Flower Power

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

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

-click photos throughout to enlarge-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Following a long pause, he replied, also whispering…

“California.”

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

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

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

That’s good enough for me.

Wendy

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

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

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

Sacred Stones

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

(pictured, Blue Angel, 1996 by Mignon Wolfe)

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

-click photo to enlarge-

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

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

Wendy

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

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

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

Arts and Education: A TEDx Talk by Jacques Rodrigue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacques

Dance with Me, George!

“What do you do here?”

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

“I’m an artist,” he replied. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-click photo to enlarge-

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yep!”

That’s incredible!

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

Wendy

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

Looking for a Beach House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wendy

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

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

America, Unexpected

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As opposed to Louisiana?  I asked.

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

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

-click photos above and below to enlarge-

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

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

-click photo to enlarge-

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

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

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

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

Wendy

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

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

-all photographs by George Rodrigue, April 2013

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

The Silent West

“This cloud looks like a crawfish...” 

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

Something happens in the silence of the desert that restores.

-click photos throughout to enlarge-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wendy

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

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

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

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

            

The Road

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…and we will.

Wendy

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

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

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

The American Indian in Louisiana

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wendy

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

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

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