I’ve pondered how to write about this past weekend without turning my blog into a society page of party pics from the Louisiana State University Museum of Art’s opening for “Blue Dogs and Cajuns on the River.” But it seems there’s no way around it. Everyone was there, snapping photographs, posing for TV cameras, and eatingContinue reading “Expectations in Baton Rouge”
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Okaloosa Island
The white sands of Okaloosa Island encompass only 875 acres, a narrow, three-mile stretch of land between Fort Walton Beach and Destin in the Florida Panhandle. Although part of the larger Santa Rosa Island, reaching forty miles to Navarre Beach, Okaloosa Island remains isolated from the larger area, a military training ground reserved by theContinue reading “Okaloosa Island”
Gator Aid (Nude Swamp Women)
George Rodrigue and I are in Las Vegas this weekend, enjoying a three-day vacation before the much-anticipated, happy chaos of the upcoming Baton Rouge exhibition, opening July 23rd with a series of events at the Louisiana State University Museum of Art. For that reason, I’m keeping my blog light-and-easy, with mostly pictures and a fewContinue reading “Gator Aid (Nude Swamp Women)”
My Favorite Painting
The Loup-garou is my favorite painting. I first saw it on a Sunday afternoon in 1991, a day that changed my life. I walked into the Rodrigue Gallery in the French Quarter to visit a friend, the gallery manager. At the time, I worked at Ann Taylor while attending graduate school at Tulane University, and I worried as my college job morphed intoContinue reading “My Favorite Painting”
Blue Dog Glass and Other Unique Rodrigue Items
Although partial to paint on canvas, George Rodrigue experiments often with other mediums, creating the unexpected within his signature subjects. Printmaking is the most obvious other than painting, particularly his Cajun festival posters and Blue Dog silkscreens. (click photo to zoom, a cameo glass vase within Rodrigue’s home; the painting Loup-garou, 1991, hangs in theContinue reading “Blue Dog Glass and Other Unique Rodrigue Items”
Musings of Heather the Great (an Artist’s Sister-in-Law)
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)”
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 theContinue reading “Blue Dogs, Ghost Ranch and Mrs. Wertheimer: George Rodrigue at the Alexandria Museum of Art”