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- Remembering George Rodrigue
- Rodrigue Jewelry
- The Begneaud Collection
- George Rodrigue: "Fun for Me"
- Shidoni: A Friendly Greeting
- Blue Dog Hog
- I am Not the Artist.
- The Alligators Return
- Rodrigue Comes Home
- The Moment
- Saints on the Bayou
- An Intimate Painter
- For New Orleans
- Magic People
- Boundless: Saved by Art
- Circle of Life: Round Paintings
- Rodrigue On Stage
- The Petro Brothers
- Swimming Upstream
- Choo Choo Ch’Boogie (An Adventure)
- Farewell, For Now
- Cora’s Restaurant and CODOFIL
- Rembrandt: A Memory
- The Truth, I Swear
- The Lone Artist
It’s three years ago today, December 14, 2013, that we lost George Rodrigue. I embrace, as I do every day, his beautiful light, shining now as bright as ever, through the legacy of art and philanthropy left to us by this beloved husband, father, and friend.
George is an example to others through his kindness and generosity, and through his unrelenting pursuit of his dreams. He left a lasting gift to the world through his tangible expressions in paint, print, sculpture, and words of his _luminous and unprecedented_ _ideas_.
"Great works of art take on a life of their own, long after the artist is gone." -George Rodrigue
-a photograph taken by Wendy, December 2012, and filtered blue by George ----titled within his files, “Blue Christmas”-_
-sharing Georges paintings and stories at the New Orleans Museum of Art, December 2016-_
George first created jewelry in the 1970s, hand-forming designs in clay from his images of Oak Trees and Jolie Blonde, which he reinterpreted as solid gold pendants. Later he made for himself one-of-a-kind Mardi Gras coins featuring elements from his paintings, also in gold, and embellished with precious stones.
In the 1980s George met Douglas Magnus, a renowned Silversmith in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The two formed a lasting friendship that included their mutual respect as artisans. Over the years they worked together on numerous projects, including a line of “Blue Dog Jewelry,” released in a small quantity in the early 2000s. In addition, Magnus created many one-of-a-kind Rodrigue pieces, designed by George as gifts for me.
_-click photos throughout to enlarge-_
In 2016 I approached Douglas Magnus to reintroduce the jewelry line using Georges original designs. Unavailable for more than a decade, these special pieces are updated by Magnus, based on his experiences in working for many years with his good friend.
“Working with George on these designs and concepts was like a hand in the glove. George knew what he wanted, and I was able to create that vision. I think both of us were always very pleased with the outcome. I feel that the updated collection achieves a higher standard of completion and quality, with attention to detail, in the spirit of George and his art.”
(pictured: _Cowboy Blue Dog_ 2013, an original photo-collage by George Rodrigue, featuring Douglas Magnus and his turquoise mines near Santa Fe, New Mexico; learn more here-)
Unlike the earlier pins and pendants, the reworked designs include an emphasis on Georges distinctive signature as an artistic element within each piece.
These works of art are hand-crafted with the highest quality using sterling silver and, in some cases, 14k gold auras, per Georges original instructions. The backside of each piece is as beautiful as the front, again with an emphasis on “Rodrigue."
In all cases, the jewelry is handcrafted, piece-by-piece, by Magnus Studios in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where George Rodrigue worked with Douglas Magnus for nearly thirty years.
I considered for quite sometime whether or not to reintroduce the jewelry. George and I visited Santa Fe many times, not only because we love the area and its people, but also because George enjoyed a unique camaraderie and artistic-exchange among his friends here.
_(pictured: Artists Douglas Magnus, Armond Lara, and George Rodrigue photographed in Santa Fe, New Mexico by Dana Waldon, 2008)_
Today, because I live between Santa Fe and New Orleans, I have the opportunity to watch Douglas at work and channel those memories. Many afternoons I visit his shop as he works on "Rodrigue," and as he honors, with meticulous care and craftsmanship, a great American artist.
Sharing the jewelry again feels right. As Ive said many times, I am not the artist, and yet this process feels like working with George and moving forward with his designs....... in a way that he would want. Furthermore, within the galleries, its particularly poignant to have something new from George.
ABOUT DOUGLAS MAGNUS:
Douglas Magnus (b. 1946) moved to Santa Fe in the late 1960s, following his childhood in Los Angeles, California and Silverton, Colorado, and a formative two years with the U.S. Army in El Paso.
A photographer and videographer, Magnus expanded his oeuvre while in New Mexico to include painting, sculpture, and jewelry, an art form he honed while apprenticing with local Indians in Gallup, New Mexico. Soon after he acquired the famed Cerrillos Turquoise Mines, the same land originally mined by Native Americans some 1000 years ago, and later by Tiffany & Company in the early 1900s.
Today Magnus lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico, conceiving original designs and finished products from turquoise, silver, gold, and other materials. He is also a prolific painter, embracing numerous subjects such as interiors and figurative works, while partial to plein air paintings created on site at his mines.
Above all, Magnus embraces quality materials and meticulous craftsmanship, remaining true to his unique, evolving vision and his commitment to beautiful, handcrafted works of art.
Wendy
_-pictured above: Douglas Magnus, Wendy Rodrigue, André Rodrigue at the Tiffany Mine in Cerrillos, New Mexico, 2015._
_-Rodrigue Jewelry is handcrafted and very limited; at this time, prices range between $475 and $4750; for availability, contact Rodrigue Studio at this link- https://georgerodrigue.com/contact/_
_-for more by Douglas Magnus visit www.douglasmagnus.com_
_-jewelry photography by Studio Seven Productions, Albuquerque, New Mexico-_
Since losing George in 2013, we (myself, his sons, and our staff), have made educating the public about his life and work a priority. In the galleries, weve focused on exhibitions that span his 45-year career, including the current installations, _Rodrigue: Blue Dog for President_ in New Orleans and _Rodrigue in Carmel: Galerie Blue Dog Celebrates 25 Years_ in Carmel, California.
These unique exhibitions borrow original works from Rodrigues archives, as well as from private collectors. Rodrigue Studios Curator of Exhibitions, Dana Holland-Beickert of Memphis, Tennessee, expertly chooses and installs the artwork based on her extensive museum background, including her work on the George Rodrigue Retrospectives at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis (2007) and the New Orleans Museum of Art (2008).
Both shows broke records at those museums for exhibitions by a contemporary or living artist, in large part due to Holland-Beickerts curatorial skills, including her impressive and thorough research on Rodrigue and her proficient analysis of his art.
_Pictured: The New Orleans Museum of Art, 2008; click photo to enlarge-_
Dana and I have worked together on numerous Rodrigue projects over the past decade, within museums and Rodrigue Studios. This includes our collaboration on wall texts, extended labels, and other related materials. Lately, this has been so extensive as to take my time from my usual blog essays. So, lest I leave you hanging any longer, please enjoy below an excerpt from our newest exhibition, opening this week in Lafayette, featuring twenty-five exceptional and rarely-seen paintings by George Rodrigue.
Throughout, Ive sprinkled painting selections from the exhibition and linked to related essays (as indicated by any highlighted words or phrases).
RODRIGUE: THE BEGNEAUD COLLECTION
George Rodrigue (1944-2013) was born and raised in New Iberia, Louisiana, and lived in Lafayette for thirty-five years. His family descended from the original Cajun settlers after four Rodrigue brothers walked from Nova Scotia to southwest Louisiana during Le Grand Dérangement of 1755.
Following his art studies at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette), Rodrigue attended the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, where he recognized from afar the unique and fading Cajun culture. Upon his return to Acadiana in 1967, he committed himself to preserving his beloved heritage, landscape, and mythology on his canvas.
Although his mother insisted on describing their family as “pure French,” Rodrigue embraced proudly, from the beginning, the description “Cajun Artist.”
_Pictured: Cajuns Love Boudin, 1980 by George Rodrigue, 40x30 inches, oil on canvas. Collection of Donald Begneaud._
Now residing in Lafayette, Rodrigue was determined to make a living as an artist. However, he never imagined that selling his art would be his responsibility. At that time there were no galleries in Lafayette, and with the exception of the Reilly Gallery in New Orleans, there was not a gallery anywhere that would display his old-world, Renaissance-style Louisiana landscapes — repetitive interpretations of dark oaks and small skies.
After months of seeking representation, Rodrigue accepted that he was on his own. He placed a small advertisement announcing “Bayou Country Paintings” in the back of _Southern Living Magazine _and _Acadiana __Profile, _using his Lafayette home phone number and address--- located on Duclos Street.
_Pictured: John Courreges Pirogue, 1973 by George Rodrigue, 36x42 inches, oil on canvas. Collection of Kenny Begneaud; Learn more about this painting here-_
Rodrigue’s paintings and efforts attracted the attention of his childhood friend Dickie Hebert, also from New Iberia. Dickie and George reconnected in 1970 when Dickie moved back to Lafayette from Texas to work as a pharmacist. By this time, Rodrigue had opened a small gallery on Pinhook Road, where he painted daily and felt fortunate to receive one or two visitors per week.
Early on, Dickie Hebert purchased a small landscape for $150.00. Excited about his acquisition, he showed the painting to his new employer, Roland Begneaud of Begneauds Pharmacy. Roland immediately recognized the talent and potential in this unknown painter, and he requested an introduction, which Dickie arranged.
_Pictured: Begneauds Pharmacy (Portrait of Arista J. Begneaud, Rolands father), 1983 by George Rodrigue, 30x40 inches, oil on canvas. Collection of David Begneaud._
It was the beginning of a friendship, a respect between artist and collector, and ultimately an extraordinary private collection of Rodrigue paintings.
Roland Begneaud was an intelligent and shrewd businessman who saw the potential in investing in George’s work. The two friends became fast business associates, working out purchase agreements, oftentimes hand-written on the backs of the pharmacy’s prescription pads, to help Rodrigue finance the improvements on his single-story Victorian-style home on Jefferson Street. Rodrigue famously (and expensively) raised the house, building an additional floor underneath as his gallery.
_Pictured: Prescription pad, Begneauds Pharmacy, 1973._
Ultimately, Roland Begneaud amassed one of the best collections of Rodrigue’s early Cajun paintings, particularly after he added people and scenes to his landscapes.
_Pictured: Boudreaux in a Barrel, 1972 by George Rodrigue, 36x24 inches, oil on canvas. Collection of Louise Begneaud Ganucheau. Learn more about this painting here-_
Based on 1920s-1930s area photographs from his mother’s album, these paintings reflect Rodrigue’s interpretation, what he called “a naïve surrealism,” of a fading era. He described his paintings as timeless …._Do they depict __1820 or 1920? _And he lamented that few local people appreciated the way he portrayed them, “as primitive, living beneath the trees.”
_Pictured: Felix and Annabelle, 1974 by George Rodrigue, 26x38 inches, oil on canvas. Collection of Louise Begneaud Ganucheau._
With the exception of Roland Begneaud and a handful of other friends, the majority of Rodrigue’s collectors, whether Cajun or Blue Dog canvases, lived outside of Louisiana. And throughout his life, Rodrigue remained grateful to Roland Begneaud for appreciating and nurturing his vision.
_Pictured: Daughters of Andre Chastant, 1971 by George Rodrigue, 28x36 inches, oil on canvas. Collection of David Begneaud. Learn more about this painting here-_
In 1976, both Rodrigue and Begneaud celebrated their success when the book _The Cajuns of George Rodrigue _(Oxmoor House), featuring eleven works from the Begneaud Collection, was chosen by The National Endowment for the Arts and Rosalynn Carter as an Official White House Gift of State during the Carter administration.
Today the more than thirty Rodrigue canvases acquired by Roland Begneaud are still treasured by his five children, Doug, Kenny, Louise, Donald and David, and their children. The Rodrigue family honors George Rodrigue and Roland Begneaud in bringing together, with gratitude to the Begneaud Family of Lafayette, Louisiana, an unprecedented exhibition of these outstanding paintings by one of America’s most important artists.
_Pictured: Cajun Bride of Oak Alley, 1974 by George Rodrigue, 24x32 inches, oil on canvas. Collection of Douglas Begneaud. Learn more about this painting here- _
Please join me at Rodrigue Studio, Lafayette, for the opening reception for this special collection of early Rodrigue Cajun paintings, as we celebrate George Rodrigue and the Begneaud Family. Thursday, October 27, 2016; 5-7 p.m. Details linked here.
Hope to see you-
Wendy
_-In addition, please join me this FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28TH, 2016 at the Alexandria Museum of Art, when Ill be reading from The Other Side of the Painting (UL Press) and sharing original Rodrigue paintings from mine and Georges private collection. 2:00 p.m. FREE. Details linked here-_
_-And this SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29TH, 2016 join me in Baton Rouge for the Louisiana Book Festival. Im on a panel with Dr. Chris Cenac for his impressive new tome, Hard Scrabble to Hallelujah: Legacies of Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, which features beautiful reproductions of a dozen Rodrigue paintings. _
_ Afterwards, Ill read from The Other Side of the Painting and share original George Rodrigue paintings from our collection. 2:00 p.m. FREE. Details linked here- _
As Rodrigue Studio celebrates its 25th year in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, I’ve reluctantly stared memories hard in the face, piecing together, without George, a history that’s all about George. As is the case throughout his life, a central aspect of the story exists within his artwork.
“It’s got to be fun for me, or I don’t do it,” said George often about painting.
It wasn’t the painting itself, however, but rather the act of painting and the solving of the puzzle that he found "fun." I can see him in my head explaining this, holding an imaginary brush and palette. “I love the feeling of applying the paint to the canvas,” he would say.
Yet it was clear that George himself, even when he joked or laughed about a painting, never saw “fun” as important to his finished artwork. He enjoyed making people happy, and it pleased him when others found joy in his art. Yet he constantly stressed, “My paintings work because they’re painted in a very serious manner.”
The Blue Dog is not Snoopy; its not a character. George winced at the word ‘whimsical’ and was more likely to embrace descriptions like mysterious, mythical, regional, naive, surreal, and abstract.
(Pictured: paintings by George Rodrigue from my collection, as I prepare to pack them for shipment to Carmel’s Rodrigue Studio Silver Anniversary Exhibition, opening August 13th, 2016-)
In recognition of Galerie Blue Dog Carmel’s outstanding first year, George presented me with _Immaculate Dog_, a painting I admired since he completed it in early 1992. I appreciated George’s daring alteration of Ingres’s _The Virgin of the Host_ (1852), where he replaces the religious ‘host’ with the Blue Dog, further linking his staring creation to the mystery of life, as even the Madonna gazes upon it. (The following year we visited the original Ingres painting at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France.)
Prior to the invention of electricity, religious art was often framed for Catholic churches using gold leaf. The surrounding candlelight illuminated the gold, which illuminated the painting. I sought to replicate this in my rented Guadalupe Street Carmel cottage, where I hung _Immaculate Dog _with reverenceabove the fireplace, flanked by a family heirloom ---- Renaissance-style candelabras.
It so happened that Galerie Blue Dog’s neighbor on 6th Avenue, artist Loran Speck (1943-2011), was not only a gifted painter, but also a craftsman who hand-carved and gilded frames in the traditional style. A gentle and meticulous man, it took Loran two months to complete the beautiful wooden and genuine gold leaf frame for _Immaculate Dog_….. and it took me one year to pay for it.
Once I began traveling with George, friends and family often used my cottage while I was away. Nearly every time, the thank-you note included a mention of an evening before the fire, discussing _Immaculate Dog_. It was my most prized possession and the showpiece of my Carmel home.
“Because you’re one _Hot Dog_!” laughed George in 1994 as he hung this canvas, his first painting of me, just inside the front door of Galerie Blue Dog, Carmel.
Unlike our wedding portrait (below) the dog looks straight out, while I look up --- so that my gaze links the three elements in a surreal composition that, like most Rodrigue paintings, defies explanation.
Even though George gave me the painting, he insisted that it remain on view in the gallery. Some people laughed, and some were confused. But I never found it funny, and I was mesmerized by George’s interpretation of me. Today it’s my favorite of his paintings. It hangs in my bedroom and is the first and last thing I see each day. No matter how much I study it, the meaning, like the meaning of life ...and loss... eludes me.
In 1995 George painted a second version of _Hot Dog Halo_, but seven feet square and without the hot dog, calling it _Chanel #5_. The canvas went on to hang in numerous installations, including The Time is Always Now Gallery in New York City, and the store windows of Bergdorf Goodman in New York and Neiman Marcus in Dallas, Houston, and Honolulu.
In 1997 George surprised me with the painting _Wendy and Me_ as our wedding portrait and the cover of our invitation. He approached the painting and his idea with a structure and purpose that reflects multiple meanings. What may seem funny on the outside reveals deep and universal themes, such as the mystery of life, the inevitability of death ….and, certainly in the case of this painting, love.
Throughout his career, George connected with the Modern Cezanne, the Surreal Dali, and the Regional Thomas Hart Benton, as opposed to the Contemporary Multitudes. Although most often linked to Pop Art by others, he was influenced by numerous movements (even though he rarely admitted it publicly), ultimately creating his own direction.
In 2011, reflecting on his failure to find gallery representation for his Cajun paintings, he said, “My style was outdated and out of touch with contemporary directors that viewed their shows as a reflection of what was going on in New York.” Read more.
It wasn’t until his last few years that George found a kinship, once again in his own way, with the Contemporary art movement. It might be said that he formulated his own Minimalism, where scale, materials, and technology compete with the subject for importance.
_-click photo to enlarge-_
George the person was as enigmatic as his paintings ---confident, serious, and complex---- while at the same time humble, laughing, and down to earth. He didn’t question his decisions, in art or in life, because they came from within the big picture of his role in art history, and the even bigger picture, a legacy and lesson to all who knew him, of following his heart.
Wendy
_-Pictured above: George Rodrigue at his easel in Carmel, California, 2012-_
_-Please join me, along with George’s sons André and Jacques, for Rodrigue Studio Carmel’s Silver Anniversary Weekend of Events, August 13th and 14th in Carmel, California. Details here-_
_-Dont miss BAYOU, a series of 40 paintings by George Rodrigue painted between 1981-1984, on view (opening 8/6/16) for the first time ever as a collection. By appointment at the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, 747 Magazine Street, New Orleans. Details here- _
I returned recently, for the first time in five years, to Shidoni, a place where George worked regularly over three decades.
Located in the lush Tesuque Valley, an oasis in the desert near Santa Fe, New Mexico, the foundry was George’s choice for some thirty years for transforming his clay sculptures into bronzes ---whether three-dimensional interpretations based on Longfellow’s poem, _A Tale of Acadie_, two-dimensional wall mountings of Blue Dogs in various patinas, or a late uncompleted project of a fuller, smoother, abstracted dog, meant for chrome, two sides, a pole, and a stand.
_As I write this, a raven calls “Shidoni” from the apple tree above me.
I approached Shidoni with an original Rodrigue piece that spans, within one work, those same thirty years. It begins with a clay relief modeled by George circa 1980 onto the backside of his mother’s china plate. Originally intended as a bronze relief, George abandoned the project until I discovered it somewhere---I don’t remember where---early in our marriage. I proclaimed it “a favorite,” running my young fingertips over his young fingerprints, clearly visible in the greenish clay.
He gave me the plate, and I placed it on a table-top easel within our living room, where it remained, a cherished and personal expression, for sixteen years.
After losing him, I consulted George’s longtime artist-friend, Douglas Magnus of Santa Fe, for help in reproducing this clay oak tree design as jewelry for a family gift.
“George sent me this!” he exclaimed.
And indeed, even while he was ill, George had sent Doug photographs of the piece, intending jewelry as a surprise for me.
_Pictured: Pendant, prototype photographed on a page of The Cajuns of George Rodrigue (1976, Oxmoor House); click photo to enlarge-_
_I’m told by locals that the ravens are the smartest of birds, perhaps the smartest of animals. I see them in the Turquoise Hills; I see them in the morning when I walk in my slippers upon my new High Heel Highway, a desert necessity for this southern girly-girl….
_…One time a raven greeted me alongside my car, George’s car, when it landed on the edge of a near-by parked pick-up as I sat, windows down, at a traffic light. The giant bird and I stared at each other, maybe three feet between us, and the cars backed up behind me without my realizing it, and without anyone honking. Like me, they were amazed by the fearless glossy bird and perhaps they too saw him as a sign in “The Land of Enchantment” and “The City Different.”
_Pictured: Clay murals with ravens by Priscilla Hoback, as they look today on the wall of our home in New Orleans; purchased by George as a gift for me in Galisteo, New Mexico in 1998; click photo to enlarge-
It’s strange ----emotional….right…and oh-so-wrong---- that I should explore and in some cases complete George’s projects without him. No one understands better than me that _I am not the artist._ And yet I find myself caught between, well, forgive the pun, letting sleeping dogs lie, versus tackling unfinished projects defined in my head by George’s animated soliloquies, as he outlined his plans on cocktail napkins over quiet dinners, or on our frequent cross-country drives, when we eventually abandoned music in favor of such sharing or, more often, the silent road.
_Pictured: with Scott Hicks at Shidoni Foundry; May 2016_
Last week I brought George’s plate to Shidoni Foundry, where it now is destined for several versions: the bronze he intended in 1980; the chrome he loved in 2013; and the giant scale he embraced in his sculptures of the 2000s. (I don’t know what George ultimately would have completed, so I’m following through with all of them.)
Since moving to New Mexico, I’ve learned that I’m _Bilagáana_. I’ve become familiar with the Navajo people, the Diné, through my friend and great-niece Katrina, who traded “the rez” for love and Hollywood. Her beautiful spirit remains with her, however, as she and her bright smile hold steadfastly natural and optimistic within an oftentimes false and cynical outside world.
_Pictured: Katrina with a horny toad at Turquoise Hill in the Cerrillos District of New Mexico-_
I never heard Katrina say the word “Shidoni,” a Navajo friendly greeting, according to the internet. Rather, she greets me, without fail, with her beautiful smile and a warm hug. I’ll need to double-check with her, I guess, that the google translation of her language is accurate, as I would not want to offend these ancient and spiritual people with my presumptions. But then again, what harm ever came from a genuine “friendly greeting.”
More to come. Shidoni.
Wendy
_-for a related post and photographs, see “George Rodrigue: The Bronzes”-_
_-pictured above: with Katrina Kavanaugh on Easter Sunday, 2016-_
_-stay tuned for more on George Rodrigue’s Shidoni Foundry projects in the coming months-_
_-please join me this weekend, June 3rd and 4th2016, at the Longview Museum of Fine Arts for a series of events honoring George Rodrigue. Free and open to the public. Learn more-_
_-don’t miss “Rodrigue: Spirit of the Game” now on view in New Orleans, featuring 20 original paintings by George Rodrigue spanning thirty years. Learn more- _
George Rodrigue’s _Blue Dog Hog_ premiered in 1994 in a New York City gallery called The Time is Always Now. This unique three-dimensional artwork dazzled at the center of the warehouse-type space, with George’s paintings, some as large as fifteen feet across, surrounding the bike.
_-click photos throughout to enlarge-_
The exhibition coincided with the release of the book _Blue Dog_ (1994, Viking Penguin), George’s first U.S. publication on the Blue Dog Series, and his first major book since _The Cajuns of George Rodrigue_(1976, Oxmoor House).
Excited about the book, the space, and the big city, George painted and created specifically for the show. Every piece was large-scale to take advantage of the colossal interior. The _Blue Dog Hog_, intended by George as the exhibition’s showstopper, sat on a riser in the center of the room.
I remember George lifting his petite publishing agent, Roz Cole, onto the riser during the star-studded and slammed opening night party, accessed by tracking blue paw prints for blocks throughout SOHO.
At age sixty-six, Roz, a lifelong New Yorker and former MGM recording star, donned the hand-painted helmet over her bouffant-style wig, threw her bare legs and black stilettos over the seat of the Harley, and posed for half the night with a glass of red wine in one hand while waving her other hand in the air, as though she rode a mechanical bull.
(I also recall her light blue VW bug parked out front, and how we all marveled that she actually _drove_ to the exhibition _and_ found a parking space).
“This is _terrific_!” shouted Roz from atop the bike. Not one of the hundreds of folks in attendance, including actor Matt Dillon and artist/photographer Peter Beard, left the party without taking her picture.
Following the NYC exhibition, the bike returned, in 1995, to Louisiana. …..but not to Butte la Rose, where George had painted it in the swamp at his camp on the Atchafalaya River, but rather to the New Orleans French Quarter, where it caused no end of frustration for our sales staff. Every passerby fancied a photo-op on the _Blue Dog Hog_, similar to the Chicago cows of the late 1990s and the Rodrigue Steinway of 2012.
To this day, few people realize the vastness of George’s interests within his art. The spectacular bike surprised the public. Too often he’s dismissed as “the guy who paints the Blue Dog,” as though he lacks variety within his work. The truth is, however, that his career cannot be divided neatly into 25 years of Cajuns and 25 years of Blue Dogs. Rather, it’s 50 years of creative development ---on his canvas, in his personal interests, and within his community. Just as he remained loyal to his childhood friends and his home state, he also remained true to his subjects. He didn’t abandon one style for another; instead he kept adding.
This is the heart of the revolving exhibitions (since February 2014) currently within George’s galleries, focusing on themes such as Graveyards, Music, Sports, Politics, and Mardi Gras. In each case, the paintings, borrowed from private collections, span decades, pulled from both the Cajun and Blue Dog Series, and yet tied together by George’s lifelong interests.
Similarly, the _Blue Dog Hog_ incorporates all three Rodrigue identifiers. The Oak Trees, prominent within his paintings and sculptures since the late 1960s, stretch like Oak Alleys promenade along the back fender. The Blue and Red Dogs, prevalent since the early 1990s, echo each other throughout the composition. The equally distinctive rolling red “Rodrigue" signatures are a strong design element within George’s Cajun posters of the 1970s and 80s, as well as within many of his Blue Dog silkscreens.
“I was never the best draftsman in art school,” George often recalled. “But I always had the best ideas.”
Transforming these ideas into tangible works of art proved challenging. In the case of the _Hog_, for example, George dissembled the bike before painting it, piecing his design together like a puzzle before rebuilding the motorcycle.
The red dog and signatures clearly relate to the bike’s rear brake light, reinforcing George’s focus on design and concept.
Just as important is the emphasis on the bike’s chrome details, an obsession for George since the 1950s, and an element increasingly important within his work, especially within late series such as _Swamp Dogs_, _Hollywood Stars_, and a brilliant collection of mixed medias on shiny metal.
….proving once again that George enjoyed the challenge of growing creatively within the repetition of his favorite ideas.
“I know there’s going to be a Blue Dog in it,” he often said, referencing a blank canvas (or in this case, a motorcycle), “but beyond that, I havent figured it out."
"And that’s where the challenge lies. That’s what keeps it fun for me.”
Wendy
_*photographs courtesy New Orleans Auction Galleries-_
_-More on Rodrigue and motorcycles here-_
_-Please join me, along with George’s sons André and Jacques, for the opening reception of “Rodrigue: Spirit of the Game,” a new exhibition at Rodrigue Studio New Orleans spanning forty years of paintings, ranging in theme from boxing to bourré. Thursday, May 19, 2016 from 6-8 p.m. Details here-_
Over the years countless people approached George Rodrigue with ideas for paintings. They didn’t understand that George was original. He was authentic.
“They all think they’re the artist,” he would say, shaking his head over the umpteenth person to “have a great idea,” insisting that he paint the Blue Dog with St. Louis Cathedral or the Eiffel Tower…. or on the 18thhole at Pebble Beach.
“I don’t even play golf!” he would say, to which they usually replied,
“….but you’d make a ton of money!”
(pictured: _Don’t Slow Me Down_, 2013 by George Rodrigue; the last silkscreen design he completed ….and never printed; click photo to enlarge-)
In the first few weeks after losing George, I received three pieces of advice* that I return to repeatedly:
STAY CLOSE TO THE FLOOR, messaged a teacher. And on days when I can’t lift my head, I move slowly from the bed to my mat, sometimes, especially in those first few months, as late as five or six in the evening, and begin my practice. And afterwards, always, I feel better.
(pictured, Death Valley, March 2015; click photo to enlarge-)
RELAX THE STRUGGLE, wrote a mentor. And on days when the enormity of my loss crashes into the enormity of my responsibility, I remember that I am human. And afterwards, always, I feel better.
(pictured, _Sunshine is Mine_, October 2012 by George Rodrigue, 16x20, acrylic on canvas; learn more-)
DON’T DO ANYTHING YOU DON’T WANT TO DO, stressed one of George’s doctors in a voicemail. And on days when others stress how I _should_ conduct my life, I give myself permission to follow my heart instead. And afterwards, always, I feel better.
(pictured, Turquoise Hill in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2016; click photo to enlarge-)
Looking back, the advice was there all along from George, with himself as the example--- a grounded and down-to-earth person, immune to criticism, and true to his own vision within his art and life.
(pictured, _Rodrigue & Camera_ - a file from Georges computer; click to enlarge-)
We all recognize that no two people are alike, and yet why is it that we presume to understand aspects of the human condition as though they are universal standards? Loss is different for everyone, no matter how familiar the circumstances may seem, and no matter what the outward perception.
Facing others means dreading the question, _How are you?_ The answer is impossible, because the pain is unique and personal (not unlike George’s paintings), and the sense of loneliness and exposure and confusion undulates, so that this thing called grief becomes more of an appendage than a process.
_“Do not fear, there is always wine
_if you are thirsty for love.
_Do not fear, there is always water
_if your lips are parched.
_Do not fear your ruin, inside you
_there is a treasure.
_Open your eyes, for this world
_is only a dream.”_
-Rumi (1207-1273)
“Stop this exploitation of your late husband!!!” demanded a Lafayette, Louisiana socialite recently, after my photo (below) appeared on facebook with a Rodrigue collector.
She later deleted the comment; yet this hometown sting, combined with its multiple exclamation points and my own relentless second-guessing of my actions, burned in my memory. What if I’ve embarrassed George in his beloved Cajun community? It was only the second time I’ve attended a Rodrigue Gallery function since October 2013 ----when George and I released _The Other Side of the Painting_ together in Carmel, California ----and yet already I roused judgment and ire.
_Relax the struggle.
(pictured: with Lucy Trebotich, who graciously loaned her painting _Santa Fe Guitar_ (1987) to the exhibition "Rodrigue: Celebrating Music"; New Orleans, February 2016; learn more-)
“Protect yourself,” George often said to me, followed closely by “When are you going to realize _who you are_?”
It’s ironic that it took losing him for those words to sink in.
Wendy
_*for R.E. ....how did we get here?
_-With a return to public life comes a full plate of events. No, I am not the artist. But hopefully, in helping others to better understand and appreciate Georges life and art, I’m moving in the right direction in preserving and enhancing his legacy. Proceeds from all events benefit the arts in education programs of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts. Please join me for the following:
_APRIL 15TH__: “A Conversation with Wendy Rodrigue” including a book signing and reading from The Other Side of the Painting(UL Press, 2013); The Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette, Louisiana 6:00 p.m. Free. Details here-
_APRIL 16TH__: The 7th annual George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts Scholarship Luncheon at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, 11:30 a.m. Tickets $50. Details here-
_MAY 19TH__: “Rodrigue: The Spirit of the Game” opens at Rodrigue Studio, New Orleans. 6-8 p.m. Details posting soon here-_
_JUNE 3RD AND 4TH__: “Weekend with Wendy” including children’s events, lectures, and book signings; The Longview Museum of Fine Arts in Longview, Texas. Free. Details here-
_Following twenty years in a private collection, this week two special paintings by George Rodrigue hang for the first time ever in New Orleans. See Lacoste Lineup (1991) and Spooked by Bourré (1993) on view for a limited time at Rodrigue Studio in the French Quarter. The story behind these paintings is one of the most fascinating in Georges painting development-_
In the summer of 1991, George rented a commercial space in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Downtown rental property was at a premium and rarely available, and he required City Council approval to convert the former dentist’s office into an art gallery.
The narrow, deep space seemed at first awkward for Galerie Blue Dog, and it relied primarily on artificial light. Its only window stretched 82 inches across, facing 6th Avenue, one block behind the main drag of Ocean Avenue. Attracting attention would be difficult --- especially that of art enthusiasts who might merely glimpse Georges gallery from the corner as they walked to the well-known street.
I remember the scene well. George stretched two canvases the exact width of the window, allowing space for a small display underneath. Facing inside, he painted a moonscape, with two dogs staring across the long gallery from above. Facing outside, he painted _Lacoste Lineup_, his first artwork created in California since his student projects at the Art Center College of Design in 1960s Los Angeles.
(pictured: _Lacoste Lineup_, 1991 by George Rodrigue, 36x82 inches, oil on canvas, on view now at Rodrigue Studio, New Orleans)
_-be sure and click the photo to enlarge-_
With its five Blue Dogs, Oak Trees, Swirling Suns, and Alligator, the painting announced a Cajun’s return to the West Coast, and the fulfillment of a dream he sought since Art School.
(pictured: George Rodrigue works on _Lacoste Lineup_ on a patio in Carmel, California while his son Jacques and friend Shawn look on, 1991; click photos to enlarge-)
Today Rodrigue Studio Carmel occupies a brightly lit location on busy Dolores Street near the corner of Ocean Avenue. Rodrigue continued to paint for the gallery and its windows, but he enjoyed more flexibility in the larger space. By 2000 we owned a home in nearby Carmel Valley and George painted most of his artwork, whether for Carmel or New Orleans, in his studio there, preferring the quiet inspiration of the Santa Lucia Mountains to the hectic pace of his otherwise public life.
***
In 1986 seventeen hatchlings became the first white alligators ever recorded, when they were found by chance in the Louisiana swamps. The Louisiana Land and Exploration Company discovered the 9-inch babies in their nest, rescuing them before predators took notice of the glowing animals.
Now full-grown and on view at several habitats across the United States, including the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, the alligators are not albinos, but rather have a rare genetic condition called leucism. Their piercing blue eyes contribute to their exotic appearance and mystique.
George, like many, was fascinated by this remarkable discovery and viewed the alligators often, eventually painting _Spooked by Bourré_ in 1993 --- his only painting ever of a white alligator. He called the alligator in his painting Bourré after one of the young white alligators named after the popular Cajun card game and now living in a south Florida zoo.
George painted this mysteriously-colored alligator and its Florida palm tree alongside his own mysteriously-colored Blue Dog and his Louisiana live oak.
See _Spooked by Bourré_ (1993, 24x20 inches) and _Lacoste Lineup_, two unique paintings within a private collection for twenty-plus years, and now on view for a limited time at Rodrigue Studio and for the first time ever in New Orleans-
Wendy
_-sadly, Spots, one of the original hatchlings who lived at the Audubon Aquarium since 1990, and a brother to Bourré, passed away at the age of 28 in September 2015-
_-for a related post and paintings see "Alligator Crossing" linked here-_
_-join me at the Bayou Teche Museum in George Rodrigues hometown of New Iberia, Louisiana, on Thursday, January 28th, 2016 for the unveiling of his "Saga of the Acadians"; for tickets and info call (337) 606-5977-_
_-please join me on Instagram at wendy.rodrigue ....I think I get it now- _
_
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_Those of you who follow this blog know that over the past six years (goodness…..six years….) and more than 300 essays, I focus on text, with quotes from George, and a careful complement of photographs and paintings.
However, after spending a whirlwind week in Louisiana, I’m ready to post quickly and then get on with things like …..Christmas shopping, walking the historic Santa Fe Plaza, wrapping gifts, decorating the tree, and, well, reflecting, being, living, in my new life in the City Different.
This also includes the arts, such as the inaugural exhibition of Edition One Gallery, featuring an original (and debut) photograph by George Rodrigue (I’ll post on this later), as well as an evening supporting the Santa Fe Artist’s Medical Fund, established many years ago by George’s good friend, artist Armond Lara.
A LOUISIANA RETURN, IN PHOTOGRAPHS-
_-click any image to enlarge-_
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***So there you have it, a 5-day journey to a former life, a place I never thought I’d go without him. I now know that I’ll return to Louisiana more often, and other places as well. To my surprise, I felt welcome, loved, and missed. And most important….
...I felt him_...
Thank you, Louisiana. Ive missed you too. And Ill be seeing you-
Wendy
_-within this post, from the top: the Bayou Teche Museum in Georges hometown of New Iberia; Ridge Elementary School in Duson, a Louisiana A+ School; the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette; the historic Heymann House and UL Alumni Center, where I signed The Other Side of the Painting as part of the UL Press Holiday Book Sale; Jolies Louisiana Bistro in Lafayette, featuring Georges Cajun paintings; J. Wallace James Elementary School in Scott, a Louisiana A+ School; the Rodrigue warehouse in Lafayette, including the new print Saints on the Bayou; the new Blue Dog Cafe in Lake Charles; Rodrigue Studio in New Orleans (along with the 1989 Rodrigue Gallery sign I stumbled on in the warehouse); a reception for "Louisiana Graveyards" with original paintings by George Rodrigue spanning 40 years; my sister Heather and I channel childhood holidays with Grandma Helen in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel; a reunion with treasured girlfriends at Commanders Palace. .....and throughout, Georges sons Jacques and André, along with Rodrigue staff and friends, and the inspiring and creative students, teachers, administrators, and educators connected to Ridge Elementary, J. Wallace James Elementary, Louisiana A+ Schools, and the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts-_
_-for more pictures, please join me on Instagram-_
_-and finally, because George would insist I share these outtakes ..._
“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, Georges first painting of me, and _Blue Hands_ circa 2000 by Mignon Wolfe, because sometimes I place my hands on hers, and shes 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 Georges 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, Wendys Beach, 2013 by George Rodrigue, an unrealized design for metal found on Georges computer; click photo to enlarge-_
_-Please join me in the moment for next weeks 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 1ST (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 3RD (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-_
_“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. "Ive loved this song for thirty years, and even though Ive 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 19th, 2015 at Rodrigue Studio, New Orleans; details here-_
_-please join me, along with Georges 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 31st, 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-_
_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-garou_and 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, h__e 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 23rd, 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-_
_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 the _Tremé__ _writers 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 presidents 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 townhouses 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? Dont 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 _Tremé_makes 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 capella_as though wed 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__
_“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 48th). 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
_-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-
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 familys 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 Pages 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 _see_Page’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 Pages monograph, The Alchemy Never Starts or Never Stops received a Runners 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_
_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.”
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 Georges 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 19th 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 Fine Art silkscreen print of George Rodrigue’s ‘Round the Mulberry Bush (pictured within this post); estate stamped edition of 90, 40x40 inches; contact Rodrigue Studio for details-_
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 6thannual 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 audiences 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/_
“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-)_
_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 dont 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 Ill 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-
_*In recent months, the Rodrigue family took on personally both Georges 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-
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’Boogie_is 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-
_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-
_-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-
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 _Rodrigues 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, Im 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...
"Youre 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: _
_
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 dEstaing 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, Domengeauxs 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-_
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 21st century artist as he operated the press and then, almost beyond belief, sat at the great 17th 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 Cajuns and artists 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-
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 friends brother, using a bb gun. Im 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 dont recall it as a _fact_-)
(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.
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 cant count them all. I would like a Neil Diamond hoodie, but I havent found one yet.
(note: before you start looking, the links are already pouring in, and I feel fairly sure Ill 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 Heathers 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-_
7-My senior year of high school, my "profession test" stated that I should attend vo-tech school and become a mechanic.
(pictured above, a young Dolores Pepper and Flower Anne (a.k.a. Kelly), 1970s, New Orleans; below, George Rodrigues 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_-)
“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 artists 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 _so_walking 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-