Musings of an Artist's Wife

From the Introduction to The Other Side of the Painting by Wendy Rodrigue, published October 2013 by UL Press-

My mom, an artist, talked me into my first Art History class, a sweeping journey from cave paintings to the start of the Renaissance. Previously, I avoided it, thinking I preferred self-discovery through my mother’s books. Yet from day one, I sat lost in another time and world. I imagined the hand that held the brush, something I still do, even with George’s paintings, even after I watched him apply the paint.

(pictured, George Rodrigue at his easel, Carmel, California 2013; click photo to enlarge-)

Somehow, imagining the artist puts me in that place, those circumstances, as close as I would ever come to inside his head. It’s been my obsession as long as I remember- to understand how others think and feel, why they do the things they do, and that somehow it’s all rooted in good. (…at which point George gives me the Hitler speech).

Simultaneous to early Art History, I took “Shakespeare’s Comedies and Histories,” also in the mid-1980s at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, interweaving in my mind the stories, historical figures, language and art. In the library I discovered the media room where, in those pre-internet days, I watched the BBC Television Shakespeare, further enlivening not just history, but another’s spirit, whether Shakespeare’s, the character’s, or the actor’s, so that I might satisfy a small bit of my curiosity and learn who they are and how they tick.

(pictured, George Rodrigue at his easel, Lafayette, Louisiana, 1971; click photo to enlarge-)

Maybe it’s empathy, but I think it’s more. It’s an indefensible obsession, something that drives George crazy, as I chase down a rude waiter not to tell him off or kill him with kindness, the southern way, which was never my way, but rather to honestly find out if we’ve had a misunderstanding, if we offended him, or if a thoughtful word just might help a problem that has nothing to do with us at all. I lose sleep over these unsolved muddles, replaying conversations and missed opportunities in my mind.

And I believe that all of it makes me capable of better understanding the artist, any artist, so that even a concrete sandwich is someone’s personal expression. I may not relate to it or want it within my collection, but I respect it as coming from within someone else. (….again from George the Hitler speech, this time combined with the crappy art speech).

George shakes his head over my elation at the recent find of Richard III’s burial site and skeleton. I’ve watched the videos repeatedly of the dig and DNA discovery, imagining not that I’m the English King, but that I’m the archaeologist, enchanted by such a find. I imagine that the hand holding the tools is my hand, brushing away the dirt, carefully, revealing delicate finger bones, eye sockets and teeth.

Suddenly Art History, Shakespeare, History and Science coalesce into one magnificent, meaningful skeletal vignette. I run first to the internet and, dying of curiosity, to my mother’s books and my college books and to Shakespeare, blending it in my mind as it has in England on a university’s lab table.

I believe in integrating the arts into every aspect of education and as much as possible into daily life. This is why Louisiana A+ Schools (and similar programs in other states) is so exciting, along with a widespread move towards education awareness in museums. This is also why 100% of my proceeds from this book, as well as related lectures and exhibitions, benefit the programs of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, including art supplies for schools, college scholarships, and art camps.

I grew up in the artistic, near-theatrical bubble of Mignon, and today, more than twenty years since my last Art History class, I live in the environs of culturally rich New Orleans and naturally beautiful Carmel Valley, California. Every aspect of my daily life blends with the arts. My blog, Musings of an Artist’s Wife, allows me to observe and reminisce on paper, with posts lasting indefinitely, unlike a magazine that may end up in the trash or on the bottom of the bathroom pile.

My husband, George Rodrigue, is an artistic embodiment. For him, as he creates and makes decisions, the art always comes first. He refers to me often as an artist too. On school visits, however, you won’t find me painting with the kids. Instead I move through, admiring their work, envying a freedom of line unknown to me. I paint nothing. I draw nothing. Faced with a blank canvas, I feel only anxiety. Yet George wanted to subtitle this book, The Story of Two Artists, a title so uncomfortable that I barked my rejection without letting him explain.

More than "artist," the word "marketing" chills me, reducing my writing to a sales strategy. From the beginning, these Musings, whether in my blog, a magazine, or book, are based on one simple concept: sharing. Within my essays are my life’s interests. My hope is that what I find intriguing, most of which involves George Rodrigue, and all of which, thanks to the filter placed on me by my mother years ago, involves the arts, will inspire others, because, ultimately, the joy of my self-expression, whether through writing or public speaking, lies in that challenge.

Wendy

-learn more about The Other Side of the Paintinghere; order on-line at amazon or visit your favorite independent bookstore; order a special signed and numbered collector's edition at this link-

-pictured above, first book signing for The Other Side of the Painting, October 12, 2013, Carmel, CA; click photo to enlarge-

-first review, October 13, 2013, from the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, linked here-

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

“I hate the right thing to do...”

...grumbled my young cousin, her back to me as she descended the stairs. This was several years ago in New Orleans, and I had just pushed her towards something that seemed terribly important at the time. Her reaction to my vague reasoning reverberates like my own adolescent reaction to my mother’s frequent rebuttal, “…because I said so.”

Yet I lectured myself with the same words in recent weeks, as I postponed indefinitely a long-anticipated book tour.

George Rodrigue endures unpredictable side effects from his medications. Like many who fight such diseases, even with successful treatment, he has good days and bad, defined lately by an overall lack of stamina. For now, this precludes any travel. However, this too shall pass, beginning with, I have no doubt, a return to his easel, a comfort zone he misses, and a place he’s sat only once, briefly, in the past few months.

-pictured, George's studio, photographed this morning, Carmel, CA; click photo to enlarge-

“You’re not alone in this...”

...people keep telling me, as though I too am suffering.

I know that! I’ve always known that! George and I have never doubted our strong support system of family, friends and community. It’s true, however, that with the exception of a brief outing during the Carmel Art and Film Festival, he prefers, for now anyway, home and all the things that come with it ---the view, the owls, football, and foot rubs--- over the public life.

Yet he continues to impact friends and strangers not only with his artwork, but also with a presence that resonates beyond this Carmel Valley mountain, through Cajun stories and project-planning and an unwavering concern for others.

“You have to celebrate your book...”

...insists George, even as he knows deep down that, for me, it’s not the right thing to do. And so I postpone events, successfully halting his protests with a firm and familiar because I said so.

(pictured, all proceeds from The Other Side of the Painting, a memoir recently published by UL Press and based on this blog, benefit the arts in education programs of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts; learn more here; and read a review from The Lafayette Advertiser here-)

To those of you who organized signings and readings, thank you. Some of you did this several times, moving dates without complaint, only to have me cancel again. To those of you who marked your calendars to attend these events, thank you. And to both the hosts and guests, from the bottom of my heart, I apologize for not coming through.

George and I still do hope to make a few things. The Ogden’s O What a Night!, for example, when George is to receive the museum’s prestigious Opus Award, remains on our calendar, as does the Musical Tribute to George Rodrigue in Destin, Florida. Up to the last minute, we hope to attend these special events and, as a back-up, George’s sons, André and Jacques, stand by to fill in for their dad, expressing his gratitude for these honors.

(pictured, George Rodrigue with sons Jacques and Andre, Carmel, California, October 2013)

Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013, Louisiana Capitol Park, Baton Rouge

11:00 a.m. – Exhibit chat with curator Marney Robinson, showcasing a special exhibition of photographs and original artwork from the George Rodrigue private archives, State Library Foyer-

12:00 p.m. – Cooking demo with the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, featuring The Pot & the Palette: 100 recipes by Louisiana’s greatest restaurants with artwork by Louisiana’s most talented student artists.

This irresistible cookbook, with a Foreword by Chef Emeril Lagasse, spotlights finalists from this year’s Scholarship Art Contest, a partnership between the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts and the Louisiana Restaurant Association. Learn more and pre-order at this link-

Back to feeling alone...

The only time I feel alone, honestly, is when I leave George for even the smallest errands. The grocery store, the post office, a pharmacy run. Those are lonely, empty and, fortunately, temporary places, always complicated by the right thing to do.

“You have a beautiful smile...”

...noted a kind Rodrigue fan last week, one of fifty or so patient, flexible folks who turned out for Coffee & Conversation at the Jefferson Parish Library in Metairie/New Orleans, where we visited on a facetime screen rather than in person.

The compliment meant a great deal to me, not only because I share our mother's smile with my sister, but also because deep down I worry and, occasionally, panic, as we humans do in such situations. However, deeper down, the reality is that I’m incredibly happy. You see, I am never alone...

...because I have George. And by God, that’s worth smiling about.

Wendy

-pictured above, Rodrigue Studio, Carmel, California, October 2013-

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On October 26, 2013, George Rodrigue receives in New Orleans the prestigious Opus Award from the Ogden Museum of Southern Art during their annual gala, O What a Night!. Unable to attend the event, we asked Jacques Rodrigue, his fiancé Mallory Page Chastant, and André Rodrigue to accept the award on George's behalf, and to speak for us. Below is the speech in its entirety.

Jacques, speaking for his dad:

I’ve always said that if I wasn’t born in Louisiana, I would have never accomplished what I have in the art world, because my career started out by trying to recapture old Louisiana, and to show how different our state is from the rest of the country.

(pictured, Broken Limb...Girard Oak, 1975 by George Rodrigue, 24x30, oil on canvas)

But as I got into it, I realized that every part of America is unique, and that many artists over the past 200 years captured the parts of the country that moved them most.

When I returned from art school in California in 1967, I saw Louisiana in a completely different way. I tried to create a style that would express the Louisiana of the past. As I got into it, I realized that this was just the beginning of a series that would lead into the present day, with subject matter including customs, traditions, people, and the landscape.

(pictured, George Rodrigue's studio, Lafayette, Louisiana, 1973; click photo to enlarge-)

After 25 years focused on this premise, I painted an old French-Cajun tale of the loup-garou, which evolved over another 25 years into what the Blue Dog is today. As with my Cajun series, I had no idea it would last all of this time --- in my mind, on my canvas, or for the public.

(pictured, Loup-garou, 1991 by George Rodrigue, 72x48, oil on canvas; click photo to enlarge-)

Meanwhile, Roger Ogden and a few friends had a vision to exhibit southern art and preserve it for future generations. This building has truly become a warehouse of southern treasures that probably would never have been appreciated to this extent were it not for their efforts.

Both Roger and I started in Lafayette. I remember hearing years ago that he was putting together a collection of local artists and southern artists, with the idea of opening a museum one day. From the beginning, I hoped to be a part of this story and legacy in some way.

Thank you to everyone associated with the Ogden Museum of Southern Art for presenting me with the Opus Award. I am truly touched by this recognition.

Mallory, speaking for Wendy:

As George’s wife, I live a blessed life immersed in the arts. But it’s more than that. George has a unique way of seeing the world, both literally, as with his breakdown of oak trees and the interesting shapes formed between their branches, and abstractly, as in the life’s lessons gained from an illness, or the possibilities within space, dreams, and the origin of man.

He explained once:

“Every great artist has taken a common thing and made people see it in a different way.”

He also said:

“The closer you are to who you really are, is the best thing; yet most people can’t get past 5 p.m.”

(pictured, Soul Mates, 1997 by George Rodrigue, silkscreen edition 50)

In 2003 the Metropolitan Museum of Art held an exhibition of Thomas Struth photographs. The life-size images showed museum-goers viewing great works of art. At George’s suggestion, we watched from around a corner as visitors approached a photograph and stared not at the image of people looking at a Degas street scene, but rather at the Degas street scene itself --- despite the fact that the actual painting hung on the wall on another floor of this same museum.

“They can’t see!”

...said George. And through his observation, as I have many times in the past twenty-three years, I saw more clearly.

(pictured, sharing art at the Alexandria Museum of Art, surrounded by Copley to Warhol, a traveling exhibition from the New Orleans Museum of Art; click photo to enlarge-)

Following the exhibition, we sat on a bench in the Metropolitan’s Great Hall. A video portrait by Struth illuminated a large wall, perhaps 20 or 30 feet high, between the columns. The giant head of a woman blinked her eyes or twitched her nose, while otherwise remaining still.

After a long period of silence, I voiced both our thoughts:

“The Blue Dog.”

As we left the museum and walked, on that beautiful fall day exactly ten years ago, into New York’s Central Park, George replied,

“I’ll never see it, Wendy…

….but you will.”

André, speaking for both his dad and Wendy:

Following that day long ago at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we’ve known many wonderful recognitions and exhibitions for George’s art. As he predicted, however, the Metropolitan has not come calling!

Yet, to our surprise, hanging in the greatest museum in the world no longer feels important. Rather, we’ve found greater personal rewards in the classroom, sharing our story and George’s vision with students.

It’s the kids who bridge the art.

(pictured, Edwins Elementary School, Fort Walton Beach, Florida; click photo to enlarge-)

We’ve learned that 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 the great masters.

We’ve also learned that the greatest honor is to be recognized by our peers, especially fellow Louisiana artists and art lovers. Similar to seeking the respect of one’s parents, all George ever really wanted was to be appreciated at home.

(pictured, Aioli Dinner, 1971 by George Rodrigue, 32x46, oil on canvas; unveiled with Roger Ogden at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, 2012; click photo to enlarge-)

We are both humbled and honored by George receiving the Opus Award, and we apologize, from the depths of our southern souls, that we cannot be there to thank you in person.

In 1974, during an interview with the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, George Rodrigue said these words:

“At this time, artists should try to produce something from themselves, or from their area --- that’s where art is headed today. All America really has left in art is what one feels.”

***

Wendy

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This month, the State Library of Louisiana premieres an exhibition based on a new Rodrigue book, The Other Side of the Painting, on view through February 2014. Unable to attend the November 2^ndopening in Baton Rouge, George Rodrigue and I relied on curator Marney Robinson, who astonished us with her ability to fully utilize a one-walled space at the library’s entrance.

To create the exhibition, Robinson borrowed paintings by various artists from within our personal collection, including George Rodrigue’s original works from his archives, corresponding to vignettes from the UL Press publication, The Other Side of the Painting. Eleven of the sixteen pieces are on public display for the first time.

-click photo to enlarge-

(pictured: The Other Side of the Painting: A Special Exhibition, on view through February 2014 at the State Library of Louisiana, Baton Rouge-)

“This exhibition gives viewers a taste of the original art that inspired Wendy to write her book," explains George Rodrigue. “This includes not only my early art, but also paintings from her mother and interesting photographs, such as the King Tut line at the New Orleans Museum of Art from 1977.

"Both Wendy and I congratulate Marney Robinson for her selection and her eye for installation. We could not be more pleased with the finished exhibition.”

(pictured, Curator of Exhibitions, Marney Robinson, with her favorite grouping from the new exhibition at the State Library of Louisiana, including Spring Bouquet, 1979 by Mignon Wolfe, Hot Dog Halo, 1995 by George Rodrigue, and the King Tut line, 1977, courtesy of the New Orleans Museum of Art; click photo to enlarge-)

“Marney is rockin’ it!”

…says Bethany France, Director of Louisiana A+ Schools for the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts (GRFA), who joined Robinson for the exhibition’s premiere during the Louisiana Book Festival this weekend.

Simultaneously, our foundation unveils its latest project, a cookbook in partnership with the Louisiana Restaurant Association. The Pot and the Palette features award-winning student artwork from GRFA’s annual scholarship art contest, including recipes from Louisiana’s greatest chefs and restaurants.

(pictured, GRFA’s Director of Development, Wayne Fernandez, with artist Mallory Page at the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts Education Center, New Orleans; also pictured, George Rodrigue’s hand-painted fiberglass LSU cow and a mixed media on metal; click photo to enlarge-)

Although not quite a George Rodrigue biography, The Other Side of the Painting is the closest publication to date, a memoir recounting our personal histories and our love of the arts. As a result, this exhibition is revealing as well, explaining the origins of some of Rodrigue’s most famous works through the photographs, artists and histories that inspired him.

-click photos to enlarge-

The wall also includes original Rodrigue sketches and student artwork, including his Creature from the Black Lagoon from 1957, as well as the book's cover image, painted on illustration board while Rodrigue studied at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, 1965. Other works include his original Ragin' Cajun (1979), a classic 1969 landscape, and a painting from the Xerox Collection (2000).

“It makes for a very diverse exhibit,” explains Rodrigue, “and it provides the viewer with a better understanding of how this book formed around not only my art, but also mine and Wendy’s art-filled life together.”

Wendy

-this exhibition is free and open to the public thru Feb 2014; hours and location details at this link; George Rodrigue and I extend our appreciation to Jim Davis, Robert Wilson, the Louisiana Book Festival, and the State Library of Louisiana-

-read the latest reviews of The Other Side of the Paintinghere-

-all proceeds from the book, The Other Side of the Painting, benefit the arts in education programs of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts; order here-

-all proceeds from The Pot and the Palette benefit the Louisiana Restaurant Association Education Foundation and the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts; order here-

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

“The artist is involved with art as a way of life.”*

George Rodrigue and I discuss often the definition of art. We study the roles of craft, commercialism, high and low art, concluding always that there is no definitive answer, but that the fun ---indeed the tradition--- lies in the debates.

Ideally, art reflects the artist's soul and stimulates a personal connection for the viewer. While creating, however, the artist exists in a solitary place, separate in both thought and actuality from the opinions and influence of others.

“I see no need for a community,” stated artist David Hare (1917-1992). “An artist is always lonely. The artist is a man who functions beyond or ahead of his society.”

(pictured, It’s Never the Same, 2007 by George Rodrigue, acrylic on canvas, 36x24 inches, on view at Rodrigue Studio-)

This week George and I read together the transcripts from Studio 35, specifically a three-day gathering in 1950 of Abstract Expressionists (although they debated that label as well), including Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell, Louise Bourgeois and a few dozen others. During these closed sessions, the artists debated terminology and addressed questions such as,

How do you know when a painting is finished? Is it better to title a painting or give it a number? Should artwork be signed? Can a straight line be considered a pure expression?

(pictured, Five Balls, 1963 by George Rodrigue, oil on canvas, 40x40 inches; click photo to enlarge-)

Their comments spanned the width of their minds, as they blended experience, contemplation, and personalities. I asked George the questions too, because I recognized in these artists similar approaches to his own.

“I don’t understand, in a painting,” noted Ad Reinhardt (1913-1967), “the love of anything except the love of painting itself.”

….and from George Rodrigue:

“My favorite painting is always the one I’m working on now.”

When discussing how to know when a painting is finished, several artists spoke of the need for multiple works.

“That’s why you have to study ten to fifteen paintings together,” interjected George, as though he sat in on this session. “If one stands off from the others, then you’ve overworked it, and it’s too much.

“The group is more important than the single canvas, especially when it comes to learning how to stop. Looking at the group is the only way to see what you’re doing.”

(pictured, George Rodrigue works on Bodies in his Carmel studio, 2004; click photo to enlarge-)

Regarding process and philosophy, the group never agreed, reaffirming the personal nature of art. They all agreed in their dismissal, however, of not only public popularity, but also museums and academia, an irony given their status on all fronts today. George, too, lumps these audiences together:

“If you try to paint to please a public or a critic,” says George, “you’ll never create anything lasting, anything new, or anything purely your own.”

This attitude dictates approach. In George’s case, for example, he ignores outside perception (most often, too many Blue Dogs, or for years, too many Oaks), in favor of what he knows to be true regarding the challenges in repeating these subjects. For him, as he works within this four-sided canvas environment, shapes and colors are king. It is because of this abstract approach that he never tires of his subjects.

“One shape in relation to other shapes makes the ‘expression;’ not one shape or another, but the relations between the two makes the ‘meaning’.” –Hans Hofmann (1880-1966)

(pictured, The Last Puzzle Piece, 2013 by George Rodrigue, acrylic on canvas, 40x60; click photo to enlarge-)

By the time George reached art school in the 1960s, his professors spoke of “the death of easel painting.” The same museums and academic elite that once eschewed the Abstract Expressionists now revered their movement, pushing it to the forefront of popular culture as well. Pop Art was the new guy on the block, dismissed in the same way as its predecessors.

(pictured, “We are sowalking on a Pollock painting,” gasped sisters and artists Mallory Page and Natalie Domingue, visiting recently Jackson Pollock’s house and studio in East Hampton, New York; click photo to enlarge-)

“I can tell by their questions that these are all artists from the 50s,” continued George about the Studio 35 sessions. “As time went by, the questions answered themselves, because the progression of art– not the artists themselves – dictates the direction.”

Wendy

*David Hare, from Artists’ Sessions at Studio 35 (1950), Edited by Robert Goodnough, Soberscove Press/Wittenborn Art Books, 2009-

-visit this link for the latest reviews of The Other Side of the Painting, published October 2013, UL Press-

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

My sister talked me into posting "15 facts that people might not know" recently on my family facebook page. The reactions ranged from surprise to confessions to fun. Emboldened, and as a little something different on this blog, I post them again here, along with a few photos (click to enlarge).

1-I was born on a military base in Dover, Delaware.

2-When I was five, my mom, while pregnant, asked me to name my sister, which I did while picking flowers in the woods on Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany.

(pictured, Wendy, Germany, 1969)

3-I gave our mom three options: Dandelion, Edelweiss, and Heather.

(pictured, Mama brings Heather home from the hospital, Germany, 1972)

4-I had a pet squirrel named Fuzzy Wuzzy that I hand-fed from my bedroom window in Shalimar, Florida.

(pictured, our house, 16 Magnolia Drive, 1973-1977, in Shalimar, Florida, as it looks today; my bedroom window was on the 2nd floor, far left-)

5-Fuzzy Wuzzy was shot dead in 1975 by my best friend's brother, using a bb gun. I'm still mad.

6-Chip Totten was my first boyfriend. We were seven.

(note: Chip commented that I later cornered him for a kiss beneath our 4th grade classroom table; however, having blocked that out years ago, I don't recall it as a fact-)

7-My senior year of high school, my "profession test" stated that I should attend vo-tech school and become a mechanic.

(pictured, Mama/Mignon, Heather, Wendy/Dolores, and HAIR, during Mardi Gras, my senior year of high school, 1985)

8-As a teenager, my cousin Kelly gave me the pseudonym, "Dolores Pepper." The name stuck, and I dated several guys well into my 20s who thought that was my name.

(pictured above, a young Dolores Pepper and Flower Anne (a.k.a. Kelly), 1970s, New Orleans; below, George Rodrigue's silkscreen, created after I fessed up, and in our honor, Dolores Pepper and Flower Anne, 2009, on view at Rodrigue Studio; read more about Dolores and Flower, if you dare, in The Other Side of the Painting-)

9-In the 1980s, my mom let me join her and her friends for Ladies Night at the Seagull and the Landing (both long-gone nightspots in Fort Walton Beach, Florida), provided I call her "Mignon." If I slipped up, I had to leave.

10-I was once mistaken for Kim Basinger while buying a Christmas tree. The guy at the lot insisted I take the tree for free. I gave him an autograph.

11-During family gatherings, I sometimes call my husband, "Dad," and my dad, "George." Fortunately, alcohol is always involved.

(pictured, Heather, Dad and me, when Heather and I surprised our dad for his birthday with a double-renewal of our wedding vows during a 2005 pool party, New Orleans; the purpose was to get pictures with both of his daughters in their wedding dresses; riiiiiggghhhtttt....-)

12-After wearing them for months, I complained to George that the "R" is backwards in the "WR" earrings he designed. Turns out I was looking at them in the mirror.

13-I have so many Neil Diamond shirts that I can't count them all. I would like a Neil Diamond hoodie, but I haven't found one yet.

(note: before you start looking, the links are already pouring in, and I feel fairly sure I'll find one under the tree this year-)

14-For years, I have highlighted my hair.

15-My two favorite words are "Aunt Wendy."

Hope you enjoyed; next post, back to the arts!
Wendy

-pictured above, nephews Wyatt and William with Zoey; Tallahassee, Florida, October 2013; see also my sister Heather's blog, Adventures of a BMX Mom, linked here-

-for the latest reviews of The Other Side of the Painting, a new Rodrigue book, visit here-

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

In the summer of 2005, George Rodrigue and I visited Amsterdam. Rembrandt’s house was recently opened to the public. Because he declared bankruptcy, a detailed list exists of his 1656 belongings, enabling today’s historians to replace every furnishing, fossil, and vase from his vast collections.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) was an art rock star, both during his lifetime and since. Without gallery representation, he sold his work from a gallery inside his home (just as George did for years), ushering potential buyers into a side room, where they chose from his latest paintings, hung salon-style, stacked to high ceilings.

(pictured below, a wall of Rodrigue festival posters in the artist’s home, Lafayette, Louisiana, circa 1985; also, Rodrigue Studio today, New Orleans-)

-click photos to enlarge-

Rembrandt lived well, even lavishly, in a situation as rare at that time as it is today – a financially successful artist; and, in a less surprising scenario, an artist living beyond his means.

Touring his home felt like prying and honoring, similar to a tour of Graceland. For George and me, homage and curiosity won out over snooping as, at our guide’s insistence, George created an etching from a copper plate on Rembrandt’s printing press.

I watched the face of this great 21^st century artist as he operated the press and then, almost beyond belief, sat at the great 17^th century artist’s easel. He laughed nervously, but fully, his distinct features more pronounced than ever, helplessly khee-hee-hee-ing, a sound as associated by his friends with George as it is by cartoon-lovers with Snagglepuss.

We lost our camera on that trip, but perhaps my memory is the better record, as I recall George star struck over an artist more than three hundred years dead.

George Rodrigue’s face reflects a Cajun's and artist's ethos. It’s memorable, with exaggerated features. His pronounced cheeks protrude, and his deep set green eyes watch intently without widening. His nose, chin, mouth and forehead have what most people call “character,” defined by hard lines, not to be confused with wrinkles, forming shapes on his face similar to the strong shapes on his canvas.

(pictured, George Rodrigue with his portrait by New Orleans artist David Harouni, 2012; learn more here-)

Rembrandt also had a distinctive face. We know this because of his self-portraits, nearly one hundred in all, including paintings, etchings, and drawings. They chronicle his changes in visage and maturity, while also reflecting his deep understanding of his creative calling.

As George sat at Rembrandt’s easel, I sat across the room at Rembrandt’s apprentice’s table. Using a mortar and pestle, I ground the colored rocks into powder, adding linseed oil to make paste and, finally, paint, connecting me also to the past, so that I shared in George’s moment.

Wendy

-for a related post, see "Blue Fall in Louisiana," linked here-

-for the latest reviews of The Other Side of the Painting, a new Rodrigue book, click here-

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

In 1968 attorney and former Louisiana State Senator and U.S. Representative Jimmy Domengeaux* (1907-1988) of Lafayette founded the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana, known as CODOFIL. Impressed with the initiative, Louisiana Governor John McKeithen pushed through a bill that granted the organization the necessary state credentials.

(pictured: In 1912 Louisiana Governor Hall issued a special edict that French could no longer be spoken in schools; George Rodrigue’s He-bert, Yes – A Bear, No is one of fifteen paintings from his Saga of the Acadians, 1985-1989, detailed here-)

In order to save the French culture in Louisiana, Domengeaux, CODOFIL’s president from 1968 until his death in 1988, championed the French language, reintroducing it into the state’s public schools. Through an ambitious plan, he imported teachers from France and Canada to Louisiana and, remarkably, convinced the French government to fund the program.

The first one hundred and fifty applicants chose between two years in the French army and two years in the small town parishes of Louisiana. They lived in private homes and taught the proper French, as opposed to the Cajun dialect, a controversial decision that resulted in mixed and prolific press for Domengeaux, whose bigger-than-life persona attracted considerable public attention.

“He was sarcastic, flamboyant and crude,” explains artist George Rodrigue about his old friend, “and he was desperate to preserve the unique culture of south Louisiana, just as I tried with my paintings.

“We got along great.”

(pictured: Rodrigue and Domengeaux with Rodrigue’s Broussard’s Barber Shop, The Lafayette Daily Advertiser, 1971-)

It was Domengeaux who told George about Cora’s Restaurant, a combination grocery store, boarding house, restaurant and bar located during the 1930s and 1940s in the country outside of Lafayette.

“There’s no record of these old places,” explained Domengeaux.

George painted the long-gone establishment using his imagination, but based on his friend’s description. According to Domengeaux, the restaurant’s cuisine was more Creole than Cajun. Known for great food, Cora’s and places like it were unusual because of their diversity, attracting Cajuns, Creoles and African Americans.

The place employed a large staff, including children, most of whom boarded on the property. For the painting, George invented the people, recreating them in his typical Cajun style, all in white, without shadow, and locked into the landscape.

(pictured: Cora’s Restaurant, 1975 by George Rodrigue, oil on canvas, 36x48 inches; click photo to enlarge-)

According to George, Domengeaux grew frustrated with the general lack of interest in this faded part of Louisiana’s history. In Cora’s Restaurant, beneath the enormous oaks, these timeless figures glow with Louisiana’s culture, reinforcing on canvas both Rodrigue’s and Domengeaux’s mission.

In addition, Domengeaux and Rodrigue held shows in Lafayette for French painters Valadier, Surrier and Brenot, presenting the artists with keys to the city and exposing the local community to these French masters. At one such exhibition in the late 1970s, French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing attended, with hopes of further strengthening the Louisiana-France bond.

(pictured: Artists Valadier, Madame Surrier, Surrier, and Rodrigue; a Valadier painting leans on the floor, and a Surrier hangs on the wall; The Lafayette Daily Advertiser, circa 1979-)

By the late 1970s, Domengeaux's fame extended to France, where people often thought that he was the President of Louisiana. According to George, Domengeaux enjoyed more clout than Governor Edwin Edwards. At one point, in fact, the CODOFIL president tussled with the State Department for cutting a deal on his own with a foreign government. As usual, however, Domengeaux charmed his way out of the mess and got what he wanted.

Whether or not one applauds his methods, Jimmy Domengeaux’s pride in Louisiana’s heritage drove his life’s mission and deserves admiration. His efforts produced a lasting and positive effect on our state. At a time when many dismissed Louisiana’s fading culture, particularly the French influences within small town, southwest Acadiana, he cherished it. Through CODOFIL, one man made a difference.

“I’m proud to have known Domengeaux,” says George Rodrigue about his old friend. “He’s a true Louisiana legend.”

Wendy

*the pronunciation of “Domengeaux” is close to “DiMaggio,” as in the baseball player-

-a new Rodrigue book, The Other Side of the Painting, is “an illuminating, lively memoir recounting a husband and wife’s devotion to the arts;” learn more here-

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

Dear Friends,

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your kind messages, articles and prayers. I know that many of you are hurting, and I am truly touched not only by your memorial tributes for George, but also that you reached out to me personally.

I also thank you for your generous donations to the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts. Our family is more determined than ever to continue its educational and scholarship programs.

George Rodrigue’s three galleries will reopen this month, beginning with New Orleans on January 16, 2014, followed soon after by Lafayette and Carmel. Our remarkable, dedicated staff remains intact and, in the midst of their own grief, ready to resume work, sharing George’s art and life with others.

We will begin with exhibitions devoted to George’s history, including photographs, articles, and original artwork from our home, his studio, and his archives. In addition, we’ll present throughout the coming year several new silkscreen prints, beginning with artwork designed by George in 2013 for this purpose.

(pictured, Mardi Gras 2014, 30x40 inches; a painting by George Rodrigue, which he intended as a silkscreen print; for information on this and other available works, please join our mailing list-)

George’s younger son, Jacques Rodrigue, energized by his youth and his dedication to his dad’s legacy, assumes full-time gallery management, even as he continues his leadership within the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts and Louisiana A+ Schools. In addition, George’s facebook page remains active thanks to Jacques and his team.

George’s older son, André Rodrigue, remains in Lafayette at Jolie’s Louisiana Bistro and the Blue Dog Café, where most days you’ll find him relaying history at his increasingly crowded table, or making seafood wontons in the kitchen, both with equal diligence and importance, and both imbued with his natural spirit of kindness and generosity towards friends and strangers alike.

(pictured: The Rodrigue Family during the exhibition Rodrigue's Louisiana: Forty Years of Cajuns, Blue Dogs and Beyond Katrina at the New Orleans Museum of Art, 2008-)

And me? I’ll remain involved peripherally for now, advising quietly as needed, while otherwise allowing these capable young men to lead the galleries and foundation in new directions. I knowthat they, as much as me, remain, above all else, mindful of the awesome responsibility of their father’s legacy.

At the top of this letter, I thanked you for your messages. However, I must be honest. On my computer sits more than one thousand unread emails. My telephone voicemail is full. The newspaper and magazine articles remain unread. And your cards and packages sit unopened, stacked high in our foyer. I know that they are there. I know that you are there. But I can’t face any of it at this time. Please know that I will return to the telephone and mail on the days when I most need to hear your voice and read your words. And in the meantime, I'm comforted just knowing that your messages await.

I hope you’ll forgive me not only for the confession above, but also because I must retreat from the public life and, to a great degree, from our private lives, for now. To those of you who might worry, please know that I am not alone, and that I will be Somewhere.

Finally, until and if I’m capable of writing again, I share with you, my gentle readers, George’s last words...

"You're my Wendy."

Take care of yourselves. Take care of your loved ones.

Wendy Wolfe Rodrigue

-I leave you with hundreds of on-line essays at Musings of an Artist’s Wife, dedicated to George, along with a new book, The Other Side of the Painting, chronicling his history, his art, and our lives together. 100% of these proceeds benefit the arts in education programs of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts. More info at this link:

http://georgerodrigue.com/the-other-side-of-the-painting/

Last year I often found George Rodrigue in his studio in the middle of the night. He worked for weeks on the painting Choo Choo Ch’Boogie, yet instead of photographing him at his easel, I stood quietly behind and watched.

(pictured: Choo Choo Ch’Boogie, 2013 by George Rodrigue, acrylic on canvas, 48x60 inches)

At the time, he struggled with a medication’s side effects that temporarily altered his appearance. We both believed that the treatment was working and that his health would improve, and capturing that difficult period with pictures seemed inappropriate.*

Interestingly enough, as I prepared to photograph the painting after it was finished, George stopped me:

“No. Wait. I don’t want anyone to see it yet. I’m saving it.”

For what?

“Mmmmmm. For Christmas.”

He painted it, he explained, intending a hand-pulled stone lithograph of the image, printed in the old style in Paris, France. It would be his fourth print using this method, following Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, a project for Amuse Bouche Winery in 2008, and Looking for a Beach House and Blue Dog Oak, both released earlier in 2013. (Click the print titles above for images and details of the process).

(pictured: Choo Choo Ch’Boogie, 2014, Rodrigue estate stamp edition of 275, 30x40 inches, a lithograph printed in Paris, France, based on Rodrigue’s original painting, released this holiday season, one year after he intended; for price and availability, contact Rodrigue Studio or email info@georgerodrigue.com; click photo to enlarge-)

Choo Choo Ch’Boogieis a perfect example of the classic Rodrigue style: a stylized oak tree dissected by the canvas’s upper edge so that its lower branches form interesting blue shapes above the bushes. The subjects –the Oak Tree, the Blue Dog, and even the handmade carvings- connect a lifetime of painting and interests.

In the mid-1990s we visited the tiny town of Oberammergau, Germany, where George bought the wooden train and conductor, along with several other carved pieces, such as the artist figurine he used in Pop Goes the Revel (below), a 1998 painting and poster for the Red River Revel in Shreveport, Louisiana.

And in 1983, he used wooden figurines from an earlier trip to Germany to create the painting that would become a Festivals Acadiens poster in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Read the story behind this special painting, along with George’s quotes about his fascination with these figurines, here-

In addition, George held a lifelong obsession with trains. One year we drove in our truck to the top of Pike’s Peak in Colorado to ride again the cog train he recalled from a childhood vacation. We rode the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Train two years in a row so that he could experience both the open and closed cars. And it was by train that we traveled from Munich to Oberammergau to collect the wooden figures he would later use in his paintings.

George painted Choo Choo Ch’Boogie for himself, never intending the painting for sale. He hung it on the wall of our home, alongside He Stopped Loving Her Today, his tribute to George Jones, also painted last year.

(pictured, George Rodrigue (right) with his childhood friend, Jordan “J.L.” Louviere; Carmel, California, Summer 2013; George wears a t-shirt designed by his dear friend, Lafayette artist Tony Bernard; click photo to enlarge-)

George titled his painting Choo Choo Ch’Boogie based on the popular song. Although first recorded in 1946 by Louis Jordan, George probably became familiar with “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” in the late 1950s after he got his first transistor radio, about the same time Bill Haley and the Comets recorded their version of the song for their album Rock ‘n’ Roll Stage Show (1956).

His favorite recording in recent years, however, is the one we sang along with as we crossed the country annuallyin our truck. We grew fond of Asleep at the Wheel in the late 1990s when we toured with the band for Neiman Marcus events in Texas and Hawaii. Listen and sing along here.

(pictured: photograph by George Rodrigue, 2013; see more here; click image to enlarge-)

Just as George intended this print’s release last Christmas, he also intended that I share its history with you at that time. So this post, like the new print, is a way of following through on that commitment. Although this return to blogging is short-lived, I’m ever-mindful of George’s legacy, specifically the history behind his style and individual artworks, and I sincerely hope you’ll continue to explore the blog’s hundreds of essays. The most popular are listed by category down the right side of this page; and the rest are available through the search feature and dated archives, also located to the right.

I also thank you for purchasing The Other Side of the Painting (2013, UL Press). George and I were unable to tour with the book as we’d planned; and I’m unable to do so without him. But it is his story, and our story, full of history, nostalgia, quotes, and more. As fans of his art, I encourage you to explore it if you haven’t already. 100% of the proceeds benefit the arts-in-education programs of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts. More details at this link-

http://www.rodriguefoundation.org/site456.php

Are you scared? I asked George late one night last December, as we breathed together, my head against his chest.

“No,” he laughed, a mere whisper, yet still in his Snagglepuss-style. “It’s an adventure!” he continued, perhaps thinking of the trains, his eyes wide and bright like an expressive dog’s.

But we take all of our adventures together…

“I know,” he replied, still smiling, even happy, as he wiped my tears. “But you can’t come on this one, Wendy. Not yet.”

Wendy

*George’s health did improve for a time, and I photographed him at his easel as he worked on the painting He Stopped Loving Her Today. Story and images here-

-for questions/comments, contact Rodrigue Studio or email info@georgerodrigue.com-

-Don’t miss the special retrospective exhibitions, including original works and memorabilia from our private collection and George’s archives, on view through January 2015 at Rodrigue Studio New Orleans, Lafayette, and Carmel; more info here-

-With sincere thanks to the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the State Library of Louisiana, Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne, and the Louisiana Book Festival, which dedicates this year’s festival (Nov. 1, 2014) to George Rodrigue. Details here-

This morning George joined me in the bedroom after painting all night. We stood at the window and watched the sunrise.

“There’s only one owl,” I whispered.

“Maybe they split up,” he replied.

But we both knew better.

-from The Other Side of the Painting

We wanted to see the bears.

In 2003, while in Alaska, George Rodrigue and I flew in a seaplane to a remote shore area near a trailhead. Neither of us were hikers; we preferred walking in the woods. This particular day we followed the trail while clapping and singing (Jimmy Swaggart spirituals, as I recall) lest we surprise the locals, finally reaching a small cabin-type structure over a river.

Now quiet, we hunkered low in the lookout and waited.

Immediately, we were distracted---not by bears, but by fish---so many salmon that to pinpoint one, much less count the many, was impossible. They swam furiously in a sea of themselves, an undulating phenomenon. I whispered to George,

“I’ve never seen anything or anyone fight so hard for something.”

He nodded in silence and, amazed, we studied the situation, barely noticing the bears as they stuffed themselves at the buffet.

(pictured, Baby George and Boogie Bear, 1995 by George Rodrigue, silkscreen edition 90, 30x21 inches)

We learned later that the salmon, born in a small freshwater pond, swim with the current to the ocean, where they wander far and wide in the saltwater for several months or several years, depending on the variety, until an alarm sounds somewhere inside and says, That’s enough, Time to go, at which point they take a hard turn into that same freshwater stream, for an even harder fight, this time against the current, complete with boulders and raging water and bears, to reach the very place where they were born.

What’s the big deal with salmon fishing?...George and I wanted to know, realizing we could grab the fish with our hands. Turns out, however, that by the time the fish begin this journey in earnest, they are already decomposing, a detail that makes no difference to a bear, but turns the stomach of us humans.

(from Why is Blue Dog Blue?; click photo to enlarge)

Of the millions of fish, approximately one percent reach the end or, depending on one’s perspective, the beginning. Of those that do, the females, just prior to their deaths, lay their eggs in the shallow water. The males, decaying all the while, use their last ounce of virility to fight over fertilization rights. It’s no wonder, we mused, that a diet rich in salmon is recommended for increasing testosterone levels in humans.

At sunset, following a full day with the fish, we stood on the shore awaiting our return flight and, as a bonus, spotted the bald eagles. In my memory, it seems that there were hundreds of them, a bird we seldom saw before, and only singularly, in the Big Sur Wilderness near Carmel. Yet on this late summer’s day in Alaska, the most revered of America’s birds crowded the tops of the pines, no doubt attracted, like the bears, and like us, by the distracted and unsuspecting fish.

(from Why is Blue Dog Blue?; click photo to enlarge)

Since visiting Alaska twelve years ago, we often recalled the salmon, especially during the last few months of George’s life. Their story unfolds like a Shakespearean drama, a metaphor for existence, really. It’s dust-to-dust, with the will to live and the desire to love falling somewhere in between.

Once, a few years ago, after several misdiagnoses regarding a skin discoloration on my torso, I became a class project (a lab rat) at a university hospital where the professor, standing over me, explained my rare condition. As I reclined on the table while George and half a dozen interns looked on, the doctor stated, matter-of-factly,

“Your epidermis is decaying.”

In horrified unison and to the confusion of all, George and I exclaimed,

“Like the salmon?!”

Followed by...

“Will I (she) smell?!”

(The skin condition, by the way, is called morphea; my case is painless and relatively mild, and it provides the excellent service of keeping my vanity in check.)

For all of his paintings of oak trees and one dog, George was not a naturalist or nature-painter. Therefore I have no paintings of Alaska ---- or of salmon or bears (excepting stuffed bears) or eagles to share with you. He did enjoy photographing nature. However, with a few exceptions, those images remain within his files, a place I can’t yet face. So we’ll all have to wait and, as George would expect me to do anyway, revisit the salmon another time.

As I’ve shared often within lectures and essays, although George admired plein air painters, he was not one himself; nor did he paint nature from his photographs, even though he used photography as a tool, usually cutting and pasting elements from the photographs to create fabricated designs on his canvas.

He also used photography for inspiration. In fact, in the late 1960s, before he painted Louisiana, he photographed it. After studying his slides he realized that no matter what or whom he photographed, “Every picture contained a tree.”

It was this realization that lead him to choose the Oak Treeas his shape and symbol, not based on a particular tree in nature, but rather on his tree, the one “in here,” he used to say, while clutching his chest. He developed a style of painting the tree, with hard edges and dissected by the canvas, so that the sky and light create interesting shapes beneath the branches, rather than overhead.

“If you stand here, Miss Wendy,” noted a wise child, as she took my hand during a school fieldtrip at the Besthoff Sculpture Garden, “the light shines from underneath the trees, just like in Mr. George’s paintings.”

(pictured, The Road Back, 2008 by George Rodrigue, water-based oil on canvas, 18x24; click photo to enlarge-)

These days, when I awaken at night, I don’t find George, as I did before, at his easel. But I do feel him in these ‘fish stories’ and, although I’m rarely in Louisiana anymore, in nature. I sense him on the white sands and green waters of Okaloosa Island, in the long shadows cast by the short New Mexican pinons, and within the eyes of animals he never painted ---- such as Zoey, my sister Heather’s family dog.

George and I felt linked to a pair of great horned owls that joined us for years to watch the sunrise from behind our home in Carmel Valley. The giant nocturnal birds, however, always left in the morning mist, long before the light allowed a decent photograph.

On Thanksgiving Day 2014, in the golden afternoon sunshine of Galisteo, New Mexico, an unlikely visitor moved a small gathering to silence. He remained a long time, maybe half an hour, watching these family and friends, among them myself, George’s son André, and, as a group, the artist-peers George most admired, the closest thing he knew to a Blaue Reiter or Vienna Secession, and the reason he visited Santa Fe every year since this artists' community first welcomed him with a solo exhibition in the mid-1980s. One way or another, I heard from almost all of them over the following weeks, each one believing the owl to have been a mystical occurrence or visitor of some kind.

-click photo to enlarge-

I don’t know if George has tried to contact me or not. I don't even know if I believe in such things. I feel sure, however, that the owl is more likely a sign than the salmon, which is found, in my new southwestern home, only at select restaurants. What I do know is that I’m still swimming upstream, looking for him, despite the odds ….. everywhere.

Wendy

*With this return to blogging, I realize, at last, that I’m the keeper of the memories, and that if I don’t write them down and get them out of my head, then the stories end. I also have journals of notes and half-finished essays based on conversations with George. No promises on how often I'll post, however, because, well, reliving uswithout him is ….

*The companion images of George and of me within this post are digital collages (2013, 20x20 inches, editions 50; click photos to enlarge), a combination of paintings and photographs arranged and colored by George in his computer, then printed on heavy rag paper. Wendy is his last artwork that includes me; and Rodrigueis his last self-portrait-

*Our owl visitor was photographed by George's friend, artist Douglas Magnus. Over a 25-year period, the two collaborated on numerous unique buckles and jewelry designs, such as this belt, which they made for me in 2012-

*In recent months, the Rodrigue family took on personally both George's Facebook page and the foundation’s, expanding the posts to feature not only his art, but also quotes, stories, and photographs. Please join us on Facebook at The Art of George Rodrigue and The George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts. Also, find us on instagram-

“Ya’ here to look or to buy?...”

…barked Bud Petro from the porch of George Rodrigue’s Jefferson Street gallery. From a rocking chair, he watched the Esso station he owned with his brother Norman, while monitoring and, according to George, “scaring away” potential Rodrigue collectors.

“I couldn’t tell him to leave,” laughed George. “He was part of my gallery experience!”

(pictured, The Petro Brothers, 1978 by George Rodrigue, oil on canvas, 30x40 inches; Bud and Norman Petro with André Rodrigue, photographed by George Rodrigue, 1978; click photos to enlarge)

George Rodrigue loved to tell and retell stories about his friends, long gone, and the Petro Brothers were among his favorite subjects for storytelling ...and for paintings.

Bud Petro (1909-1985) and Norman Petro (1917-2011) owned and operated the Lafayette, Louisiana Esso station, sharing a busy corner with Borden’s Ice Cream and Rodrigue’s Jefferson Street home and gallery.

(pictured, Petro’s Newspaper, 1987 by George Rodrigue, oil on canvas, 14x11 inches; rather than buy his own, Petro read George’s paper every morning, returning it to the doorstep before George, who painted all night, awoke-)

Although friends with both brothers, George spoke most often of Bud. “Petro” was his traveling companion for many years. They drove much of the southeast and Texas together in George’s van, carrying paintings to clients.

On one journey, while parked at a Dallas, Texas café, they returned to a broken window and missing camera equipment. To George’s relief, the thieves left the large paintings; however, they absconded with something far more valuable (in Petro’s mind) ---- Bud’s suitcase.

“My clothes!”

...cried Petro about his irreplaceable wardrobe. I can hear George in my head telling the story and laughing, as he described the polyester suits and wide collars that remained Bud’s staple long past the disco craze.

“He was so upset that he wouldn’t go to dinner,” recalled George. “I met with my collectors and didn’t get back until late. When I knocked at Bud’s motel room with a bucket of chicken, he grabbed it, shouting, ‘Well it’s about time!,’ and slammed the door in my face.”

(pictured, a photograph George labeled “Mr. Petro,” showing Bud Petro (center) with Frankie Mandola (L) and Ray Hay, photographed by George Rodrigue at Ray Hay’s Cajun Po-Boys in Houston, Texas, 1978; notice the poster of Rodrigue’s classic Jolie Blonde, 1974; click photo to enlarge-)

George wrote of the painting below, as pictured in the cookbook, Talk About Good! (pub. 1979, Junior League of Lafayette)...

“This painting portrays Ray Hay holding his Cajun Po-Boy sandwich, and beside him is Bud Petro of Lafayette, Louisiana. The two are discussing one of the new items on the menu, Petro’s juicy fried rabbit. The preparation of the rabbit is so secret, that Mr. Petro was flown in to Houston to teach the cooks how to prepare this Cajun delicacy.”

George often photographed and painted his son André with Bud Petro, posing them in his Jefferson Street backyard and manipulating the landscape around the figures on his canvas.

(pictured, two versions of Let’s Play Ball, 1980 by George Rodrigue, oil on canvas, 40x30; click photos to enlarge-)

George’s favorite Petro Brothers images, however, are slides from a day among the azaleas with Diane Bernard Keogh. He photographed Diane often and painted her numerous times over some thirty years, as Evangeline from Longfellow’s epic poem, Evangeline: A Tale of Arcadie, 1847. (See a selection of paintings here-)

George loved these photographs and viewed them repeatedly, always laughing about young, beautiful Diane with the older, indelicate brothers. (Note: I had difficulty choosing here, so you get all of them; be sure to click the images to enlarge-)

These too became paintings, the last one finished the year Bud died.

(pictured, Two Uncles and a Niece, 1985 by George Rodrigue, oil on canvas, 24x36; click photo to enlarge-)

George’s favorite Petro story, the one he retold countless times, recalled a trip to Shreveport with Bud, as they delivered a painting to Palmer Long (1921-2010), son of Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator Huey Long (1893-1935):

“Don’t open your mouth...”

...warned George, as they approached the Long house.

But as the door opened, George fell silent, stunned by Palmer, whose eyes were exactly like his father’s.

“I knew those eyes well,” said the artist, “because I had just finished painting them.”

(pictured, The Kingfish, 1980 by George Rodrigue, oil on canvas, 60x36 inches; click photo to enlarge, and learn more here-)

"Howdayado, Mr. Long,"

...said Bud, thrusting out his hand before George could stop him.

Without breathing, Petro blurted out, fast.....

“I wanna tell ya how much I appreciate your daddy havin’ made the highway run in front of my service station.”

Upstaged already, George realized that Palmer Long was more fascinated by Bud Petro than he was with the painting. The two shared hunting stories, which also left out George, who was never a hunter.

As the evening wore on, Palmer showed off his prized wooden duck call:

“Petro made a fuss over it,”

...recalled George, shaking his head.

“Then he reached in his pocket, cupped his hands at his mouth, turned his back, and produced a far superior sound.”

Curious and impressed, Long asked to see the duck call.

“Petro turned around, slow....”

...said George, a bit quiet and with a build-up...

“...and then he fanned open, like butterfly wings, his empty hands.”

“Aww man,"

continued George,

"…. it was fantastic.”

Wendy

-above: me, imitating George, imitating Petro-

-for more on the Petro Brothers, read Norman Petro’s obituary here-

- please join me April 18 in New Orleans for the 2015 George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts Scholarship Awards; details here-

- “Rodrigue: Houston,” a special exhibition with original Rodrigue paintings spanning 45 years, opens April 25, 2015; details here-

(above, with Frankie Mandola, photographed by Diane Bernard Keogh, Houston, Texas, 2013; click photo to enlarge-)

George Rodrigue and I worked as a team on stage for many years. Recently, especially after he became ill, I filled in for him occasionally on my own; yet he was always there, coaching me beforehand and quizzing me afterwards.

(pictured, at the Clinton Library, Little Rock, Arkansas, 2010; click photo to enlarge-)

This weekend, for the first time, I’ll speak in public truly without him. I’ve thought a lot about my half hour presentation----how best to represent George and our foundation, and how best to honor Louisiana’s young artists, brought together for the 6^thannual GRFA Art Scholarship Awards Ceremony. (Details and ticket info here-).

I’ve also thought about how, during my first return to Louisiana in more than a year, to face and answer questions with both the sincerity George’s fans deserve and the discretion that I require. It’s a complicated and emotional pursuit, and I doubt I’ll have an answer... even as my plane lands... even as I approach the stage.

(pictured: Soul Mates, an original silkscreen by George Rodrigue, Artist Proof, 1997)

As long as I knew him, George lived outside of the box. This was true in his art, in our relationship, and in his joie de vivre. He broke rules and took chances, and he taught me to do the same ---to live by instinct and heart over establishment and expectations.

He wasn’t afraid, for example, of criticism that might accompany a short painting demonstration:

“I watched him paint that whole canvas in under an hour!”

...exclaimed on-lookers, some impressed and some, especially after learning the price, aghast.

(pictured: A painting demonstration for the LSU Museum of Art, 2011; click photo to enlarge-)

In 1997 George and I first entertained an audience with a painting demonstration at the Red River Revel in Shreveport, Louisiana. As he painted, I shared George’s history, while clarifying his style and approach through anecdotes.

“I can’t talk and paint at the same time,” he laughed.

This began a tradition, and we found ourselves in demand across the United States. We presented similar events at the National Arts Educators Association Convention, the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University, the Phoenix Art Museum, and numerous book fairs and schools.

For these demonstrations, we geared our unscripted banter to the audience. George used large brushes and paint straight from the tube, an approach he developed for public painting because, he admitted,

“If I had to watch an artist paint for as long as it really takes, I’d get bored.”

He wanted his fans to see what appears to be a complete painting materialize from a blank canvas in under an hour, even if, in reality, it was only a rough design.

Subject matter usually included both the Blue Dog and the Oak Tree ---visual aids that materialized before the audience's eyes. In the loose sketch below, for example, painted during a 2001 lecture in Houston, Texas, George illustrates the simple elements that are the basis for his paintings.

-click photo to enlarge-

Using one of his typical landscape compositions, he emphasizes three components, each of equal importance on his canvas: tree, background, and foreground. He used these elements to create infinite arrangements of shapes. This was the reason, he explained, that his paintings, even as he repeated the same subjects hundreds of times, remained varied and interesting to the eye.

Note: The number “3,” which should indicate the foreground in the sketch above, is trapped instead inside of the oak. After the lecture, George extended the trunk of the tree so that it better filled the space, creating a new bottom line to the oak’s shape, and covering part of the original foreground space.

Following the demonstration, George returned the painting to his studio where he reworked it for anywhere from several days to a week. In the photo above, he shares the finished painting, My Second Birthday, completed in his Carmel, California studio following a painting and cooking presentation with Chef Paul Prudhomme. (story here)

“People thought it looked good on the stage,” he said. “But I was never happy with it and always repainted it afterwards.”

Prior to these public painting demonstrations, George’s brushwork typically was tight. However, influenced by his style on stage, he gradually loosened his approach on some canvases in the studio as well. As a result many paintings since the late 1990s reveal looser, freer strokes. Eventually, George admitted that, despite hundreds of tightly controlled compositions, one of his favorite ways to paint is to simply walk up to the canvas without any preconceived ideas. He enjoyed working out a successful design based on the circumstances of the moment, while reflecting with honesty, his psyche.

“I know it will have a Blue Dog,” he said, “but beyond that, the challenge for me is in creating and just letting it happen. That’s why my favorite painting is always the one I’m working on now.”

It is this approach, rather than a formal speech with lecture notes, that guides me on my return to the stage this weekend. I’ll also unveil a few rarely seen paintings borrowed from the wall of George’s home studio. My hope is that these symbols will embody, with both their personal and historical resonance, my partner’s influence, so that I might represent him well, with genuine and heartfelt sincerity during this auspicious event.

Wendy

-please join me in New Orleans on Saturday, April 18, 2015 for the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts Scholarship Luncheon, honoring 15 finalists from more than 600 statewide entries inspired by this year’s theme, “Louisiana’s Music.” 11:30 a.m. at the New Orleans Sheraton Hotel. Details and tickets here- http://www.rodriguefoundation.org/site479.php

-don’t miss “Rodrigue: Houston,” a special Texas exhibition opening this month. Details here- https://georgerodrigue.com/rodrigue-houston/

As I understand it, the bright-colored mandala represents the universe; its creation in sand and its inevitable destruction represent the impermanence of life.*

Some years ago I asked George Rodrigue if he would paint, for me, a meditative symbol. He replied, naturally…

“I already have.”

(pictured: Circle of Life, 2002, an original silkscreen by George Rodrigue, signed and numbered edition of 25, 36x36 inches; click the photo to enlarge this striking image-)

The Blue Dog stares at us, looking for answers; and we stare back with the same universal questions, the ones that have challenged humankind from the beginning: Who am I? Where am I going?…and... the question that most haunted us (and now me) in recent years, whispered aloud, yet to no one, late nights in the dark…

How did we get here?

(pictured: Wheel of Fortune, 2002, acrylic on canvas by George Rodrigue, 36 inch diameter; click photo to enlarge-)

The same can be said of most iconic artistic interpretations throughout history ---whether a painting of a religious leader, such as the Buddha or Jesus, a mesmerizing human, such as da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Rembrandt’s self-images, or even a landscape such as Monet’s Water Lilies or Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

If successful, the painting provides no answers. Rather, it forces us to question and contemplate. The imagery (or lack of, such as Rothko’s color fields or Pollock’s drips), as with life itself, transports us at once into both the here-and-now, as well as the anywhere-and-anytime.

-click the photo of this intense painting (always one of George's favorites) to enlarge-

(pictured: The Future is Now, 2002, acrylic on canvas by George Rodrigue, 46 inch diameter)

Ultimately, for me (and I daresay for George, who also spoke this way), if the mystery endures, then the painting holds up. I guess the same can be said for life itself; because, as we all know, the only thing we can truly count on is change.

(pictured: Roulette, 2002, acrylic on canvas by George Rodrigue, 36 inch diameter)

Outwardly, George spoke of these round paintings in terms of color, shape, and line. He referred to the works as abstract:

“You can’t take a Blue Dog from one painting and switch it with one from another. The color changes according to whatever other color is alongside it.”

(pictured: ‘Round the Mulberry Bush, 2002, acrylic on canvas by George Rodrigue, 36 inch diameter)

But behind the scenes, he spoke often of these round works as mandalas, or as metaphors for both the mystery and unity of life.

“The mandala,” wrote Carl Jung, “is an archetypal image whose occurrence is attested throughout the ages. It signifies the wholeness of the Self. This circular image represents the wholeness of the psychic ground or, to put it in mythic terms, the divinity incarnate in man.”

In the painting Consequences(below, 2002), George swirls his shapes and colors so that the abstract (the mystery) becomes more important than the dog. George was so obsessed with this near-cosmic swirling and symbol-of-the-whole that he challenged the composition further, making sure to incorporate, even if most viewers might not notice, his other inescapable iconic shape. His oak tree appears as an abstracted trunk-like presence in the upper left portion of the canvas.

“My paintings are like puzzles,” George often said. “Once the puzzle is complete, then the painting is finished.”

(pictured below: Puzzle of Life, as I photographed the canvas on George’s easel in the early morning hours, just after he finished painting it, 2002; Carmel, California-)

Perhaps the real chaos, the most dangerous discord, lies within our minds.*

“Stay close to the floor, Wendy...”

...advised my meditation teacher many times in recent years.

“Relax the struggle.”

And in my darkest hours, when I can barely lift my head for missing George, I remember those words and move to my mat.

And afterwards, always, I feel better.

Wendy

*read also “Tranquility from Chaos," an account of when George and I watched the Drepung Loseling monks create and destroy a mandala in Santa Fe, New Mexico; The Other Side of the Painting, UL Press, 2013, pp. 377-380; details here-

-for a related post see "Blue Dog: The Abstract Paintings, 2001-2003"; see also "Hurricanes," another Rodrigue series painted primarily on round canvases-

-pictured above and below: contemplating Rodrigue and a new book on his art while visiting the historically artistic Wyeth-Hurd property in San Patricio, New Mexico; click photos to enlarge-

-several of the paintings featured in this post are on view through July 5^th at RODRIGUE: HOUSTON, an exhibition of 75 original works by George Rodrigue spanning 45 years; details here-

-a beautiful new book (above), Rodrigue: The Sanders Collection, features the painting ‘Round the Mulberry Bush as a striking embossed image on the cover (just the kind of special treatment George would have designed); learn more here-

-coming soon: a limited edition Fine Art print of George Rodrigue’s ‘Round the Mulberry Bush (pictured within this post); contact Rodrigue Studio for details-

Early last year I retreated for three months to a tiny cottage in Seaside, Florida. I was raised on nearby Okaloosa Island, and as I searched for 'home' ....alone... this community provided physical safety and comforting memories, especially during the quiet off-season between Christmas and spring break.

Around 1980 I watched, with my mother and sister, this pastel Gulf front town arise from the white sand.

My temporary residence, a two-room carriage house behind a family's large second home, hinted of my grad school years, when I lived in a similar space behind an historic home in New Orleans' Irish Channel. Yet even as the space seemed right; everything else was wrong ----not the least of which was the art.

The sand was too white; the water too blue; the sunshine too bright; the grocery store too domestic; the restaurants too romantic; the neighbors too happy. Just two blocks from the too-beautiful beach, I remained exclusively indoors with my situation, my self pity, and my grief.

My sister helped me. We emptied the walls of their vacation-home kitsch --- paintings of Seaside maps, palm trees, oversize coffee cups, and floral bouquets.

We replaced them with what became my "traveling art collection" (joined soon after by the "traveling crystal"), the space transformed by George Rodrigue, Hunt Slonem, and Mallory Page.

Weeks later, as I sat at the top of the stairs without any conceivable reason to descend, I realized that, by coincidence, Today I am Fuchsia, and I snapped a photo ---my first since my world slammed shut, tight. Heretofore trapped within my screaming emotions in a tiny house, I began to open. It was through these canvas worlds, as opposed to the real world, that my boundaries (and my fear) loosened.

(pictured: February 2014, Somewhere in Seaside, Florida with Today I am Fuchsia, 2013 by Mallory Page, Mixed Media on Canvas)

Soon after, Page, who worked feverishly after having married in a fever, announced a new book of her artwork. "Would you write the Foreword?" she asked.

I was honored, not only as a longtime fan of Page's work, but also because she became family when she married my stepson, Jacques Rodrigue. She writes tenderly and admiringly of George within The Alchemy Never Starts or Never Stops, her award-winning monograph* published this spring:

"...he was a gentle and nurturing mentor, an artist himself, and was always generous with his pieces of precious wisdom."

Boundless: The Art of Mallory Page

An essay by Wendy Rodrigue

An effective painting requires mystery.

Recently, I overheard a group of gallery visitors searching for meaning within Mallory Page’s paintings.

“I see a window,” said one.

“I see a light in the window,” said another.

Page’s work, like all profound artistic statements, suffers this human preoccupation with imagery. In her case, the obvious also complicates matters, as it’s hard to ignore the beauty of these works, often prompting mundane observations such as,

“Nice colors.”

Furthermore, she inspires in viewers the need to analyze:

“Reminds me of Frankenthaler,” noted an art student.

“Agnes Martin,” added another.

The comparisons in particular peak my interest because Page accedes these influences. Yet if we close our eyes and erase the connections to Abstract Expressionism’s legendary figures, no matter how flattering they are to Page or any artist, we might open our eyes and look, perhaps even seePage’s paintings anew.

All abstraction is not alike. By its nature, if sincere, it reveals the artist. If effective, it simultaneously mirrors the viewer. In other words, the meaning vacillates, depending as much on the person standing before it as it does on the person holding the brush.

The great thing about Page is that all of it --- the search for imagery, the power of the obvious or literal, and the link to her predecessors --- is valid.

Regrettably, at times this reduces meaning to meaninglessness, and artistic messages to the esoteric. Yet surrounded recently at a museum by the figures, flowers, and still lifes of Matisse, Monet, and Cezanne, I overheard repeatedly, shouted by headphone-affected voices, “I love the colors!” and similar nonesuch, proving that it takes less than abstraction to blind us and more than the recognizable to transport us.

Mallory Page’s paintings, like all great Abstract Expressionist works, challenge finite descriptions. In Page’s case, they are unique expressions of a single soul revealed, exposed, turned inside out. The imagery, the “light in a window,” is no more real in Page’s paintings than the rabbit formed for a few seconds by the clouds in the sky. Yet the vulnerability within her statements is raw and brave, creating something that, even if it does complement one’s decor, emotes the depth of her person and, just maybe, poses questions of the viewer, forcing us to look inward.

Most of us are slaves to meaning. I recall years ago reading a book, found among a university library’s stacks, about Mark Rothko’s paintings for the de Menil Collection in Houston. Despite Rothko’s insistence to the contrary, the author argued that the paintings, now installed at the Rothko Chapel, are the Stations of the Cross. The author went further, breaking down the subtle brushstrokes and applied paint into the actual imagery of Christ carrying the cross.

Even then, new to the academics of art, I wondered at this forced attachment, all the while pondering myself the meaning of these black paintings.

Abstract Expressionism, however, exists as a pure assertion of the verbally inexpressible, a stripped rendering of color, shape (or lack of shape), and composition that, upon analysis, remains enigmatic and something other than those parts.

Mallory Page is a master of the mysterious and the now, drawing us into her works, utilizing a language that transcends time, gender, and place. Yes, the colors are beautiful, and Page is for many decorators a dream. Yet through her unique application, she exposes her soul in an intimate painterly act that reveals, in these atmospheric works, the universal.

If we allow Page’s paintings to exist on their own, further beyond our objectifications and comparisons, then we experience them fully, risking, blissfully, our ability to discuss them. With the loss of the verbal comes the mystical and the boundless. It is this heightened awareness that supersedes “nice colors” and sends us, helplessly, into the quiet, conscious expanse.

Wendy

*Mallory Page's monograph, The Alchemy Never Starts or Never Stops received a Runner's Up Award for Best Art Book at the 2015 New York Book Festival; learn more about this beautiful publication here-

-Visit mallorypage.com to learn of exhibitions, book signings and available paintings-

-All artwork in this post by Mallory Page, as listed below, mixed media on canvas:

The Alchemy Never Starts or Never Stops, from "Broken Snow Globe," 2013, 72x96 inches

Melting with the Moonlit Sky, 2014, 87x96 inches

Venus at Rest Somewhere Beyond Understanding, from "Married in a Fever," 2014, 60x84 inches

Truth or Consequences, from "Forces of Change and Challenge," 2014, 87x96 inches

Maudeville, 2015, a series of works on paper, 22.5x30 inches

“I never thought before that I was interesting, but after talking with you, I realize that I’m fascinating!”–Roz Cole

In September 2013 I spent several weeks in a New York City hospital room with George Rodrigue’s longtime literary agent, Rosalind Cole. Weak from his medication’s side effects, George couldn’t travel, and I remember well standing at sunrise on the curb of the tiny airport in Monterey, California, crying as he drove away.

I didn’t want to leave him.

George’s son André arrived later that day and remained throughout my absence. Roz, on the other hand, was alone. Intensely private and without any family, she trusted only us with her secret, telling no one in New York of her illness, a cancer that would take her life some six months later. George and I both loved her; and although few others understood our actions, we knew that I had to go.

(pictured: Rosalind Paige Cole, 1926-2014, with The Dog Who Lives at the Waldorf- )

As often happened with Roz, things were complicated. She rejected modern treatments and medical teams, demanding instead the impossible: “a cure” and “an old-fashioned doctor.”

The best I could do was listen and try, albeit with little success, to ease her distress in some way. Usually this included distractions, whether a phone-call from "Georgie," a lengthy game of 22, or a walk down memory lane.

(pictured: Roz and Georgie, New York City, 2010; click photo to enlarge-)

Because she insisted on privacy, Roz panicked if she caught me taking notes. Yet the narrator in me revered her nostalgia. I kept my notebook open on my knees beneath her hospital tray and scribbled without seeing the pages. It’s a betrayal for which I have no regrets.

Roz Cole represented dozens of celebrity authors over the years, including legendary actors Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, Irish poet and playwright Brendan Behan, and astrologer Sybil Leek, dubbed “Britain’s most famous witch” by the BBC.

I’ll trickle out the stories and notes one way or another over time. But today I share with you below, exactly as Roz shared with me, a snippet recalling perhaps her most famous client and their legendary art world publication.

(pictured: a ‘selfie’ by George Rodrigue, with a photograph of Andy Warhol with his camera by Annie Leibovitz, New Orleans, 2011; click photo to enlarge-)

I first met Andy at a dinner party. He was on one side of me, with Bob Colacello on the other. We started talking and I said, “You should do a book called The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.” I gave him the title right there.

He leaned across me and said, “Bob, she wants me to do a book, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. What do you think?”

He said, “Good idea.”

The next day I called Harcourt Brace and told them about the book and that Bob would write it. The editor said, “I love it, I’ll buy it, we’re ready to do it, we’re on.”

I called Andy, and he said Great! I called Bob and he said Great! And from then on Andy called me “A Magic Person.”

I wasn’t just talk, he said. I made things happen.

That was the beginning; and we did a lot of books together.

He gave a birthday party for me at Pearl’s (Chinese restaurant on 48^th). He gave me a beautiful shawl from Halston. Andy and I got along really well.

Patrick O’Higgins* was also Andy’s friend, and he had fifteen cat drawings (from Sam). And when Patrick died, he left them to me. But they weren’t signed. I told Andy and he told me to bring them to The Factory, and so I did.

Andy removed them from the frames and signed them.

“Did you hang them?” I asked.

No! They’ve been stacked on the floor in my apartment ever since. On the wall I have a Blue Dog in a King’s robe. It’s above my bed. I love it.

How the hell are we going to get out of here, Wendy?

***

Rest in Peace, Roz.

Wendy

*Patrick O'Higgins, author of the hugely entertaining Madame: An Intimate Biography of Helena Rubenstein (1971, The Viking Press) was also one of Roz's authors-

-pictured above: Mardi Gras ’96, an original silkscreen by George Rodrigue; learn more here-

-George and I produced ten books with Roz Cole between 1994 and 2012, working with publishers including Viking Penguin, Harry N. Abrams, Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Sterling, and Rizzoli; see the collection here-

Ten years ago this week George and I were in Houston, Texas with most of our staff for an exhibition of his work. None of us knew what was coming and that it would be many months before we returned home to New Orleans.

In memory of those times, I share with you below a story I wrote in 2011 for the New Orleans weekly paper, Gambit, and integrated later within the book, The Other Side of the Painting (UL Press, 2013). Honoring, today and always, a wonderful and unique city-

*Photographs by Tony Bernard and Don Sanders, September 21, 2005; click to enlarge-

For New Orleans

From the back porch of our Faubourg Marigny home, I see the west bank of the Mississippi River through the branches of our enormous tree, a live oak that Mr. Foche probably nurtured himself when he built this house in 1835.

God only knows what the tree has endured. Nicholas Foche, a free man of color from Jamaica, arrived long before the levees. That means that the Mississippi River rushed periodically through the ground floor, from the back door to the front. The water settled at times, I know it did. It delivered alligators, snakes, and lots and LOTS of rats, and it bred millions of mosquitoes, spreading fever, disease and death throughout this, a great American city.

As a series, I don’t think the HBO production Tremé(based on a neighborhood only a few blocks from ours) is fabulous, but on the other hand, the fact that I find it difficult to watch may be a testament to its insight. I recall the pilot as a misrepresentation, even a joke, on behalf of theTreméwriters to suggest restaurants and groceries and water bills and newly painted houses and dumpsters and taxis (and Elvis Costello and a limousine!) and Zapp’s potato chips and safe neighborhoods, and people who feel like singing — all just three months after the storm.

And yet right this second, six years to the day after George Rodrigue and I (the oh-so-fortunate) sat in a hotel room in Houston and watched on television as our city drowned, I sit on our 175-year-old porch and watch the tops of the ships go by. I see tourists wave to the shore of the river that made Louisiana the key state in Napoleon’s sale of 828,000 square miles of this country, and I watch our oak tree, now held together by steel wires and sprouting strong, near floating, swaying, and shaking its branches to the beat of New Orleans. Three months after or six years after — I guess it doesn’t much matter.

We were the lucky ones. Out of our house for only nine months. No flooding. But much of the old asbestos roof blew off, leaving our house wet, moldy, uninhabitable, and yet nothing to complain about. I’m ashamed, but nevertheless admit, that as we stayed with our former neighbors in Lafayette, George and I worried about our tree:

“What should we do? How can we save it?”

We couldn’t ask for help. It’s a tree!

Through the kindness of a police officer we were allowed into New Orleans three days before Hurricane Rita struck. We saw an abandoned city, a twilight zone, not a car, not a person, not a bird, not a sound, nothing. We walked through an empty and immaculate Jackson Square, perhaps the only place in New Orleans devoid of debris, the backdrop of our president's televised speech.

We found our back door wide open and our house remarkably, shockingly, without vandalism. In the 100-degree heat we climbed up and down the Creole townhouse's three flights removing paintings.

You see, we did not evacuate, but rather, by happenstance, were in Houston for an exhibition. Evacuation differs from weekend travel. Weekend travel is cocktail dresses, bathing suits and make-up. Evacuation, however, is paintings and photo albums and whatever that last little thing is that one dreams of having on a deserted island.

These are the things we grabbed. Silent and rushing, we observed our tree from a distance. Its roots raised our courtyard in places three, five, and six feet high, so that we couldn’t get close. The oak was split but standing, with George’s life-size painted fiberglass cow (from the 1999 Chicago Cow Parade) caught upside down, high in its branches. Pained for our entire city, we stared silently at our tree and ignored the complaints of our (later replaced) insurance adjustor:

“I can’t work in these hot conditions! Where can I get a cold drink? Don't you have a better way to pack those paintings? That bathroom is filthy!”

We have pictures of all of this, but I hate looking at them and share only the few in this essay.

Tremé misses a lot. But I think that’s okay. The show actually idealizes us in some important ways, too painful, too heady, and too political to detail here. However, I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who wouldn’t fall on their knees to see a Mardi Gras Indian dressed and singing with conviction even now in their street.

And yet our oak, twice each year since Katrina, holds parrots, a whole hierarchy of them, from the top of the tree to the bottom, the macaws to the finches, a migrating flock of freed animals, perhaps the meaningful equivalent of a costumed tradition.

I realize that Tremé is a TV show; it’s reality-based fiction, not a documentary. It’s okay with me that the story is skewed. And it must rouse feelings for everyone here in New Orleans who watches it. Somehow Tremémakes us look wonderful and like a third world country, both at the same time. Heck, just three months after Katrina we’re downright beguiling! But then, maybe we always were.

I remember the first time I laughed after the storm: My friend Geri described the $200,000 worth of rodent damage to her house as "squirrels gone wild."

I remember the first time I sang: It was Lundi Gras 2006 (the day before Fat Tuesday), and the Chee Weez lead thousands of us, strangers from the entire Gulf Coast, people from Biloxi, Pass Christian, Slidell, almost all living in FEMA trailers, gathered together at Spanish Plaza and singing a capellaas though we'd practiced it for months,

"Jeremiah was a bullfrog, Was a good friend of mine..."*

Treasure New Orleans. Go to Vaughn’s and hear Kermit Ruffins. Eat a po’ boy. Visit the New Orleans Museum of Art. Dance at Mulate’s. Ride an airboat through the swamp. Drink a hurricane. Take a cemetery tour. Admire the oaks. And if nothing else, walk on a levee.

Remember.

Wendy

*"Joy to the World" by Hoyt Axton

Note: Prints from George Rodrigue's painting We Will Rise Again raised $700,000 for local humanitarian relief following Hurricane Katrina. See the original painting, on view through October 4th 2015 at Rodrigue Studio, New Orleans. Full story linked here-

In his last weeks, while George slept, I watched for hours as he painted in the air….

***

Several months ago I posted a painting to George’s facebook page along with the words, “For Rodrigue, the Blue Dog, as it exists on his canvas, never referenced a real dog.” The backlash was immediate, as people defended Tiffany, whose photograph inspired the dog’s shape.

Yet what I was trying to share is what I have in my head, as explained to me by George, about how he genuinely feels when he picks up his brush. Yes, some of the books and painting titles focus on the loup-garouand Tiffany; and it is true that those elements are genuine origins of the Blue Dog Series. However, while at his easel George was not thinking about his dog or, similarly, within his landscapes, an oak tree. Rather, he was thinking about the elements, process, and tactility of painting.

(pictured, George Rodrigue at his easel, June 2013; click photo to enlarge-)

He repeated countless times, as he moved his brush with that specific and personal Rodrigue stroke,

“I love the act of applying paint to the canvas.”

No matter what he shared with others through books and speech, it was clear to me that George wanted me to understand that what he really loved, above all else, was painting. Indeed, it was okay for others to focus on a Cajun myth or on Tiffany or on any number of interpretations:

“What others see in the painting is correct also,” George would say, “because it’s correct for them.”*

And, most poignant today, he often remarked about his own work and that of others:

“Great paintings take on a life of their own, beyond the artist’s intention --- and especially after the artist is gone.”

That’s why the Blue Dog remains mysterious, and that’s also why he painted it countless times without becoming bored. George remained interested not because the works are an obsession with his long-deceased pet. Rather, his art reflects his obsession with using paint to create something interesting to his eye, as well as something so mysterious that it defies, ultimately, any sort of universal or static interpretation.

It was George’s nature to joke with others --- not only because he enjoyed seeing people laugh, and laughing with them, but also because he felt confident that his work holds its own. Outside of our relationship, he found the process of explaining his work exhausting, because most people, he felt, would not understand the intimate nature of his artistic expression.

Instead, he joked publicly for years...

“I fed Tiffany Gravy Train every day; and now she’s feeding me!”

At his easel, however, he wasn’t laughing. His focus on shape, design, and color was intense, as was his dedication to establishing a connection between the eyes of the dog-shape and the eyes of the viewer. He used these elements to convey a meaning beyond the obvious, so that the puzzle never solves itself. Whether Landscapes, Cajuns, Hurricanes, Bodies, or Blue Dogs, despite books, lectures, and blog posts, the ambiguity…or mystery… remains.

-be sure and click the photo to enlarge-

So here I sit, muddled, knowing and sharing some of what George intended, while knowing that even he believed that his intentions, in the long run, don’t really matter.

Wendy

*"The image, it is clear, must be set between the mind or senses of the artist himself and the mind or senses of others." -James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), p. 247.

-for related posts, see “Lucky Dog” and "The Lone Artist"-

-pictured throughout this post: Greenfields(2013, 42x66 inches). George intended this late painting, now on view in his Carmel, California gallery, to be a strong abstraction of his landscapes and Cajun genre works, and the closest he’d come so far to perfecting his abstracted style. In addition, he juxtaposed the canvas’s strength of simplicity and modernism with the East Indian frame’s complexity and historical/cultural narrative. Years earlier (most famously, with his Aioli Dinner of 1971), he coined the phrase and applied the technique of “painting to the frame." Story here-

-on Wednesday, September 23^rd, 2015 the University of Louisiana at Lafayette presents “Rodrigue: Painting to the Frame,” a Flora Levy Lecture delivered by William Andrews, Director of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Angelle Hall, 7:00 p.m. Free. Learn more here-

-the “Aioli Dinner Supper Club” continues this fall with unique evenings benefitting the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, inspired by Rodrigue’s painting, Aioli Dinner (1971). Learn more here-

-see the links under “Rodrigue News” to the right of this post for a listing of Fall 2015 museum and gallery exhibitions featuring the art of George Rodrigue-

“As I grow older, my mind expands. I suspend reality on my canvas with greater confidence, exploring not just the trees and grass, but also the mysterious and the mystical.”-George Rodrigue, 2012

(Saints on the Bayou, 2009 by George Rodrigue, now available as a fine art print; click the photo to enlarge this beautiful late landscape, painted on canvas with water-based oil, 15x30 inches)

From his earliest Landscapes and throughout his paintings of Cajuns, Blue Dogs, and the late figurative works, Bodies, George incorporated his fascination with Louisiana’s cemeteries into his artwork.

Along with shrimp boats and oak trees, these “Cities of the Dead” were among his first subjects once he “got serious and abandoned any thoughts of a real job” (he used to say)--- dedicating his life to painting.

(pictured, Untitled, 1971 by George Rodrigue, 24x12 inches, oil on canvas; click photo to enlarge-)

“The tombs seem to float above the ground to reveal the relationship between living and dead, states which are not that different ---at least to the Cajuns, who really do live with the dead.”--- George Rodrigue, The Cajuns of George Rodrigue (Oxmoor House, 1976).

This interest in tombs transitioned easily within the Blue Dog Series. The first Blue Dog painting, in fact, includes tomb-like stepping stones, referencing the loup-garou, a mythical Cajun ghost dog or werewolf said to lurk in cemeteries.

(pictured, the first Blue Dog painting, Watch Dog, 1984 by George Rodrigue, 40x30 inches, oil on canvas, full story here-)

In one of his last paintings, He Stopped Loving Her Today, George again visits this motif:

"I wanted to paint a tribute to George Jones," he explained. "I've loved this song for thirty years, and even though I've painted the Blue Dog before on tombs, this one is particularly special, because I reference the woman he loves. Her hat is a remembrance alongside his grave." Read more-

(pictured, He Stopped Loving Her Today, 2013 by George Rodrigue, 60x40 inches, acrylic on canvas; click photo to enlarge-)

George’s parents were the youngest of a combined twenty-four siblings. As a result, the young artist grew up attending funerals. He recalled his mother, devout in her Catholicism, white-washing the tombs of her parents on All Saints Day in his hometown of New Iberia, Louisiana, and he often helped his father in the family business, “Rodrigue’s Portable Concrete Burial Vaults.”

South Louisiana’s recurrent flash floods occasionally caused problems, and in some cases the tombs floated from their plots. Wearing rubber waders and carrying a sledgehammer, young George knocked the corners from the floating tombs, sinking them for good.

“I call this painting A Safe Place Forever" (1984, pictured above), explained George. “When I was a child, a flood swept through the great Atchafalaya basin, carrying with it everything that wasn’t nailed down or buried (and you can’t bury much in the swampy bayou).”

“When the waters receded, I was among the first to discover a large stone casket cradled in the branches of a huge oak tree. The people in the parish took this as a fearful omen, and so there the tomb stayed for many weeks, haunting us from its perch.”

(pictured above, Spirits in the Trees, 1992 by George Rodrigue, 33x23 inches, original silkscreen edition of 85; story here-)

(pictured above, A Sea Chest of Secrets (Pirate Jean Lafitte), 1984 by George Rodrigue; oil on canvas, 40x30 inches; story here-)

Throughout his career, George explored the supernatural in his artwork. He painted the Cajunsas though they are ghosts, floating, often without feet, and yet locked into the landscape and framed by the trees. Cut off at the top, the near-black oak creates interesting shapes beneath its branches. The small bright sky represents the hope of a displaced people.

(pictured, The Day We Told Tee Coon Good-bye, 1976 by George Rodrigue, 24x36 inches, oil on canvas; click photo to enlarge-)

Although they live in what should be darkness beneath the trees, Rodrigue’s figures glow from the inside, illuminated by their spirits and culture. They are timeless, mysterious and otherworldly.

In the case of Walking After Midnight (2004, pictured above), George combined a photograph he took at voodoo queen Marie Laveau’s tomb at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans, with a photograph he took of me, staged before a solid backcloth within his California studio. In this highly structured design, he added his signature oak tree, balancing the composition for both his original painting and, ultimately, the large-scale print currently on view within “Louisiana Graveyards.”

The painting, as with most of the Bodies canvases, consists of a flesh-toned, natural nude figure on a black and white background. This enabled George to manipulate the colors and saturation in his computer before printing the final artwork. The result is some fifty unique images from the Bodies Series on canvas, paper, and metal, ranging in date from 2003 to 2013 --- many of which reference cemeteries.

“I try to show that the tombs and the people are very much alike,” explained George. “They both are suspended. They both are painted the same. They both have the same texture, and they both are locked in South Louisiana.”

Wendy

*Saints on the Bayou (2009), pictured at the top of this post, is available as a fine art silkscreen, issued November 2015; estate-stamped edition of 250; contact Rodrigue Studio or email info@georgerodrigue.com for details-

-pictured above: “Grotto on Rampart Street,” photograph by George Rodrigue, 2002-

-pictured throughout this post: selections from “Louisiana Graveyards,” a unique exhibition featuring original Rodrigue paintings from 1971-2013, on view through December 19^th, 2015 at Rodrigue Studio, New Orleans; details here-

-please join me, along with George's sons André and Jacques, at Rodrigue Studio New Orleans for a reception honoring George Rodrigue and these unique works; Thursday, December 3rd, 6-8 p.m. RSVP and more information- gus@georgerodrigue.com or (504) 324-9614

-meet Jacques Rodrigue and Mallory Page Rodrigue, son and daughter-in-law of artist George Rodrigue, signing and presenting two new books -- Rodrigue: The Sanders Collection and The Alchemy Never Starts or Never Stops -- at the Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge this Saturday, October 31^st, 3:00 p.m. Details here-

-see the links under "Rodrigue News" at the upper right of this post for a listing of current museum and gallery exhibitions featuring the art of George Rodrigue-

“What are you thinking about?” I asked George, following hours of silence. “The road,” he replied.

After dozens of cross-country journeys together over twenty years, his answer was always the same. So I stopped asking, and pondered, instead, his answer.

George wasn’t speaking of the asphalt, although he did reminisce about old Route 66 and the way it hugged the terrain. He was more likely to note the O’Keeffe clouds, the long shadows, the golden light, the far horizon, the WEST.

(pictured: Santa Fe Sky, 2013 by George Rodrigue, an unrealized design for metal found on his computer; click photo to enlarge-)

During these long hours in our truck, through his dedication (as opposed to discipline) at his easel, and by the way he stared from the hill behind our house in Carmel Valley, George taught me about the moment. It came naturally to him. He was always in it.

(pictured: Rodrigue in Studio, 2011 by George Rodrigue; click photo to enlarge)

I don’t think I fully understood the moment until the last few months of George’s illness. Encouraged by his doctors and by my own optimism, I honestly believed he was going to pull through. I didn’t imagine it or dream it as a possibility; rather, I thought about him, and about us, in what I now think is the same way he thought about the road.

There was less worry concerning what might or might not happen then there was in just being with what was happening. Something as simple as holding hands or exchanging a look became the whole of the experience.

My last post was “normal and informative about George and his art,” noted my sister, “like the old days.” I knew it couldn’t last, though, as I’ve struggled to post something, anything, in recent weeks. You see, it’s the holidays, eleven years since Mignon and two years since George, and it’s complicated. This moment calls for something else ---- something just as true in fact, but even truer in sentiment.

I recently saw the movie/documentary Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict and reflect again on my role, such as it is, in life, in the art world, and in George’s world. I don’t have her name, nor her money. Although I collect art, I’ve never thought of myself as a “patron” of the arts, as a Peggy Guggenheim who discovers, nurtures, and takes credit for the likes of Pollock and Calder and Ernst. I’ve always been uncomfortable with the notion, suggested by some, that I enhanced or at least shifted George’s career.

Make no mistake… George was a prolific painter and artistic genius long before I came along. I don’t deserve credit for anything but the easiest and most natural of realities --- I loved him. That is all.

(pictured: Hot Dog Halo 1995, George's first painting of me, and Blue Hands circa 2000 by Mignon Wolfe, because sometimes I place my hands on hers, and she's there--- as they hang at this moment in my bedroom-)

I’ve often heard that when a person loses their life’s partner that their friends drift away, not knowing how best to help or relate to the situation. Because I was in a focused moment during George’s last weeks of life and in a foggy moment for much of the past two years, I never thought about this in terms of my own situation.

Upon reflection, however, the truth is that in my case, friends tried, with genuine concern and affection, to help. I was the one who pushed them away. It could even be said that I abandoned them, unable to face mine and George’s world--- the world that is represented by New Orleans, Carmel, and our many friends--- without him.

I know it’s selfish of me. People have explained that in shutting them out, I’m enhancing their pain. I’m a link to George. I have been for a long time. Over the years many people befriended me with hopes of growing closer to him. That never bothered me, because I too wanted to be close to him. I understand, perhaps better than anyone, this desire to be in his world!

It is for this reason that I’ve committed to returning to New Orleans and, to some degree, a public life. It’s the right thing to do --- for George, for our friends, and for his fans and collectors. At this time, it’s not a permanent or even long return, but it is my biggest leap so far in this direction.

I’ll be in Louisiana early December visiting schools with the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, opening the new Blue Dog Café in Lake Charles, signing books at the UL Press Holiday Book Sale and, along with my stepsons André and Jacques, hosting a New Orleans gallery reception.

If these moments transcend, placing myself and others firmly on a new road lined with George's visions and dreams, I’ll return more often, and maybe, just maybe, find a way once again to call Louisiana (and eventually, Carmel) home.

Wendy

Pictured above, Wendy's Beach, 2013 by George Rodrigue, an unrealized design for metal found on George's computer; click photo to enlarge-

-Please join me in the moment for next week's public events. In both cases, I’ll be signing The Other Side of the Painting, a book I wrote about George’s life and art, donating 100% of my proceeds to the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, including college scholarships, art supplies for schools, and arts integration through Louisiana A+ Schools:

---December 1^st (Tuesday) in Lafayette, Louisiana: UL Holiday Book Sale at the UL Alumni Center, 600 E. St. Mary Blvd. 5-7 p.m. FREE. Details linked here-

---December 3^rd (Thursday) in New Orleans: a reception honoring George Rodrigue, featuring the special exhibition “Louisiana Graveyards” at Rodrigue Studio, 730 Royal St. 6-8 p.m. FREE; please r.s.v.p. gus@georgerodrigue.com. Details linked here-

-In addition, in the spirit of the moment, I’m now posting on Instagram-

Introducing... The Other Side

The Right Thing

Rodrigue Honored Tonight

An Exhibition from the Other Side

The Lone Artist

The Truth, I Swear

Rembrandt: A Memory

Cora’s Restaurant and CODOFIL

Farewell, For Now

Choo Choo Ch’Boogie (An Adventure)

Swimming Upstream

The Petro Brothers

Rodrigue On Stage

Circle of Life: Round Paintings

Boundless: Saved by Art

Magic People

For New Orleans

An Intimate Painter

Saints on the Bayou

The Moment