Farewell, For Now

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