Rodrigue; click photo to enlarge-)

Out of nowhere, opportunity knocked. Oxmoor House, publisher of Southern Living Magazine, approached George about a book. Based in Birmingham, Alabama, they knew his paintings and envisioned the work in a large coffee table-type format, linking it to their 1974 publication, Jericho: The South Beheld, by James Dickey and Hubert Shuptrine, a book hailed as a southern publishing phenomenon.

Despite the obstacles, George jumped at the chance. According to his contract, he would write the text, provide transparencies of his artwork, and commit to $75,000 in book purchases. He learned quickly that books, especially art books, rarely generate profit for the author/artist. He also learned, however, that books sell paintings.

He signed the contract late on the Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend. With $400 in the bank, he wrote a hot check to Oxmoor House and spent the weekend knocking on doors, paintings in hand. In three days, using his hometown connections, he made some of the money and borrowed most of it, covering the check.

It was a long shot, typical of George, the type of challenge he relishes, no different than raising his Jefferson Street house to build a gallery underneath, purchasing a buildingadjacent to St. Louis Cathedral, or for that matter shifting from Cajuns to Blue Dogs.

“Anytime I’m broke or in trouble,” laughs George, “I buy a car. Once I figure out how to pay for it, the rest of my problems work themselves out.”

(pictured, Rodrigue holds the brochure, still in his possession, of his first dream car, the Lincoln Mark V; he removed the back seat and used the additional trunk space to transport paintings to clients)

(pictured, following his recent health problems, Rodrigue purchased his current dream car, a Mercedes gull-wing, in September 2012)

George wrote the book the following week, hiring a translator for the French text, printed alongside the English. The large format features more than one hundred paintings with George’s detailed descriptions. The Cajuns of George Rodrigue (1976) was the first book published nationally on the Cajun culture and the first bilingual American book ever printed.

The book caught the eye of the Director of the National Endowment for the Arts who showed it to First Lady Rosalynn Carter. Mrs. Carter chose the book as an official White House Gift of State during President Carter’s administration. The Cajuns of George Rodrigue also made the Top 10 Best Southern Book List of 1976.

Pictured, The Cajuns of George Rodrigue includes classic paintings such as the Aioli Dinner on its cover, as well as ...

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...Iry Lejeune (1972), detailed here-

...Jolie Blonde (1974), detailed here-

...Mamou Riding Academy (1971), detailed here-

George was ecstatic. The Cajuns’ accolades elevated his resume. But the $75,000 presented a problem. At the time his paintings sold on average for between $500 and $5000, and the short-term sales couldn’t possibly cover his debt. He devised a plan.

In exchange for his investment, Oxmoor House sent George his share of the books. However, selling them was difficult. In pre-internet 1976 only six bookstores existed in the state of Louisiana. And think about this ---- 2,500 large-scale hardcover books weighing four pounds each, delivered to his house on wooden pallets by a semi-truck. It was daunting.

However, George Rodrigue is creative in all things, and he relished this challenge. He secured a mailing list for every French teacher in the United States and offered The Cajuns at $15, discounted from the $24.95 list price. He recruited friends to package the books and process the payments. Within days, the orders poured in.

Simultaneously, area banks sold the books alongside their teller windows, offering a special price for customers opening new checking accounts.

Within two months George repaid his loans. Within six months he felt the book’s long-term effect on his painting sales as it impressed potential buyers. He broke his own sales records and, unable to meet demand, raised prices.

In addition, as a direct result of The Cajuns, George painted in 1976 a gift from the State of Louisiana to the President of France, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, increasing Rodrigue’s reputation internationally, especially on the heels of his Paris Le Salon award of 1974 (story here).

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(pictured, George Rodrigue with French President d’Estaing and former U.S. Congressman James Domengeaux, President of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL); more here-)

Most important, The Cajuns of George Rodrigue taught the artist the power of publishing. It was books that would sell his paintings; it was books that would make him famous.

Wendy

-for details on individual paintings from The Cajuns of George Rodrigue, see the links under "CAJUNS" in the menu to the right of this post-

-see the original painting of Rodrigue's Aioli Dinner anytime at The Ogden Museum of Southern Art-

-although long out of print, The Cajuns of George Rodrigue does appear occasionally through on-line booksellers-

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

“To find her you must lose her. The Blue Dog knows the way.” –Blue Dog, 1994

In March of 1992 journalist Bridget O’Brian interviewed George Rodrigue for an article, front page, center column, in The Wall Street Journal. Although George had no control over the content, O’Brian allowed him one special request. Without hesitating, he replied,

“Please say that I’m looking for a publisher.”

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On the day of “How Many Dogs Can Fetch Money?,” my Carmel, California home phone rang at 5:00 a.m. with the news. Long before the internet, the Rodrigue Gallery phone continued ringing for a month. At daybreak I purchased ten newspapers from the Carmel Drugstore, where two men asked for my autograph. I was flabbergasted.

In addition to clients, reporters, and publishers, George received the one call he most wanted. The following week he flew to New York and met Roz Cole, Andy Warhol’s legendary book agent.

Mrs. Cole lined up several meetings, and the challenge began:

“What is a Blue Dog?” asked the publishers. “Is this a children’s book? Will people buy a book of Blue Dog paintings?”

I wasn’t in on those meetings, but after years of working with publishers I imagine what it was like. George grew frustrated defending his work and convincing the book world of his project’s marketability.

Eventually, Viking Penguin committed to a Blue Dog book, and George and I committed, coincidentally, to each other. This landed me, albeit peripherally, in my first publishing project. We began at Viking’s offices in New York City in the fall of 1993. The book, Blue Dog, would feature Rodrigue’s paintings and an imaginary story by George and author Lawrence Freundlich. In a large boardroom, a team of editors, art directors, and marketing strategists explained the book, a paperback retailing for $20.

George sat dismayed and considered abandoning the project. They still did not understand his work. A cheap book only cheapened his art, and he had no interest.

Suddenly, Peter Mayer, Penguin Books' near-mythic CEO, burst in the room. In five minutes he transformed the paperback into a hard cover book with slipcase, hologram, and other special features, retailing for $50. He congratulated George on his art, leaving the room as fast as he arrived, having altered permanently a project and attitudes.

The book, with an innovative design by Alexander Isley, tells a touching story of Blue Dog, first as Tiffany living in George’s Lafayette studio and, following her death, her ghost’s cry for his attention. In the fictitious tale, she haunts his dreams and eventually lives again through his art.

“When I had finally begun to paint Blue Dog alone in a world of her own kind, I sensed that Blue Dog was giving me my freedom --- freedom not so much to love but to accept love from the infinite bounty of a dog’s heart. I might be her master, but to my own master I was only a servant.” –Blue Dog, 1994

(pictured, Tiffany Remembers the '70's, 1992, oil on canvas by George Rodrigue, 36x24)

Viking printed a cautious 5,000 copies of Blue Dog, released fall of 1994. The book’s popularity surprised nearly everyone but George, and the publisher reprinted quickly, now topping 200,000 copies in five languages. Blue Dog is a legend in the world of art books, something people still talk about when we visit New York.

Since Blue Dog, George published books and calendars with Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Harry N. Abrams, Sterling and Rizzoli. He embraces these books as works of art, reflecting his on-going confidence in his vision and his enthusiasm for such projects.

With The Art of George Rodrigue (Harry N. Abrams, 2003; revised 2012) and George Rodrigue Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné (Abrams, 2008), he experienced his proudest publishing achievements since The Cajuns of George Rodrigue (Oxmoor House, 1976), career retrospectives with critical texts by Art Historian Ginger Danto and Director Emeritus of the New Orleans Museum of Art, E. John Bullard.

Today, unlike the early Cajuns and Blue Dog years, the pressure’s off. Rodrigue meets annually with Roz Cole and publishers, producing new projects according to his whims, including children’s books and wall calendarsin recent years, as well as numerous collaborations in the form of loaned artwork for publications such as Ken Wells’ Rascal(Knopf, 2010), Deb Shriver's Stealing Magnolias (Glitterati, 2010) and In the Spirit of New Orleans (Assouline, 2012), the recent A Unique Slant of Light: The Bicentennial History of Art in Louisiana (Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 2012), and....

.....I’m delighted to share, a Fall 2013 project for me with UL Press.

Stay tuned-

Wendy

-for Blue Dog's factual history, see the post, "Blue Dog: In the Beginning, 1984-1989"-

-purchase Blue Dog and other Rodrigue titles here-

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

For sixty-five years, the Krewe of Louisianians, comprised of the seven congressional districts of the State of Louisiana, has hosted a private Mardi Gras for 5,000 people in Washington, D.C. The three-day celebration includes the best examples of Louisiana’s food and music, while honoring its young women as princesses and festival queens. The Mardi Gras King and Queen reign over this gathering, including feasts, processions, dancing and parades.

George Rodrigue and I love this event, because it is in D.C., in one place, that we see friends from Shreveport, Lake Charles, and Houma, as folks from around the state gather at a Carnival Retreat. It’s a chance for us to thank George’s art patrons and especially supporters of our foundation, as we encourage the arts in education in Louisiana, including an annual scholarship art contest, art supplies for schools, and, most exciting, the A+ arts-integrated school system.

However, the main reason we attend is for the fun of this over-the-top event, as we reminisce about George’s reign as King in 1994 and, this year especially, about the reign of King Marion.

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When Marion Edwards received word that he would be King of the 1985 Washington Mardi Gras Ball, he called George Rodrigue with hopes of a portrait. He and his brothers, he explained, were “poor little Cajun boys” from Marksville, Louisiana, and now he would be King! The occasion was worth commemorating.

To create the painting, George posed Marion, dressed in his costume, in the yard of his Lafayette house, with Chef John Folse and renowned raconteur P.J. Latour donning full Lieutenant’s attire. In typical Rodrigue style, he then arranged the figures on his canvas within an imaginary Louisiana landscape, including the United States Capitol, in a surreal setting combining two parts of America. The painting also combines two slices of time, the current King Marion and Marion the little boy, who sits in his rocker dreaming of one day being King.

In addition to the portrait, Marion requested 10,000 signed prints as gifts for his friends throughout the state.

“When he asked me the price,” recalls George, “I thought about the famous Paris trip, which Marion conceived of and organized to recoup his brother Edwin’s gubernatorial campaign debt. Each of the 600 Edwards supporters, including me, paid $25,000 to attend.

“Well Marion, I guess it will cost you $25,000, I told him.

“‘Well Papa George, it’ll cost me that much, huh?’

“The problem with you, Marion, I exclaimed, is that you’ve got too many friends!

“In the end, he agreed to the price, so I guess we broke even on that deal.”

(pictured, Marion and “Papa George” (his endearing reference for his friend) celebrated many Washington and Lafayette Mardi Gras’s together. George used this photo to create the invitation for his 1985 Lafayette party. Also pictured, Chef John Folse and renowned raconteur P.J. Latour)

It was recently, however, that Marion and his wife Pennybecame an integral, almost daily part of our lives.

(pictured, with Marion and Penny Edwards at the LSU Museum of Art, 2011; story here-)

When George was at his lowest last summer, sick from treatments as he fought lung cancer in Houston, it was Marion he turned to for strength; Marion, who lived another thirty-five years following his diagnosis with liver cancer; Marion, who held true to his faith in God and medicine and, above all, the love of family and friends; and Marion, who dubbed himself years ago the “Walking Swamp Miracle” and lovingly dubbed George his son, his “Walking Swamp Miracle, Jr.”

(pictured, George, Penny and Marion study Marion’s sermon books, saved from his years as a preacher for the Church of the Nazarene in the 1940s)

Following Marion’s funeral, George and I sat beneath his portrait as King Marion in Jolie’s Louisiana Bistro, where we reminisced about our friend as I made notes for this post.

“Marion was the kind of guy,” said George, “who, when he took on a project, always finished it. And if you needed help, he’d help you, showing genuine concern for your situation.

“He was a true friend to me for thirty years.”

(pictured, upon receiving word that George’s cancer treatments were working, Marion sent him this photo, a treasured “thumb’s up.”)

I don’t think it hit either of us that Marion was gone until we sat surrounded by the music he chose for his send-off. He left in the style befitting a King, in a horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Crowley, Louisiana. Although I’ve always hoped but never quite accepted that we all meet again in Nirvana, I imagined during this service, Marion, dancing with joy in Heaven and, without being able to help it, I believed.

Namaste, Marion.

Au revoir from me and Papa George.

Wendy

-read Marion Edwards’ (1928-2013) obituary-

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

George Rodrigue entered two art contests in his life and failed at both. By ‘failed,’ I'm not talking about losses, but more significant that he was disqualified or learned a hard lesson about cheating.

“Nothing in life is fair,” my mother used to say, and maybe she was right. But in the end perhaps that's not a bad thing. In George’s case his contest experiences taught him life lessons; they helped him understand people and, most important, that no one reaches their star by proxy. Either you work hard and make it on your own, or it doesn’t happen.

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(pictured, although a different sort of art competition from the ones detailed in this post, George Rodrigue’s Honorable Mention from the Paris Salon, presented to the artist in 1974 on behalf of the French Government by Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, is among his proudest achievements; full story here-)

The first contest George entered was in 1954 at the Sears Roebuck Catalogue Store in New Iberia, Louisiana. In those days, according to George, the Sears store was nothing more than a small room with a row of catalogues and a woman behind the desk.

In an effort to widen its reputation beyond automobile tires, Sears hired actor Vincent Price as their cultural ambassador. He traveled across the country with art exhibitions for the store. It was one of these shows, in Baton Rouge, that first exposed George a few years later to paintings by professional artists.

In keeping with this direction, the New Iberia store, too small for an exhibition, held an art contest for local grade school students. They produced a coloring sheet so that each child worked on the same image.

“I knew that no one colored better than me in my class,” says George. “I remember going to Sears with my mother to turn in my picture, and I remember staring at that tool set, knowing it would be mine.”

At age nine, recently recovered from polio, young George wanted nothing more than to win the child’s tool set offered as a prize. His mother, frugal since the Great Depression, was not fond of gifts, and if he didn’t win it, he knew he would never have one.

From an early age, if George wanted something beyond necessities such as food and clothing, it was up to him to buy it. By the time he was a teenager he earned money by working in his father’s tomb business and by selling his paintings of swamp monsters.

He also took the occasional portrait commission, until 1959, when the director of the local funeral home, George Burgess, refused to pay the agreed-upon price of fifty dollars. For George, at age fifteen, this was a hard lesson learned, and the Burgess portrait hangs in his studio today, lest he forget.

(pictured, Portrait of Funeral Director George Burgess by George Rodrigue, 1959; collection of the artist)

He didn’t win the tool set. Rather, the boy who sat behind him in the third grade and who “couldn’t color at all” took it home. His aunt, the manager at the Sears Roebuck Catalogue Store and the contest's only judge, presented him with the prize.

Ten years later, in his early twenties, George Rodrigue entered his second and final art contest. It was in Morgan City, Louisiana, where he was disqualified from the start because the contest’s organizers thought he passed off antique landscape paintings as his own. In other words, they assumed he cheated.

(pictured, George Rodrigue with a typical Rodrigue Landscape, 1971, Lafayette, Louisiana)

It’s ironic, given these unpleasant experiences, that George launched in 2009, through the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts (GRFA), an art contest for Louisiana high school students. With sixteen winners and $35,000 in scholarship awards, the first contest was an enormous success, as rewarding for George, I believe, as for the winners. As a result, the now annual contest includes higher scholarships and cash awards, attracting hundreds of entries from across the state.

(pictured, Sean Hicks of Hackberry, Louisiana, the 2010 First Place Winner of the Rodrigue Foundation Art Contest)

Remembering the rigged Sears contest, he avoids judging, ensuring fairness as much as possible with guest judges and nameless entries. Remembering his own academic struggles, he eschews G.P.A. requirements, test scores, and declared majors, hoping all juniors and seniors in Louisiana, regardless of their grades, will find confidence in their creative abilities and give this competition a try.

George visits with the winners at a luncheon in their honor and follows their progress during the year, hosting an art show of their works within our foundation’s Education Center. The exhibition travels to several venues throughout the state, including in the past the Louisiana Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, and the Masur Museum in Monroe.

(pictured above; 2012 First Place Senior Winner, Richie Smith of Monroe, LA; 2012 First Place Junior Winner, Katie Atkins of Lafayette, LA with Lieutenant Governor Jay Dardenne, artist George Rodrigue, and GRFA Executive Director Jacques Rodrigue; Atkins’ winning artwork became the official poster for the Louisiana Bicentennial; 2011 First Place Winner, Savannah Bridges of Rayville, LA, following the balloon drop at the Awards Luncheon)

The 2013 GRFA Art Contest celebrates “Louisiana’s Culinary Heritage,” as participants create food-related artwork. Partnering with the Louisiana Restaurant Association Education Foundation (LRAEF), the contest culminates with presentations of $45,000 in college scholarships and awards and, unique to this year, a Fall 2013 cookbook featuring winning entries alongside recipes from Louisiana's greatest chefs.

“Louisiana is an international culinary melting pot,” says George Rodrigue. “For centuries our food reflects a cultural history of adventurous cuisine. Our state yields seafood, wild game and produce, providing home cooks and chefs with a wide variety of fresh local ingredients. These indigenous resources complement Louisiana’s cultural gumbo of French, Spanish, African, Italian and German flavors, influencing the food we 'live to eat.'

“Our beloved Creole and Cajun culinary traditions encourage a vibrant restaurant industry, impacting our state’s economy with jobs and tourism. With GRFA and the Louisiana Restaurant Association, I invite Louisiana’s high school juniors and seniors to create a work of art representing our state’s unique culinary heritage while honoring its festivals, dishes and local ingredients.”

George and I look forward to meeting this year’s winners at the GRFA Art Contest Awards Luncheon at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, March 23, 2013. For George, each year grows in meaning, as we attract more entrants and increase scholarship dollars. In addition, the school with the most entries receives one year’s worth of art supplies through George’s Art Closet, further encouraging participation.

This is a long way from those early art contests when young George Rodrigue learned hard lessons, now put to use in helping students.

“It gives me a lot of joy,” says George, “to sponsor in Louisiana a statewide art contest, because it provides excitement and goals for young artists. It’s a friendly competition that, should they win, not only helps pay for their college, but also boosts their confidence.”

Wendy

-deadline for entries for the 2013 George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts (GRFA) Art Contest is February 20, 2013; details here-

-see the 2012 GRFA Art Contest Winning Entries at The Ogden Museum of Southern Art through February 17, 2013; or view the artworks on-line at this link-

-see the 2013 GRFA Art Contest Winning Entries at the Old Post Office Museum, Winnsboro, LA, on view with George Rodrigue's Saga of the Acadians and Blue Dog paintings from the collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, March 28 to May 6, 2013-

-visit the website for the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts-

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

Mardi Gras is not just about New Orleans. Cities like Mobile, AL, Galveston, TX and my hometown of Fort Walton Beach, FL also celebrate. In Louisiana, dozens of small towns host Mardi Gras parades and celebrations every year.

Long before his Mardi Gras posters, George Rodrigue painted the tradition on his own, recording favorite stories and focusing on Cajun towns. For example, he loves the history of Mr. Butcher of Lafayette, who famously dressed every year in costume during the 1940s while everyone else wore suits to the parades.

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“It’s hard to imagine today,” says George, “but people wore business and even formal attire on the streets. No one but the riders costumed in those days.

“Butcher’s son showed me terrific photos of his dad dressed as a harlequin amidst the conservative crowd. I liked the idea so much that I painted him three ways within one painting.” (1978, pictured above)

In Mamou, paraders ride horses in a group, moving from farm to farm collecting chickens. At the end, the chickens end up in a huge gumbo for the crowds.

(pictured, Mardi Gras in Mamou, 1985 by George Rodrigue)

“Although I represented Mardi Gras in my paintings,” explains George, “it was several years before I did a poster. Lafayette Mardi Gras krewes asked if I would illustrate their themes.

"One of the earliest I remember was Broadway Shows. It turned out to be very successful, because all of the krewe members bought posters. Also, the local people preferred it to my regular Cajun paintings because of the bright colors.”

From this success, George went on to produce posters not only for Mardi Gras, but also for festivals and events such as the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival, the National Sports Festival, Ducks Unlimited, and Festivals Acadiens.

“Eventually, it seems like everyone came calling,” sighs George.

He designed posters for medical organizations, the New Orleans Opera, Shreveport’s Red River Revel, the official Clinton/Gore inauguration poster, three posters for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and even Blue Dog at the Golden Gate for the Little Sisters of the Poor in San Francisco.

Today, however, because we raise funds for the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts (GRFA)…

“I no longer make festival and event posters. Instead I implemented a Print Donation Program, beginning with Blue Dog Relief following 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. It’s been extremely successful in recent years, funding scholarships, art supplies for schools, art therapy, and other GRFA programs, as well as millions of dollars for other non-profits.” (details here-)

And to think, it all started with George’s Cajun Mardi Gras posters.

Founded in 1947 by the Cenac Family, Houma boasts the second largest Mardi Gras in Louisiana. Wayne Fernandez, Director of Development for the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, recalls his father as King in 1958:

“Houma borrowed the floats from the Krewe of Okeanos in New Orleans and shipped them on a river barge between the cities. It was magical.”

George Rodrigue’s hometown of New Iberia called its Mardi Gras a “Carnival Dance.” There was no parade until recent years, celebrated instead with a pageant.

(pictured, George Rodrigue with his cousin Arlene, dressed for New Iberia’s “Carnival Dance,” 1950)

Also unlike today, parades took varying routes. Mike Evans of Gretna recalls his favorite parade, Poseidon:

“It traveled on the Westbank from Gretna to Westwego on 4^th Street, on the Mississippi River at the levee. My mom lived on Pailet Street and had a party every year – gumbo, hot dogs and chili. The neighbors gathered, and it was the one time each year that I returned from college and saw everybody. I miss those days!”

As a child I loved the Grela parade, a favorite in the small communities of Algiers, Gretna, and Belle Chasse on the New Orleans Westbank. With my cousins, we waited on the curb for the parade, eating crawfish from a cooler by 8:00 a.m. before moving on to tamales for lunch.

I dreamed but never imagined that I would one day ride on a Mardi Gras float. And yet for the past decade, I’ve ridden in New Orleans with the all-female Krewe of Muses. It’s not Cajun, but plenty of Cajuns ride, such as Cindy Cenac of Houma, pictured with me below for this year’s wondrous parade.

Wendy

-related stories:

“Blue Dog Mardi Gras Silkscreens”

“George Rodrigue: Festival Posters”

“All Hail King George”

“MUSE-ings from a Mardi Gras Float”

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

At 4x3 feet, Tee Teddie is anything but tee. The painting, begun in 1995 and completed in 2013, first hung in Café Tee George, artist George Rodrigue’s original Lafayette restaurant, which was replaced by the Blue Dog Café after burning in 1997. Tee Teddie was the only painting to escape the flames, while interpretations of Elvis, the Blue Dog, and Cajun traditions remain lost forever.

“I painted Tee Teddieto accompany Elvis and his Hound Dog on opposite walls of the restaurant’s bandstand,” recalls George. “Café Tee George’s theme was early memorabilia, including cowboy comic book covers, old time metal signs, and personal items, such as my barber chair and 25-year crawfish collection. All was lost or severely damaged except Tee Teddie, which sustained only smoke damage, darkening its colors.”

(pictured, George’s mother, Marie Rodrigue, stands outside of Café Tee George, 1996, Lafayette, Louisiana; click photo to enlarge-)

As a child, Rodrigue was known as “Baby George” or “Tee George” because his father was George, Sr. By high school, however, his friends called him “Big Rod,” and he lost the ‘tee’ reference until his restaurant opened in 1995, some thirty years later. Tee Teddie combines these ideas, a huge painted bear and an endearing childhood reference to small.

The painting also recalls a series of works based on George’s notion of the Blue Dog wearing a bear suit, resulting in numerous images throughout the mid-1990s (some pictured here).

Following the fire, George stored the painting first in his Lafayette warehouse and then in our Carmel, California home, where it hung on the wall for more than a decade. Although undamaged by fire, Tee Teddie seemed unfinished to George for years, more a symbol of a lost idea, something that escaped the flames but not his psyche.

“I thought of the painting for some reason recently and decided after all this time to restore it like it was. Once I started, I realized how good it is, and I kept working, repainting it completely in my colors and style of today.” –George Rodrigue

(pictured, George Rodrigue with his finished Tee Teddie, February 2013, New Orleans; click photo to enlarge-)

It’s interesting that after eighteen years George revisited this painting, as it's rare for him to revisit any work. This is especially ironic since it hung in his Carmel studio, where he has not painted in nearly two years. Nevertheless, he dreamed of finishing it and, to my surprise, shipped the painting to Louisiana just after Christmas, even as we relocate to California for a year or more later this month.

George spent much of the past two weeks restoring Tee Teddie, altering its earlier colors and removing wording that referenced the old restaurant. He also chose a weighty, ornate frame for the giant, little bear, which hangs this week on public view for the first time in sixteen years, and for the first time ever in New Orleans.

Wendy

*note, George asked that I destroy all previous photos of the painting, so that it begins anew as you see it here; thus I did not include any ‘before’ pictures-

-for information on this and other ‘dog in a bear suit’ paintings and silkscreens, contact Rodrigue Studio-

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

In this computer age, Rodrigue Studio retains detailed records of art purchases, occasionally borrowing paintings from collectors for public exhibition. However, prior to the late 1990s, records were partial, hand-kept and often lost. People move, and paintings sell or pass to descendants. Some works exchange hands through private sale, and unless the art appears at public auction or the owner contacts us for appraisal, the whereabouts of many Rodrigue Cajun paintings remains, still today, a mystery.

Until recently, such was the case with George Rodrigue’s Festivals Acadiens 1983 (oil on canvas, 40x30 inches).

-click photos to enlarge-

I asked George about the painting’s imagery:

“Festivals Acadiens was conceived in the 1970s by Jimmy Domengeaux of CODOFIL and held annually in Girard Park. He showcased the Cajun lifestyle, mainly to share with visiting French teachers and dignitaries the resurgence of French culture in south Louisiana.

“I painted my first Festivals Acadiens poster in 1981 and included samples of the various crafts, activities, food and music spotlighted within the festival."

“Soon after, I traveled to Germany with my then-agent, Kurt Schoen, visiting European artists. I stumbled on a German wood-carving shop with figurines highlighting various subject matter, from religious iconography to common hobbies. They reminded me of the variety of interests within the Cajun culture.

“As a result, in the 1983 poster I portrayed the Cajun as a wood-carver, modeled by Bud Petro, my good friend who owned for 45 years a service station on the corner of Jefferson and Johnston Streets across from Borden’s ice cream. I also included a modern Evangeline in traditional Acadian costume, and I used the German carved figurines to reinvent the imagery of our traditions, such as the pig for the boucherie, a Ferris wheel representing the fair, and an artist holding a small Rodrigue painting.”

“I invented the carved Cajun musician with accordion, representing music, as well as the small wooden pirogue, duck decoy, and camp or cabin, referencing fishing, hunting and the swamps.

“This unusual cast of objects and characters gathers on and around a quilted blanket, part of the weaving exhibition.

“I made several thousand posters and donated them to the festival, which used their proceeds to offset costs.”

Today our archives includes a small stack of festival posters; however, the location of the painting itself remained a mystery for three decades until two months ago when Janet Wood, retiring after thirty years at Capital One Bank, contacted us regarding the original work hanging, since her first year in banking, within her Lafayette office. She encouraged Capital One to use the painting to further their philanthropic efforts in Acadiana.

“What can we expect at auction?,” she asked. But George and I barely heard her, as we grasped the possibilities surrounding this discovered buried treasure.

We shared with Janet the mission and programs of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts (GRFA). Would she accept a Blue Dog painting in exchange, George asked, donating the 1983 Festivals Acadiens to our foundation?

The Blue Dogs have a proven track record at auction, considerably higher than Rodrigue’s Cajun works. Capital One, encouraged by Wood, agreed to the trade, offered the Blue Dog at auction, and in a truly magnanimous gesture, donates those proceeds back to the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts for the benefit of art supplies and programs in Acadiana schools.

(pictured, My Yellow Oak, 2013, acrylic on canvas by George Rodrigue, 36x48 inches; auctioned by Capital One Bank on 2/24/13 at New Orleans Auction Galleries, with all proceeds benefiting the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, specifically its programs in Acadiana schools)

We expanded this transaction into a partnership almost immediately, launching our first joint-project with Capital One at SJ Montgomery School in Lafayette, Louisiana last week, where George, Parish President Joey Durel, the GRFA staff, and representatives from Capital One painted with students and distributed art supplies.

-click photos to enlarge-

Michael Wack, Southwest Louisiana Market President for Capital One Bank, shares our enthusiasm for education, as well as an impressive commitment to Festivals Acadiens:

“Capital One Bank is committed to Investing for Good in Acadiana. Throughout the year, we support programs and initiatives that benefit our local schools and students, because we believe that a quality education is the most important determinant of future success for children.

“We also believe in celebrating the deep cultural history of Acadiana, and one of the major ways we do that is by serving as presenting sponsor of Festivals Acadiens. This festival means so much to us as a local bank because it celebrates those things that make Acadiana so special: world-class music, food and art.”

(pictured, Lafayette Parish President Joey Durel, Capital One Market President Michael Wack, Artist George Rodrigue, Superintendent of Lafayette Parish Schools Dr. Pat Cooper)

“We are proud,” continues Wack, “to have donated the 1983 Festivals Acadiens original oil painting to the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts. The foundation will display this classic Cajun painting on museum tours for art lovers of all ages to view and admire for years to come, and the partnership between Capital One Bank and the foundation will support other local education programs as well.”

This dynamic exchange, as I mentioned at the start of this essay, occurred because a lost painting came to light, first through Janet Wood’s initiative, then through the vision and generosity of Capital One, and finally through Louisiana’s growing enthusiasm for the arts in education, as championed by the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts.

On the thirtieth anniversary of its creation, the formerly lost Festivals Acadiens 1983 now hangs in the GRFA Education Center at 747 Magazine Street in New Orleans, where it awaits wonderful adventures on tour. In effect, Capital One returned this painting not to George Rodrigue, but to the people of Louisiana. Whether on view at their local museum or representing the Cajun culture elsewhere, this special painting embodies the unique traditions of Acadiana, while representing the educational possibilities spawned by an exciting new partnership.

Wendy

-the Lafayette Advertiser covered our recent Capital One partnership and SJ Montgomery School visit with a front-page article and photographs, linked here-

-for more on the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, visit here-

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

As a result of last summer’s sidetrack, George Rodrigue and I missed our annual time in Carmel, California, returning just this week for a year, maybe two, as we seek something still ill-defined. We have yet to analyze his near-death experience or rather, our second chance, referring often to the excuse, “it’s still too new,” as our reason for avoiding the harsh reality of cancer events while embracing the happy ease of school visits and student art contests.

George searches for answers in his art, yet in New Orleans, where he’s painted feverishly forty canvases since last fall, he reassesses his life before reassessing his art, because he can’t help it in that city of over-stimulus, because to reach the heart of the matter, again, “it’s still too new,” and we have to get out of the city and know quiet for a while.

(pictured, The Best of Both Worlds, 2013 by George Rodrigue, 32x60, archival ink printed on metal; click photo to enlarge)

In a lesson perhaps understood by all of us on some level, it’s almost impossible to appreciate fully a situation while one lives it. During bliss, we rarely pause long enough to smell deeply, so that we remember the roses. And enduring hardship, we change maybe for better and maybe for worse, but we don’t recognize change as it happens, so that only through reflection years later do we acknowledge ‘before’ and ‘after.’

The same is true in art. George Rodrigue describes his years at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles as both frustrating and liberating. He learned from professional artists he admired and emulated, yet he noted these champions of the abstracts’ rejection of anything new, specifically, during those mid-1960s Pop Art years, a strong denial of the commercial and literal in art, an ironic rebuff given Art Center’s focus on advertising design.

(pictured, The Dukes of Dixieland, 2013 by George Rodrigue, 30x40, acrylic on canvas; click photo to enlarge-)

Today, in writing these essays, I face the same challenges. I reflect on George’s battle with cancer, still too new to discuss in detail, and yet a giant, abstract lesson looming, waiting to change our lives, to change his art. In fact, unable to face the big picture, I managed to write for months about his disease without mentioning the word itself (see the posts from June through September of 2012 in the "Blog Archive" to the right of this essay).

I watch him paint, and I recognize something as different, yet I’m too in the middle of it to articulate the changes, and he’s too in the middle of it to broach the emotions with anything but a subtle reference in his art or discussion. This is true of not just his illness, but rather of all life experiences. It is only today, for example, that we can look back on an artistic project like the Xerox Campaign or a disaster like Hurricane Katrina and study them as turning points in George’s art as much as in life.

(pictured, Where Am I Going?, 2012 by George Rodrigue, 20x24, acrylic on canvas)

"I realize more today than ever," says George, "that Europe had to experience the Dark Ages in order to have the Renaissance. Art reinvents itself by people who go through things that they may not understand at the time. There's always hope that new generations will discover new things that eventually propel society forward.

"For lack of a better word, I feel now a renaissance in the way I look at things and in the way the Blue Dog looks at me."

Sometimes it all becomes clearer when we allow others to observe and conclude for us. Author Patty Friedmann wrote the foreword to my book (due this fall, UL Press), and her words struck me physically, to where it’s agonizing to realize that someone, until recently a stranger, gets me so well, understands my labyrinthine style, and yet actually likes it. It’s hard to read her words and not breathe less steady and wonder how she managed from my muddle to get the picture.

(pictured, Alice, You're in Wonderland Now, 2013 by George Rodrigue, 20x24, acrylic on canvas)

Through our foundation, George and I work often with children. The young ones especially see with untainted eyes. Unafraid of mistakes or stupid questions, children are perfect in both their art and observations. I watch them, as I watch George, who somehow retained this freedom throughout his 69 years, and I try to ease open my brain, relieving age-induced cynicism, prying even harder at my heart, that I might contribute in some way towards widespread sincerity.

(pictured, Flower Children, 2012 by George Rodrigue, 30x40, acrylic on canvas)

For about two years in the mid-1990s I played cards with an old Western character actor in the Carmel Highlands. We met through a mutual friend, who arranged a rare introduction to this cowboy-hermit who, by his own admission, had not left his house since the 1970s. I lost $40 to him on that first day, as we played cards on a rotting wooden picnic table overlooking the whales and Monterey Bay. Suspecting I might not return, he struck a deal. I wouldn’t have to pay, provided we never play cards for money again. He acted in more than one hundred movies and TV Westerns and, although smoking unceasingly the marijuana he grew on his property, he remembered every card, so that my (sober) gin game no longer honored my grandfather’s memory.

From time to time, the big name actors stopped by to pay their homage or supply their stash, and I knew that, provided I remain calm and sworn to secrecy about the drugs, stars, and our rendezvous, I could stay. Other than my mother, I kept my word until this essay and continue to keep my word regarding his name, although, honestly, you won’t know him, unless, like my mom and my husband, you’re a 1950s and 60s cowboy movie buff, in which case you might recognize his face from TV or possibly a big picture.

“Oh yeah!” said George, when I showed him a photo.

Like many men, the actor fell for my mother, and during her visits, they danced in the expansive property’s crumbling, dusty ballroom, as I swapped out waltzes on the turntable.

“I can’t believe you never told me,” said George this week as I recalled the story.

Although George and I dated during those years, I still kept the actor’s secret, because he didn’t want to meet my love interest. “Artists!” he exclaimed more than once, eventually forbidding me to speak of mine. He only wanted a card-player and her mother, and we, the three of us, rather liked the intrigue.

(pictured, I Have a Colorful Life, 2013 by George Rodrigue, 30x40, acrylic on canvas; click photo to enlarge-)

I write this morning to the “Welcome home!” of two great horned owls.* Their lives too were disrupted, as only one owl visited for several years, now partnered again for the sunrise ritual at the edge of our pool, at this point more their pool than ours. I’m sure they noted our return, but I wonder if they noted our absence. And I wonder if they protected the property, keeping at bay the R.O.U.Ses.

The owls sing in chorus, delivering some message that I’ll probably grasp as part of the big picture in the future, because at this moment I’m too swept up in the details: the fire warming the room, the memory of a cowboy who, as I just learned on-line, died eleven years ago, and the artist snoring softly beside me.

Wendy

*for more on the owls, visit here-

-pictured throughout this post: George Rodrigue’s recent paintings; for details regarding price and availability, contact Rodrigue Studio-

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

Oftentimes it takes others to point out our achievements. What starts off small and for oneself can become something else. George Rodrigue paints today with confidence, sure of both his brushstrokes and direction. His paintings are steps towards expounding his vision, whether within a specific series or his career’s oeuvre.

But this was not always the case. In 1965 Rodrigue was a student at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. He learned from professional artists and, for the first time in his life, thought of art in abstract concepts, beyond illustration. Although he also studied advertising design, his painting classes focused on not only fundamentals and technique, but also the visual transmission of his soul, the impartation of mystery. From his early twenties, art shifted from illustrating a specific idea to eliciting an emotional response.

-click photo to enlarge-

To create the untitled painting above (1965, 24x18), George Rodrigue, strapped for cash, rather than purchase a new canvas, glued together two pieces of thin, shiny illustration board. Normally, in presenting a design to clients, he taped his illustration to a press board, covering it with a two-inch matte to hide the tape. Here, however, in a painting class, without concern for clients and their products, he created a makeshift canvas, backing the two pieces with a single heavier sheet of pressboard, all discarded materials from his class in advertising design.

Years later, he stapled the assembled pieces into an expensive, museum-quality frame.

“As I started painting from the model on my glued-down illustration board,” recalls George, “the teacher asked me what I was doing and noted that, without a canvas, I should at least use a single piece of board.

“But I shrugged my shoulders and continued to paint. After an hour or so, the same professor walked by and said, ‘Stop, it’s finished.’ So I did.”

The scenario was a lesson for Rodrigue. Until this point, he looked at a finished painting, whether a portrait, landscape, or still-life, as best representing its subject, literally. The assignment was simple: paint the model. And yet, in stopping when he did, George’s interpretation becomes a visual enigma.

For years, visitors to his studio, especially other artists, asked him when he would finish the painting.

“It’s finished, I told them.

“Something else happened. My experience with this one painting helped me see the abstract, beyond the subject. For that reason, it’s hung on the wall of my studio for the past forty-eight years.”

Similarly, I started blogging four years and four hundred essays ago mainly to answer the questions of students, collectors and journalists. Musings of an Artist's Wife began as a source for basic information about the art of George Rodrigue, such as the story behind Jolie Blonde, the origin of the Blue Dog, and the pronunciation of the artist's name.

Yet from the beginning, George was my professor, seeing something else. He encouraged me to drift away from rote answers and instead explore tangents, including not only my observations of his work, but also the nostalgia and perception unique to me and my life. In a way, my audience also guided me, because, as I dared to share the personal and obtuse, those same stories, the ones with obscure references and unanswered questions, drew thousands of readers, oftentimes more than the literal Rodrigue specifics that spawned the blog in the first place.

Like George sitting down to an assignment to paint a model and nothing more, the blog became something else. It’s as though we turned over the pieced-together, painted board and, like the other side of the hit record, found something unexpected, something important and true, and, just like the unfinished ‘finished’ painting, something that was there all the time.

Wendy

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

"Feel the dignity of a child. Do not feel superior to him, for you are not." - Robert Henri

It was in Hollywood, ironically, that George Rodrigue and I reflected recently on the Blue Dog in a new way. We learned of a school in southern California that used the styles of art world masters to paint Blue Dogs. Like most school districts in America today, the school operates without any funding for the arts. Thanks to an active P.T.A. and a dynamic, dedicated art teacher, however, these students study great artists from Modigliani to Nevelson and, to our astonishment, use George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog to do it.

-click photos throughout to enlarge-

(pictured, a Lichtenstein-inspired Blue Dog by students at North Park School, Valencia, California)

We receive annually thousands of class projects, piled high for years in our dining room and now uploaded on-line in our student art gallery for all to enjoy. These come from Japan, New Zealand, Germany, and every state in the U.S. Yet George winces when I compare him to Picasso, the school-wide artist in my day, the 1970s. We studied Picasso because he was accessible, like George, appealing to students of all ages. Still working in his studio, Picasso wasn’t yet mythic like Michelangelo or Monet, and the idea of his existence made the art world real.

What I would have given, I told students in Valencia, California last week, to see Picasso at work. And yet George Rodrigue paints here for you and shares his story.

Admittedly, we visited southern California on an unrelated mission. It was our foundation that suggested, since we would be in the area, that we investigate this school-wide arts program, nearly 900 students painting Blue Dogs in the styles of other great artists. They devoted their year to this project, and their preparation and welcome was unprecedented. They knew everything about George Rodrigue, his Landscapes, Cajuns, and Blue Dog, so that their anticipation fed ours, intensifying as we arrived, greeted by students, teachers, community leaders, journalists and large-scale class projects constructed on linoleum squares.

-click photo to enlarge-

The Blue Dog has always had a life of its own. Museums from Memphis to Frankfurt continue to elevate the work beyond kitsch with exhibitions since the 1990s. Yet it was this school visit, our first in California, that impacted George Rodrigue more than any museum.

“I never once considered myself in league with artists like Miro and Mondrian, yet this school saw my art in these terms and spent a year connecting the Blue Dog to other artists and tying it to a higher level.

“After all this time, this idea and connection was a complete shock to me. It took a grammar school teacher and students to show me a new perspective. I think for the first time, I saw where this has gone and how, over the past thirty years, it’s affected the art world and others.”

We shared with the children during two lectures and demonstrations, yet it was their questions and enthusiasm that made this school visit, more than others, such a success.

“It was obvious,” says George, “that they studied both me and my art in context with these other artists and actually grasped what was going on.”

(pictured, George Rodrigue shares with students using a dry erase board and power point presentation)

As we shared the images, the young kids laughed with innocence. But during the later session, the older students asked serious questions about line, shape, color and content. Our speeches are unscripted, and we begin by feeling the energy in the room and the mood of the audience. One child who watched both presentations told his mother,

“But this lecture is different than the other one!”

With only a loose plan, we share the art according to the level of interest. This varies not only among ages, but also among regions. In this southern California school, for example, I focused on George’s years at the Art Center College of Design, just thirty miles from North Park Elementary. I talked about his portrait of President Ronald Reagan, which hung for years in the Reagan Library in nearby Simi Valley. And, I shared the unique role that Californians played in the Blue Dog Series.

It was during a Rodrigue exhibition in Beverly Hills in 1988 that George first heard the term ‘Blue Dog.’

“Up until then,” says George, “I thought of it as the loup-garou. It was California that named it the Blue Dog. It was California that gave me the idea to try painting, after twenty-five years of Cajun folk-life, without the oak tree.”

(pictured, George Rodrigue in his Carmel, California studio, March 2013; click photo to enlarge-)

George also shared with the students their good fortune in studying the arts, something unavailable and unappreciated in many schools, even today. In 1950s New Iberia, art was non-existent in Louisiana schools.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to study and emulate great artists. I drew things I liked, and the first original painting I saw was my own. Sixty years later I still paint the way I felt as a child. I emphasize to students how important it is to retain that innocence, and that it’s okay to create art in this way.

“The only art I saw growing up was what Vincent Price curated for Sears & Roebuck; yet it influenced me and remains with me today.”

The school visits and our work with the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts (GRFA) represent both a legacy and new direction for George and the Blue Dog. One would think that the growing museum attention would spark this momentum, yet the children are the future, and they are far more important.

“Usually we visit schools to teach,” says George. “This time, however, the school taught us. It’s the kids who bridge the art. To be studied by a child is the best way to connect with the future and is more important than hanging on the walls with great masters. This experience gave both me and Wendy a completely different view and impact, and maybe even a new beginning.”

Wendy

-with appreciation to art teacher Susan Blake and students at North Park Elementary School, Valencia, CA

-watch a video of George Rodrigue's visit to North Park from CBS Los Angeles, linked here-

-George Rodrigue and I hope you will join us in New Orleans this Saturday, March 23^rd, for the 2013 GRFA Art Scholarship Award Luncheon; ticket info here-

-2013 GRFA Summer Art Camps now open for registration; details here-

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

As George Rodrigue and I explored ancient Indian mounds in northeast Louisiana, the sun in my eyes and warm, wind-blown hair in my face, I accidentally turned to an old page in my notebook covered with scribbles from an earlier adventure. Unaware of my mistake, I wrote,

Each ridge 4-6 ft high when built, 50 ft across top, 100 ft in between. Imagine without trees but with huts.

I didn’t notice until later that alongside my notes above appear the words, “abstractions of American Modernism,” referring to artist Georgia O’Keeffe, and yet somehow fitting regarding these patterned, evenly spaced ridges and oddly shaped, unexplainable man-made hills, the largest spanning seven hundred feet across and seventy-two feet in the air.

Our guide explained the phenomenon in detail, predicating her information with phrases like, “We think…,” “Archeologists surmise…,” and “We don’t know for sure, but…”

“Poverty Point archaeology,” writes anthropologist Jon L. Gibson, “consists of a few facts, lots of interpretations, and much that is not known.”

Indeed the site, named for a nineteenth century nearby farm and spreading one hundred miles on Bayou Marcon in the Mississippi River delta, surprises in a state so flat that in the 1930s the New Orleans Audubon Zoo constructed a large mound of dirt to “show the children of New Orleans what a hill looks like.” (from the zoo’s website, describing ‘Monkey Hill.’)

Throughout our tour, George Rodrigue recalled his lifelong fascination with the American Indian. In 1960 he won 1st place in the category of Social Science at the Catholic High Science Fair in New Iberia. He also won 1st place at the district science rally in Lafayette and 3rd place at the state rally in Alexandria.

(pictured, George Rodrigue, age 16, with his award-winning science fair project, New Iberia, Louisiana. 1960; click photo to enlarge-)

Rodrigue’s project, “Indian Tribes of 1650,” focused on the American Indian culture before the influence of the white man. The large U.S. map shows the location of tribes before any imposed migration caused by European settlers. He illustrated similarities and differences in housing, clothing, and food-gathering between Native Americans within varying parts of the country.

“My skill in drawing and painting had a lot to do with the success of my project,” recalls George. “I expanded the display at each level. By the time I reached State, it was four times larger than when I started.

“I was the only student from New Iberia in 1960 to win an award at state level. Along with my popular monster paintings and my achievement of Eagle Scout, it’s one of the best moments of my high school years.”

(pictured, George Rodrigue, Sr. admires his son’s project at the District Science Fair in Lafayette, Louisiana, 1960; click photo to enlarge-)

“Twenty-five years later I revisited the Native American culture on my canvas when I traveled regularly to New Mexico. By the mid-1980s the Cajun food craze reached Santa Fe, and I met Rosalea Murphy of the Pink Adobe Restaurant, who was originally from New Orleans. She gave me a show, and I filled it with paintings of the American Indian but in the same style as my paintings of Cajun folk life.”

(pictured, Indians, Cajuns and Cowboys (detail), 1988, oil on canvas by George Rodrigue)

It’s easy, I thought to myself as George reminisced, to understand why the Native Americans chose Poverty Point as their home for seven hundred years. Although the modern world, such as it is in rural, mid-state Louisiana, drove out or killed the once-abundant animals, this is indeed God’s country, with wildflowers, lush grass, flowing water, shade, sun and breeze.

“These Indians had it made,” commented George, recalling our Grand Canyon camping trip. “Think of the Anasazi living within caves hundreds of feet above the ground and trapped each winter by the snow.”

Use your imagination, urged our Poverty Point guide. So we pictured pyramid-like structures made of earth rather than stone, the stage for ceremonies, and a focal point for people living in semi-circles around the base of the largest mass. Our imagination expanded, as we learned that the oldest mound in this area of Louisiana dates to 3900 B.C., some 1500 years before the Egyptians built the pyramids at Giza!

According to archaeologists, 23,000 people lived at Poverty Point in 1300 B.C. during the height of its culture, the same period King Tutankhamun ruled Egypt. They hunted animals, wove baskets, and hauled dirt, some mounds requiring the equivalent of 16,000 dump truck loads, or 10-12 million baskets-full. The unnamed American Indian tribe lived atop the concentric ridges, affording drainage and order for their thatched huts. Bayou Marcon was a lake at this time, and the Mississippi River flowed only three miles away.

(pictured, Atchafalaya Basin Squaw, 1984, oil on canvas by George Rodrigue, 30x40 inches)

Rich with artifacts, the site boasts arrowheads, pottery shards, tools, jewelry, and evidence of baskets, as well as rocks carved with figures and animal designs, usually birds and foxes. Anthropologists believe the Indians traded baskets for stone with their contemporaries in the West. Unlike the tombs within the Egyptian pyramids, the mounds at Poverty Point reveal no ancient human remains, indicating instead cremation. The larger mounds were probably built for ceremonial use.

Experts claim that this organized and rooted society was highly unusual for the hunter-gatherers (a term I had not heard since grade school). They built their mounds with determination and skill, packing the dirt in layers so that today, 3500 years of erosion later, we’re left with an anomaly: Louisiana’s Hill Country.

(pictured, Bayou Indian, 1984, oil on canvas by George Rodrigue, 30x40 inches)

Eventually these original Americans adopted us, fighting for a 'new' country, the place they already called home and revered as sacred for thousands of years. They created a legacy not only worth studying, but also worth visiting. On our road trip to northeast Louisiana, the area between Rayville and Tallulah, we gained a new appreciation for America’s history and Louisiana’s important role in preserving the story of our ancient world.

Wendy

-references: -The Ancient Mounds of Poverty Point: Place of Rings by Jon L. Gibson, University Press of Florida, 2001; and  the official Poverty Point websitemaintained by the National Park Service-

-for a related post see “America the Beautiful: Crossing New Mexico and Arizona,” our journey through the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Indian Reservation-

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

“What I like about the West,” said artist George Rodrigue last week as we navigated Houston rush hour traffic, “is that when you’re there, you’re by yourself.”

I posted this comment on facebook, and nearly everyone mistook the meaning, assuming George referenced central California, our home for awhile, maybe as long as two years, as we take a break from big city life and obligations.

(pictured, Route 66, an original silkscreen by George Rodrigue, 2001; for details contact Rodrigue Studio-)

By “the West,” however, George meant “the Road,” as we resume our cross-country drive, an annual tradition for twenty years, missed only once, last year, when we lived instead in a Houston hotel.

Unaware of our reliance on this journey, our minds closed slowly over this past year, as our beloved New Orleans seemed louder, our responsibilities more numerous, and the return to wide-openness less accessible. We pushed our journey back repeatedly, unable to justify our wants over the needs of those who depend on us.

At last, we began our freedom mid-week, with a brief stop in San Antonio. As a student at Trinity University in the 1980s, I loved this city of culture, history, and color, but I forgot, having not visited downtown in 25 years, its beauty, both inside and out, as friendly folk and mariachi bands complement the Riverwalk.

Only steps away from restaurants and music, we returned to Texas history, and I recalled my mother dragging me, sobbing, from the Alamo where, at age eighteen, I stood on the memories of Texans fighting for their independence from Mexico and read the words, “Victory or Death,” addressed by Lt. Col. Travis, “To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World,” just prior to his troops’ fateful fall to Santa Anna’s army.

“Blood of heroes hath stained me; let the stones of the Alamo speak that their immolation be not forgotten.” –the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, 1936, commemorating the 100^th year of the Battle of the Alamo-

This is why we cross America. To remember. To breathe with a deliberate exhale of relaxation, an inhale of fresh air, and a gasp of beauty and discovery. We drive this country seeking a deeper grounding within our psyches. Nothing inspires George Rodrigue more as an artist than these journeys, beginning with a freedom from commitments and the pull of well-meaning, copious plans.

“I’m so happy not to be on somebody else’s schedule – finally,” he sighed, somewhere in the middle of Texas.

Crossing into New Mexico on Good Friday, we paused in the small town of Hobbs for conversation and pie with the Robinson Family, the deliciously normal and giving provenance of Marney Robinson, Director of Education of our foundation, now fast at work preparing our Summer Art Camps. Back in New Orleans, she makes us look good while we embrace her loved ones on her behalf.

(pictured, George Rodrigue with Cindy Robinson and her award-winning pies; Hobbs, New Mexico, March 29, 2013)

From Hobbs we drive miles of empty land, still dead from winter, but topped with bright blue skies and perfect white clouds. We wonder where the Native Americans found shelter from the sun on these once buffalo-rich plains. Did they carry the wooden posts for their tepees on their backs? How did they manage the snowdrifts, the same ones held back by fences today? We pause at Historic Markers, one every ten miles, and we exchange long stares with an antelope, alone, and the first horned one we’ve ever seen on the road.

In the six hours from Hobbs to Santa Fe, we pass only one city, Roswell, home of alien encounters, somehow appropriate on this mind-expanding journey.

From our truck, we gaze across America as though we’re sailing across the ocean, towards a new day of possibilities, where anything can happen.

Let’s return to Louisiana once we miss it enough, we told each other.

…and we will.

Wendy

-click photos throughout to enlarge; all photographs by George Rodrigue-

-for related stories see “Crossing West Texas and the Moo-Cow Blues” and “New York Art in West Texas"-

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

“This cloud looks like a crawfish...”

...whispered artist George Rodrigue from the back door of our desert hideaway, speaking the first words from either of us in hours. Within this southern Utah escape we study the sharp edge of mountains against the bluest blue sky at day, their shadowed outline at dusk, and at night, the Milky Way, embellished, as though not already spellbinding, with shooting stars.

Something happens in the silence of the desert that restores.

-click photos throughout to enlarge-

We arrived here two days ago, following eleven hours in our truck from Santa Fe, including a three hour detour over the Grand Canyon, forced by a northern Arizona landslide just twenty miles from our destination. Unfazed, we followed the meandering alternate, off-highway route, towards the setting sun, all the more beautiful because we explore without a schedule, unobligated for the first time in several years to arrive at a certain place at a certain time.

(pictured, Fast Food in Utah, silkscreen edition 135, 20x36 inches; click photo to enlarge-)

For George, as much a photographer as painter, the detour was a dream.

“The hardest thing to do,” said George Rodrigue as we reached the outskirts of Santa Fe, “is to capture in a new way what everyone else has done for the past one hundred years. They were all here, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, drawn by the light, the scenery, the pueblos, the history and architecture….drawn by the color within and beyond the Land of Enchantment.”

(pictured, in Santa Fe, recalling Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, 1927; click photo to enlarge-)

Our longstanding rules of the road include silence, with little music or phone calls, no reading or texting (by driver or passenger), and no books on tape or other distractions. During our early cross-country travels, some twenty years ago, we sang Jimmy Swaggart and Elvis Presley spirituals, belted out to tapes purchased at truck stops along the way. That tradition morphed into Bill Mack’s radio show and classic country, until finally we chose quiet most of the route.

I wondered while on the road this week at our gradual retreat into silence. For years we sang “Peace in the Valley” and “Ramblin’ Man” as though the world should hear our song; yet at some point the music stopped.

I think it happened with sadness--- for me, after losing my mom in 2004, and for George because I no longer sang with him. The sadness deepened after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the loss of George’s mom in 2008. And yet this road trip, following the hardest year we’ve known, we eased out the phrases, not with our earlier gusto, but little by little, as Jessi Colter and Conway Twitty reentered our journey. It was only a few lines at a time, but we slowly rejoined the carefree.

We share the experience of the road so that neither of us misses anything, whether crawfish-shaped cloud or tumbleweed, immersed in the American West, so that years later we recall together the details of the light on a particular day or the unexpected snowfall on spring blossoms. I watch George and imagine the concepts swirling in his head for paintings, his easel replaced currently with his camera.

We mute our phones and computers, we close the television in a closet, and we whisper over dinner, as we study the shape of the mountains against the sky. Broken only by the soft drums at sunset and the water running for a bath, we embrace, with inspiration and gratitude, the quiet gift of the American West.

Wendy

-click photos throughout to enlarge; all photographs by George Rodrigue, 2013

-for availability and pricing of the silkscreen Fast Food in Utah, contact Rodrigue Studio-

-more from us on the road in the story, “America the Beautiful: Crossing New Mexico and Arizona;" also, see the links under "Rodrigue on the Road," "Rodrigue and Texas," etc, to the right of this post-

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

Oftentimes I wince at the question, Where are you from?. Unless the person asking lives somewhere between Houston and Atlanta, they probably associate Florida with Disney World and Miami Beach--- nice places, but not the Emerald Coast of my childhood.

I mumble to anyone who'll listen outside of the Gulf South that I’m sort of from southern Alabama, and occasionally I claim my parents’ hometown, New Orleans, always a risky fib, because any New Orleans local within earshot follows immediately with Where’d you go to school?

(pictured, one of several working-designs for Hollywood Stars by George Rodrigue; click photo to enlarge-)

I thought of these American stereotypes this week as George Rodrigue and I continued our annual cross-country drive. To many, for example, Nevada is Las Vegas; yet to our amusement, a kind reader on facebook invited us to her hometown of Eureka, a rare slice of undoubtedly beloved civilization (est. 1864; current pop. 610) on the 400 miles of U.S. Route 50, also called, seriously, “The Loneliest Road in America.”

This long stretch is a straight shot into Reno, a city of bright lights and modern hotels that we reached one year, overjoyed, despite our love of the wide-open West, around 2:00 a.m., following eight hours with scarcely a pit stop.

(pictured, crossing from Nevada into California; click photo to enlarge-)

Although not part of this year’s plans, George and I drove The Loneliest Road several years ago, caravanning with our sons and their friends. After more than an hour of long dips and ascents, passing neither car nor building, we encountered a dreadlock and tie-dye adorned man on a unicycle, a group mirage we confirmed immediately with phone calls between the trucks, and the source of endless entertainment still today as we discuss the why’s and how’s of such an undertaking.

California’s generalizations include Hollywood, surfers, garlic fields, fog and vineyards. Yet for miles as we crossed the Mojave Desert, we studied the barren land of rocket landings, air bases, and test sites.

(pictured, thousands of mirrors catch the sun’s rays, sending energy towards a single tower in the desert, generating electricity; click photo to enlarge)

“There’s a lot of oddball stuff about California,” noted George.

As opposed to Louisiana? I asked.

We're drawn to these infinitely wondrous states, home to wood rats and alligators, to Hollywood and Reality TV. We also thought about Texas, comparing two of our favorite American roadways: Route CA-46 between Bakersfield and Paso Robles, with its oil wells and orange trees, to U.S. 287 between Wichita Falls and Amarillo, with its grain silos and cotton fields.

But we’re in politically correct California! we exclaim from our 15-miles-to-the-gallon Louisiana truck, as we travel from the hometown of country music legends Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, passing hundreds of oil well pumping units wedged between rose bushes and sheep.

-click photos above and below to enlarge-

(pictured, Actor James Dean (1931-1955) died en route from Bakersfield to Paso Robles when his silver Porsche 550 Spyder collided with a truck; George Rodrigue photographed the memorial from our truck’s window as we passed the crash site at the same time of day, 5:59 p.m.)

During the past two weeks, George Rodrigue and I experienced “The Road” and “The Silent West.” We revisited San Antonio and the Alamo, drank a German beer in Fredericksburg, enjoyed Native American dances and Todos Santos chocolates in Santa Fe, studied the stars in southern Utah, indulged and splurged in Las Vegas, explored the south central California desert and arrived late last night in Carmel-by-the-Sea.

-click photo to enlarge-

We’re here for a year, maybe two, as George commits to his studio without distractions. Last night, happy in his second-favorite state, yet restless from the road, he sketched at his easel, pictured above. When I asked him this morning about his thoughts, however, he spoke only of family, of his pride in his sons, and of his gratitude towards our gallery and foundation staff.

“It’s great spending time on the road knowing that we have a staff who carries on what we believe, even when we’re not there.”

He also spoke of his relief over his unexpected return to health, found just in time as his son Jacques, Director of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, announces his engagement to New Orleans artist Mallory Page Chastant, a match we should have expected years ago, because it was ordained, as the great-grandfathers of each raise a toast within George’s most famous Cajun painting, Aioli Dinner, painted in 1971, long before bride or groom were born.

Cheers to the unexpected! Cheers to the American road! And Cheers to the happy couple!

Wendy

-pictured above, Jacques, Mallory, Wendy and George; House of Blues, Las Vegas, Nevada, April 2013-

-see George Rodrigue’s Aioli Dinner and read its history here; see the painting in person anytime at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, or join “Art of the Family Table,” a Summer Camp, detailed here-

-all photographs by George Rodrigue, April 2013

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

George Rodrigue’s first print of 2013 breaks new ground for the artist. Partial to silkscreens for his Blue Dog designs, he ventures instead into complex lithography, channeling printmaking giants of the past.

“It’s the first print I’ve created for the gallery that’s truly an original lithograph made from twenty-two plates, printed on stone, in the same way prints were made from the beginning using copper plates or stone by artists like Rembrandt, Chagall and Dali.” –George Rodrigue

(pictured, Looking for a Beach House, 2013. Lithograph by George Rodrigue; signed and remarqued edition of 90, 40x30 inches; click photo to enlarge-)

Rodrigue searched for years but failed to find this quality of printmaking within the United States. He abandoned the idea long ago, assuming in this day of easy, mass-produced reproductions that these handmade stone lithographs no longer exist.

However, in 2008 Heidi Barrett and John Schwartz of Amuse Bouche Winery, Napa Valley, contacted Rodrigue about a wine label, which they hoped to reproduce in France as a stone lithograph. Intrigued by their genuine interest in the quality and originality of his designs, along with their similar commitment to their high quality, small-production winery, Rodrigue agreed to the project, painting Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, an image for their wine label and lithograph.

(pictured, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? 2008 by George Rodrigue, 40x30 inches for the 2006 vintage of Amuse Bouche, now sold out; the original painting remains in the private collection of Amuse Bouche Winery; the lithograph, like the wine, is sold out-)

Thanks to the introduction from the folks at Amuse Bouche, Rodrigue learned of a company in Paris, France still producing prints in the traditional manner. As a result, five years later, Looking for a Beach House is his second true lithograph and his first offered to collectors exclusively through his gallery.

In addition, for the first time Rodrigue sketches a two-inch original remarque in the border of each of the ninety prints.

“The print’s so special,” says the artist, “that I felt compelled to add an original drawing to the mystique of each one.”

(pictured, George Rodrigue remarques each of the ninety prints within the Looking for a Beach House edition from his home in Carmel, California; April 2013; click photos to enlarge-)

“Unlike my silkscreens,” explains Rodrigue, “this print comes from an original painting. I also worked with fifteen other artists and craftsmen to make this happen. Each person specializes in a different field including separating the colors, etching the stone, and hand-printing the colors individually, layered one on top of the other, creating a continuous tone image similar to an original painting.

“This is completely different from the lithographs of my early Cajun paintings, which were inexpensive four-color reproductions, poster style.”

The color of this print is unlike anything I’ve seen from George or, frankly, from anyone. Once he understood the capabilities of this French printing company, he painted the work to best utilize the process. The colors are rich and varied with an appearance similar to an oily and interminable chalk.

The paper is the highest grade rag content available today. In layman’s terms, this means the texture is soft and pliable, manufactured to best absorb the lithography ink. This is unlike the hard, almost cardboard-like silkscreen paper, designed so that the colors remain layered on top.

I asked George about the imagery, because I can’t help but see the umbrella as his oak tree, framing the dog, bucket and shovel.

“I went to the beach for the first time in 1957,” he reflects. “I played in the sand beneath my parents’ umbrella, and I remember my mama envious of our friends who owned beach houses, while we stayed in a single room travel motel. But I always felt lucky just to be at the beach.”

…so lucky, in fact, that he kept the original painting in our personal collection, hanging it within our home.

“This new beach print is the most beautiful printing job I’ve ever seen,” says Rodrigue, “and I’m already at work with the Paris folks on another project, due later this year.”

Wendy

-Looking for a Beach House is available as a lithograph only; size 40x30 inches, edition of 90, each with an original remarque sketch by George Rodrigue; for availability and pricing, contact Rodrigue Studio-

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

“What do you do here?”

….asked George Jones of George Rodrigue at a Lafayette, Louisiana Mercedes dealership, as Jones shopped a new car and Rodrigue awaited repairs on his 1978 diesel station wagon.

“I’m an artist,” he replied.

“Oh yeah?” said Jones. “What do you sing?”

Rodrigue recalls the country music legend on that day in 1983 as “a small, slightly built man with slicked-back hair and wearing a baby-blue jumpsuit."

"The minute he started talking, I recognized his voice. I later learned that he moved to Lafayette to marry a local gal and live on a farm north of town.”

(pictured, Dance with Me Henry, 1989; oil on canvas by George Rodrigue; click photo to enlarge-)

The Arts cross over from music to dance, acting, and performance of all kinds. In our house, the focus lies on the visual arts and writing; but all are forms of personal expression. If one's lucky, one retains a voice like Jones or a style like Rodrigue, both distinctive and recognizable as theirs alone, something inseparable from not only their lives, but also their legacies.

In the painting above, Lennis Romero of the famous St. Martinville Romero Brothers, who performed for years beneath the Evangeline Oak, plays his accordion alongside Max Gregg, a Cajun storyteller and historian who ran a small Acadian Museum in the town. A Port Arthur Texan, Jack Rains, dances with his Jolie Blonde at a Cajun fais do-do.

On this one canvas, the Arts integrate in paint, music, dance, storytelling, legend and style, brought together by George Rodrigue’s imagination and the unfettered Cajun culture.

The title, Dance with Me Henry, comes from the song, also called Roll with Me Henry, made famous by Etta James in 1955.

“Dance with Me Henryis one of the first Rock & Roll songs I bought as a teenager,” recalls Rodrigue. “My cousin Charmaine worked at the music store in New Iberia and picked out five 78-rpm records, including another favorite, Hearts Made of Stone by the Fontane Sisters.

“I was in the 7^th grade, and I listened to those records over and over again. The songs stuck with me, and I later paid tribute to the music and the memories in my paintings.”

(pictured, Row with Me Henry, 1995; silkscreen by George Rodrigue)

Last weekend during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the Arts blended easily when Billy Joel, pictured below, stopped in the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts (GRFA) to play the Rodrigue Steinway, a 1913 piano donated and restored by Hall Piano Company and Steinway & Sons, and painted over three months last year by George Rodrigue.

Sponsored by and benefiting the LSU School of Music, this magnificent instrument mixes the musical and visual arts, reinforcing an important GRFA mission: arts integration in education through Louisiana A+ Schools.

“I swirled music in paint along the sides,” explains George.

-click photo to enlarge-

Also recently, as we twirled in George's Carmel studio to Stevie Wonder, thanks to our tech-savvy son Jacques and the Pandora radio now piped throughout our house, George recalled another story from his youth, one that sent me running for my pen.

“I was too young to drive, but I could dance,” he explained, describing a party and dance contest for the boys at New Iberia’s Catholic Highand the girls at Mount Carmel.

“No one asked my cousin Cheryl to dance, so I did.”

Cheryl was great, I interjected, but she never struck me as an ‘I’ve got rhythm’ kinda gal.

“She wasn’t,” he continued, “but I had enough rhythm for both of us, and we won the contest! Best of all, from the stage, as we accepted the trophy, I saw my parents watching through the window.”

George!, I exclaimed, imagining his conservative, aging parents, who so often seem disconnected in George’s memories from their only child and his art. They were there the whole time?!

“Yep!”

That’s incredible!

“I know. And until today, I never told anybody that story. Now quit writing, and let's dance!”

Wendy

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

Guest blog entry by Jacques Rodrigue, George Rodrigue’s son. He currently serves as House Counsel for Rodrigue Studio and Executive Director of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts. He is a graduate of Tulane Law School in New Orleans.

Hello again. Jacques Rodrigue here. This is my second guest blog entry on Wendy’s blog. I hope everyone had a chance to read my first one about how I work to protect the Blue Dog from copyright infringement.

But today I am here to talk more about creativity and arts in education in honor of my recent TEDx Talk that posted last week and is embedded below.

There is no way that I could have pulled the talk off without observing how well my Dad and Wendy give their lectures and painting demonstrations. I learned so much from watching Wendy skillfully present my Dad’s career highlights in hundreds of presentations across the country (one school presentation pictured below).

So, over the years, I was pretty prepared to mimic her when I had to occasionally give speeches at museum openings and school presentations. But, giving a TED talk in a strict 12-minute time limit proved to be an extremely challenging experience and a whole new ball game for me!

Recorded talks at TED and TEDx (TED affiliated events) can get hundreds of thousands of views online and a few even have views in the tens of millions. TED started in 1984 as a conference under the concept of “ideas worth spreading” and has since expanded beyond its original topics of Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED).

For some time now, I had been hoping that someone great would give a TED talk on arts-integration and the A+ Schools Network. I first learned about A+ three years ago and their arts-integrated school network is in operation in 120 schools spread across North Carolina, Oklahoma and Arkansas (now a National A+ Schools Consortium).

When we discovered A+ we found out what the true mission of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts should be. Our other programs like giving art supplies to schools and scholarships in an art contest looked like mere band-aids compared to the whole school transformation that we saw in these schools. A+ Schools embrace the arts in every classroom and every subject in order to “nurture creativity in every learner.” I couldn’t believe that not more people knew about the great things that these schools were doing. I knew a TED talk by an expert in A+ would be a great way to gain exposure for their program.

To my surprise, after we formed our own Louisiana A+ Schools (LAA+) network here this year (our seven member schools pictured above), a TEDx event at LSU invited me to give the lecture that I hoped someone else would give! To have the chance to be able to share our story and our vision for the potential for arts in our Louisiana schools was exciting!

Soon though, excitement gave way to dread (pictured, the stage at TEDxLSU).

If I nailed the talk, we had a real chance to let thousands of people hear about this arts-integrated school network. However, if the talk was bad or I failed to deliver, I would have just squandered a great opportunity. The pressure was overwhelming at times!

Luckily, the organizers of TEDxLSU gave my fellow presenters and me an organized plan to handle the pressure. The great TED talks look effortless. The organizers warned of how much time and effort it would take for our talks to look casual and composed.

So, I prepared myself for over a month. I read books on how to deliver a TED Talk. I outlined my thoughts, took notes and I watched as many other TED talks as I could to see a pattern of why some were more successful than others. Plus, I borrowed many of Wendy’s best ideas and slides from her many presentations on my Dad (pictured, the slide with "Don't Turn Your Back on Your Troubles, 'Cause They'll Just Mulitply" is always good for a laugh).

However, the talk that gave me the most inspiration and helped me was by Sir Ken Robinson. His talks have over 100 million views. It is a must see because, first of all, it is HILARIOUS! He could have been a stand up comic! Sir Ken’s delivery is impeccable and he really gets you to understand why teaching creativity (the process of having original thoughts that have value) is so important to our students.

So, I borrowed some ideas from Ken Robinson’s speech (I hope he doesn’t mind!) and I focused on how my mentors (Jean Hendrickson from Oklahoma A+ Schools and Paul Leopolous from the THEA Foundation & Arkansas A+ Schools) would deliver this speech. I had a loose outline of the points I wanted to make and I thought I had pretty much everything ready to go.

About a week before my speech though, I found out how woefully unprepared I really was. I gave my first practice presentation to our team of Louisiana A+ Fellows at our first annual LAA+ Fellows retreat (pictured, the LAA+ Fellows are experts in every subject or art form that will be training our schools on arts-integration).

I stuttered and stammered and rambled through about 30 minutes of lecture that had no clear theme or message (more than twice my 12 minute time limit!).

For the next week, I went back to the drawing board and with the help of the LAA+ Fellows and our staff at the Rodrigue Foundation, the theme and structure of the talk came together. I typed out the entire speech as if it was a screenplay and for days worked on memorization, delivery and timing in conjunction with my slides.

I got to practice one time in the TEDxLSU venue on campus (pictured above) and then delivered my talk the next day. It wasn't perfect, but, in the end, I really am happy with how it came out. The organizers of TEDxLSU did such a great job organizing the event and as of this writing I have had more than 1,500 views! I hope everyone enjoys the speech and we would of course love to get your feedback.

We at the foundation and at Louisiana A+ Schools will need your help and support to try to change perceptions on arts and schools. But, we are in this for the long haul and we believe it can be done!

One of the best things you can do to help out is sign up for our mailing list and keep informed about the latest things that Louisiana A+ is doing. Or, if you represent a school or are a member of a community arts organization that wants to partner with us, please let us know!

Thanks again to all of my mentors and the staff of the Rodrigue Foundation I could not have done it without all of them.

And thank you to Wendy for letting me be a guest blogger again. She will be back soon!

Jacques

While walking on Carmel Beach last week, I stashed, a bit guiltily, in my sweater pocket, a stone. It was cool and smooth and felt good in my hand, as I did what I always do when faced with a vista: refocused.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I wore again my comfort sweater, the one I reach for during fogged-in mornings or bouts of melancholy. I felt the stone in my pocket as I watered the herbs outside my office window, and I placed it among the plants and other treasures, most discovered in the trunk of my car and left, I suspect, by a visiting artist who walked the same beach.

(Photographed this week by George Rodrigue with a painting by Mallory Page)

And I thought, as I often do in seeking a place of my own, of Virginia Woolf, who weighted her pockets with stones and, it must be said, drowned herself in the River Ouse.

Recently George Rodrigue designed a headstone for a friend. It was his first such project, and to his surprise, the sentiment challenged him more than the artwork. The territory is familiar, however, as he recalls working as a teenager in his father’s business, “Rodrigue’s Portable Concrete Burial Vaults.”

Sacred stones, whether over a grave, on the beach, or in a painting, haunt me lately, connecting me, without warning, to motherhood, or maybe more so to the sacred feminine. As I write at my desk this week, I study the adjoining wall, covered with expressions of the feminine, including the feminine side of George Rodrigue.

-click photo to enlarge-

(pictured, Femme Fatale, a 1991 silkscreen with hand-painted eyes by George Rodrigue; Haley, a 2003 Hurricane painting by George Rodrigue; Pregnancy, a self-portrait photographed by Tabitha Soren; Ruth Bernhard’s Creation of 1936; an animal skull, found by a friend in the wild, in Africa; sculpture of Selket, my longtime obsessionand the guardian of King Tut’s tomb; Sacred Stones, a 1992 painting by Mignon Wolfe)

In 1992 my mother painted Stonehenge. She pondered, like many, spirituality within the shape and placement of the giant rocks. For her, they embodied love in the form of lovers embracing within the shadow of one stone, and a fatherly face within another. The stones symbolized her dreams, especially her connection to something bigger than a routine, daily life.

By the time she painted Sacred Stones, she explored in earnest, both in life and in art, the concept of the sacred feminine, specifically the ideas associated with Mother Earth and angels.

(pictured, Blue Angel, 1996 by Mignon Wolfe)

During Jazz Fest recently, New Orleans photographer Dennis Couvillion surprised me with an email of his photograph of Mahalia Jackson’s tomb, “in Providence Park,” he writes, “in Kenner, just off Airline Highway, which is in the photo's background, behind the trees and near the airport.”

-click photo to enlarge-

George and I both contemplate through Couvillion’s eyes the resting place of the great gospel singer, beloved to millions as a mother-type figure, but also rooted in sadness and yet euphoric with the spiritual in songs like "Summertime and I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”

This contradiction and melancholy suits me on Mother’s Day, as it has every year since I lost my mom, even as I celebrate, wrapped in my comfort sweater, the maternal in dear friends and family. This year in particular, I think it must be crowded at Mama’s side, as she reunites with my Aunt Kathy, George’s Aunt Irene, and his Cousin Berta Lou, beloved women, all mothers to their own and to us, and all of whom joined her in recent weeks.

Wendy

-see George Rodrigue's portrait of Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972) here-

-for a related post, see “The Artist’s Mother”-

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

"I always feel like I'm starting over, every day." -artist Darren Vigil-Gray-

In Carmel Valley, George Rodrigue and I live surrounded by flowers. Annuals flourish here, and for the first time in years, we’re on the West Coast long enough for me to not only plant, but also nurture. Our rose garden rewarded us immediately for this bit of attention; the hollyhocks, a passion leftover from my childhood, threaten to bloom at any moment; the hummingbirds hover in disbelief as I water the long-neglected geraniums, and the deer, salivating, stare through the garden gate.

-click photos throughout to enlarge-

(pictured, Flower Children, 2013 by George Rodrigue, 30x40 inches, acrylic on canvas)

These flowers thrive in a tiny fenced-in area behind our house, the only place inaccessible to Bambi. They also thrive within vases throughout the house, complementing the artwork, no matter what the flower, color, or artist. Recently, in fact, I found jewel-toned royal blue orchids at our California grocery store, impossible to resist, and now extending, appropriately, into the air of Blue Wendy.

(pictured, perhaps our most oft-occupied sitting area, with a painting by Darren Vigil-Gray, clay horse by Priscilla Hoback, Cajun Fishermanbronze by George Rodrigue, painted table by Rosalea Murphy, and precious Mother’s Day tulips; click photo to enlarge-)

In the front yard, just outside of his studio, George encourages the deer. Although we don’t dare feed them for fear of wood rats, we quench their thirst from a fountain, a mound of granite topped with a now freshly-polished bronze sun. Without fences, the deer visit several times each day for water.

While I care for the back, George loves this area because it borders his studio. He fills it with palms and evergreens, resistible to the animals. From his easel, he watches them, and they watch him.

“Every time I come to California,” explains George, “I look at it differently. Fresh eyes, fresh feelings, fresh emotions. Something unexpected always comes up.”

(pictured, I Have a Colorful Life, 2013 by George Rodrigue, 30x40 inches, acrylic on canvas; click photo to enlarge-)

We chose this property more than a decade ago because of its lace oak groves, so similar to Louisiana’s live oaks, the trees that called George Rodrigue home from California and art school some forty-five years ago. Yet in recent years it’s been difficult for us to spend much time here. Now, with the West Coast firm in our long-term plans, we adopt this land, or let it adopt us, embracing the California lace oaks as though Evangeline herself wept beneath them.

Last week we pruned the trees for the first time in five years.

Oh they’re beautiful, I whispered, when George asked me what I thought about the trimming.

Following a long pause, he replied, also whispering…

“California.”

(pictured, George Rodrigue outside of his studio, Carmel Valley, California, May 2013; the deer's water source, a granite fountain, stands behind him; click photo to enlarge-)

In recent paintings, George often adds a single or several flowers to a Louisiana landscape. He uses flowers as design elements vying for attention with the Blue Dog. I asked him about this unnatural feature, inserted as if for balance and color patterns. Always okay in my book, but is there something more?

“Nope, just the obvious. Flowers represent a re-birth every season. And I like the way they look in my paintings.”

That’s good enough for me.

Wendy

-pictured above, Springtime is a-Comin’, 2013 by George Rodrigue, 60x40 inches, acrylic on canvas; for details regarding pricing and availability of these new works, contact Rodrigue Studio-

-for related posts, see last week’s essay, “Sacred Stones” and also “Flowers, Eyes, Swirls and Hearts”-

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

Hollywood Stars

Cajuns, The Book

Blue Dog, The Book

King Marion

Life Lessons and an Art Contest

Rodrigue's Cajun Mardi Gras

Tee Teddie

The Lost Painting

The Big Picture

The Other Side of the Painting

Blue Dog: A Life of Its Own

The American Indian in Louisiana

The Road

The Silent West

America, Unexpected

Looking for a Beach House

Dance with Me, George!

Arts and Education: A TEDx Talk by Jacques Rodrigue

Sacred Stones

Flower Power