My sister, Heather Wolfe Parker, a.k.a. ‘Heather T. Great,’ (her title since grade school), steps in as a guest-blogger this week- “Hello?” “Hey George! It’s your sister.” “Who?” (pictured above, my son Wyatt, me, my dad, George) It’s the same ol’ dull routine each time I phone. Poor George has been bludgeoned by the forceContinue reading “Musings of Heather the Great (an Artist’s Sister-in-Law)”
Monthly Archives:
Looking for Summer Shade
Update 7/20/2012: Another hot summer, this one spent unexpectedly in Houston, Texas, finds us missing our annual cross country drive once again. Unlike last year’s Louisiana exhibitions, however, this year we look forward to Blue Dogs in Texas, opening August 10th at the Amarillo Museum of Art, continuing until October 14, 2012. Contact the museumContinue reading “Looking for Summer Shade”
The Artist’s Father: George Godfrey Rodrigue, Sr. (Daddy and Baby George)
George Rodrigue rarely speaks of his father. I’ve written before about his construction and tomb business, as well as peripheral facts regarding his Cajun heritage. But even when pressed, I had a hard time pulling personal information about Big George from his son. As I suspected, George struggles with these memories, and he stared inContinue reading “The Artist’s Father: George Godfrey Rodrigue, Sr. (Daddy and Baby George)”
A Number One Tiger Fan
From his earliest commission, a valuable lesson at age fifteen when the funeral home director Mr. Burgess refused to pay the agreed-upon fifty-dollar price for his portrait, George Rodrigue tossed around the pros and cons of outside projects. Everyone has an idea, most well meaning but ill advised. Human nature requests the obvious, and GeorgeContinue reading “A Number One Tiger Fan”
Blue Dogs, Ghost Ranch and Mrs. Wertheimer: George Rodrigue at the Alexandria Museum of Art
“She created her own world, and I created mine,” explains George Rodrigue to his audience at the Alexandria Museum of Art last week, as he nods from a New Mexico landscape (left of the podium; click photo to enlarge) to his own wet Blue Dog canvas. I made a mental note to remember the line,Continue reading “Blue Dogs, Ghost Ranch and Mrs. Wertheimer: George Rodrigue at the Alexandria Museum of Art”
The Immaculate Dog
“He was honestly shocked that he was getting paid for his art,” recalls Cindy Dore Brunet of Houston, Texas. George Rodrigue arrived at her house twenty years ago in his blue van, the back lined with freshly painted mahogany Blue Dogs, carved from George’s design by Douglas Shiell’s father, a master craftsman whose son assistsContinue reading “The Immaculate Dog”