Louisiana Legends; George Rodrigue

Funding for the production of Louisiana Legends is provided in part by the Friends of Louisiana Public Broadcasting and by Union National Life Insurance, a Louisiana company serving Louisiana and the South since 1926. [Music] His father and his friends would meet once a month to discuss their farms and families.

They ate and drank like kings in any country. They were the beginnings of the rich and colorful lifestyle of the Cajuns. This is my heritage, which I feel a need to express in my paintings. Those are the words of Cajun artist George Rodrigue who, in my opinion and in the opinion of critics, is well on his way to being one of the preeminent foremost artists not only in this country, but in the world. There was a time that you could have bought a George Rodrigue for $5. Now, if you visit him and inquire politely about one of his paintings, you may be talking about any place from $25 to $50 to $75,000. So he's a success. George, welcome to Louisiana Legends. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you. George and I are collaborators. We've done a book together. And I want to tell our friends, before I interview you, George is very tricky. We did a book together called A Couple of Local Boys. It was his paintings and my poetry, and, of course, George painted the cover.

And when he brought the painting to me, I looked like the ghost of Christmas past and George looked like a young swashbuckler, Jean Lafitte. So I've watched him very closely ever since. George, how does a painter begin? For you it was New Iberia, Louisiana. Yeah, it depends on how far you want to go back. Your dad was a bricklayer. Yeah, my daddy was a bricklayer and at a very early age I got polio. I think I was in the third grade and I remember my mother had brought me some clay to work with and I started modeling with clay, and from clay I went to drawing and that, that's when I really got started to draw. Anyone, was there anything in your family, was anyone creative in either art or any other medium? No. You were the first. No it was, and it was really hard to find someone, you know, to take art lessons from. There was no such thing as taking art lessons in school, in high school, anything like that. So you had to do everything yourself and

I think you, I really had to like it, you know, to continue. You think you just took to it immediately as soon as you got that clay in your hands? There was something you knew? Well, I like to do little animals and start out with animals and I remember elephants I used to do. But the problem with clay, you couldn't carry it any further, you know, it just was, it was all you could do. I didn't know how to cast or do bronze or anything else so I started drawing. The first, I remember the first paint by numbers came out. First there were little bitty tubes, little bitty capsules at a paint store. And I bought some of those and started painting and then I would throw away the numbers and just paint what I wanted on the canvas. So I taught myself how to paint. Was French spoken in your home? Oh, yeah. By both parents? Yeah. And did you speak it? No. They, they spoke French when they didn't want me to understand what they were talking about. I see. You see.

So I ended up understanding, but I never had to speak back in French. When, when you went to school in New Iberia -- grammar school and then later high school -- was it bad for a kid to talk French? At Lafayette High, the kids who spoke French were kind of looked down on. It made you slightly different. No, I really can't say. You know, I've heard things like that but really there wasn't that many speaking French that I can remember. There were a lot of kids, all the kids from St. Martinville spoke French. I remember that. When did you become conscious first time or in the beginning of this marvelous Cajun heritage? When did you suddenly say to yourself: Hey, I belong to a spectacular people who love life? When did that happen? Yes, the first time I got away, I went to school in Los Angeles and went to art school. First, you went to USL though, didn't you? I went to USL and

then I wanted to really go to an art school. I wanted to paint all day. I didn't want to take an hour class. I wanted to go somewhere where you could paint all day, so I went to art school in Los Angeles and the people there was asking about Louisiana. All the misconceptions. You know, we live all in the swamps. We live all in the, in the mud, have webbed feet and they didn't know anything. So the more I would explain, I spent four years explaining. Then it got me thinking we're really different, you know. And that's not bad. And that wasn't bad, you know. And I got a feeling completely different when I was out there about the state, about Louisiana. Well, that's so interesting. You're saying that you had to go a great distance away to begin to appreciate your origin, your roots, where you came from. Yeah. I think that's the case with anybody who leaves a

location. You really understand how different you are. You think everybody's the same but, geographically, I think everybody's very different. And Louisiana is so family oriented. That's the first thing. You know, in California nobody had a family. You know you couldn't find a first cousin. What do you love most? What qualities that the Cajun people possess really turned you on? What do you like? I know you love good food, good wine. What? Well, I tried to portray to the people as being proud of who they are and what they are. That's the character I want to express, that these were very serious people and proud, you know, no matter what they would be doing. The very simplest thing that they are proud. They may not know any other world around them, but what they, you know, they are proud to be Cajun, they're proud to have a place to live, you know, and that's the inner sincerity

of: Here I am. I'm doing all I can to make a living. And I'm very proud of that. Did the tough life that the Cajuns had in this new world, they were after all in the swamps and bayous. Did, did that affect them very much this very rugged tough existence? I suppose that it did. I try to carry that through to my interpretation of the Cajuns, you know, to show that these people are physically changed by the landscape. The landscape made the people primitive because the landscape was so primitive. So I, you know, try to express that and to show that the people in the landscape at one time comes together, became one. But at the same time these people were transplanted here. And I paint them as if they were cut out and pasted on the land. George, was Los Angeles a frightening experience for a kid from New Iberia? Was it

a culture shock? It was. At the time it wasn't frightening. Everything was new and different and, you know, I just wanted to learn everything I could. The shock was moving from Los Angeles to try to get a job in New York. Let me ask you this: When you had this exposure to these excellent teachers in Los Angeles at this art school, did it, how did it affect your feelings about your own talent? Did it make you doubt them? Did it solidify your good feelings about yourself? It made me aware that there's a lot of people out there with a lot of talent. And I was just maybe I was one. I didn't know, you know, that. It opened up the whole new world. It made me realize, you know, there's a lot of people, a lot of talent and trying to learn all I can. And what was different about me was where I was from. Now the Rodrigue style, which we'll discuss in a little while, that hadn't evolved yet had it? No. No. What were you painting then? What kind of?

Well, I was, I was doing what we did in school, you know. Abstracts? Abstracts. In school, the big thing was abstract expressionism and the problem there was when you get out, you know, you paint in abstract expressionism which were 20 years behind the time what was currently being done. So then you decided to go take your shot at the Big Apple. Well, when the program like you say, is you finish school, you go to New York to get a job as an illustrator or as a graphic designer or some form in art because, really, they said you couldn't make a living as a painter. So I went to New York and.... What kind of experience was that? Well, that was terrifying in effect. Every, all your friends were looking for the same job you were looking for. Were you a starving artist? Oh, yeah, everybody was starving and photography had just come about really heavy in the publication so you didn't have any need for all the artists. So really I had a year of doing nothing. Did you live down in the village, George?

No, I lived with five or six, l don't remember how many, five or six guys on Riverside Drive in a little apartment. Every day we'd go out. One of us would go out looking for a job. There's a directory, there's an art directory in New York, that's about that thick. Yes. Art jobs. Did any of the guys find anything there? No. One did after three years. One did. So y'all barely survived. We barely survived and then I, you know, said this is it for me. I really got interested in Louisiana again, you know, in trying to paint, capture something I really felt because it had taken like five or six years for all these thoughts and ideas to solidify and I really was sure what I wanted to do. So, now, in this New York period, the style had still not evolved. No. What were you painting then? Well, then it was pop art. Andy Warhol. Andy was big. Donald Duck. Campbell Soup.

All that kind of stuff and we were like third or fourth class painters, you know. We're doing that with a cheap price. Then you came back to Louisiana. Did you feel defeated? Did you, did you say, well, maybe I'll never make it? No. No. You did not. In other words, what sustained you? What what kept you going? Well I, you know, I hadn't started yet. That was the only thing, you know. I hadn't begun anything. So I decided to come back and paint Louisiana like I had never seen it before visually in other people's paintings that I remember. You know, in New Iberia, we had the... everybody used to hang their paintings on the fence of The Shadows. You know, I can remember growing up seeing all these artists hanging their paintings there and the paintings never appealed to me because it never, I never felt anything that they were capturing. And I want... the first thing I want to do was paint Louisiana like I remembered it

being away and that's where I began, just starting to try and capture it. And then how long did it take you before the style that we're about to examine finally evolved? You was back in Louisiana. Yeah, I started painting. I painted for three years and painted mostly landscapes and developing a style of my own was very slow. Most everything was just all black. And selling virtually nothing. Selling a little bit, but not for, you know, selling from $5 to $50 to $100. I want at this time to turn the camera onto a typical George Rodrigue and perhaps you and I can discuss it. Are we on it now? Okay. Now there are two things, well really there are three things, that strike the layman, the non-artistically trained person, just the average person. People like me. There's some things that

strike me about that paining. First, to me your people always look like ghosts. That's not two men sitting there. They're not realistic. That's the memory of two men. And then the feet never touch the ground and finally there is that giant dark foreboding oak back of them. And I want to ask you about all of that. There's those stark uses of that ghost like white that you so... why don't you talk a little bit about this style? Well. It's all symbolism. I use the tree first of all as the symbol that has kept the people isolated. The tree always is between the people and the sky. The sky represents the hope in the rest of the world. The people are caught in this tree symbolically. They are...the edges are very sharp as if they were cut out and pasted. They were transplanted from, from Canada from

France or Spain from everywhere. And they're on the landscape and they have their own life. That's what the white represents. They're inner life, their own world. They're sitting under a tree and everything else is dark, yet the people glow. And then like his pants are pitch black. On his pants, I'm showing that the landscape is slowly taking over the people. And his, his pants become black like the roots of the tree. So that's basically how I began with those, those ideas. And... It seems to me that your past, and I'm basing this on having examined, oh, about 300 of your paintings for our book that we did together, it seems to me that your past or the past of your heritage, it actually haunts you because everything has a ghost-like quality to it. It's the people are people at the same time, they're kind of specters. There is that something that would come up

at you out of the fog. Yeah, they, they are memories, you know. They're the past. I paint as if they're the past, but I paint people in the present. I paint the people in the present as the past, showing the past and the present are the same, you know, which is truly unique to a state. And I'm really trying, trying to paint the soul of the people, you know, what really they're about. And it's just developed over 15 years of... Where do you get your ideas? People always ask me that about books? Where do you get your ideas for paintings? Everywhere. You just driving down the highway, you see something, you know. Is much of it memory? A lot of it's memory, but I think I've overcome the memory, you know. I mean I know what I want to do. The memory's still there but now it's capturing new things or translating the old things into new things, you know.

Is your style still in evolution? Are you still changing or do you think that for a while what we've just seen is George Rodrigue's painting. No, they've all changed, you know, over the past 15 years. It's changing now. I noticed more color. Yeah, color is one thing, you know, it's hard to people. When I first started, they said you're paintings are too dark. They're too black. I don't like them. Use more color. Well, you just can't use more, you know, it's a slow process that I have to get accustomed to. It has to be the right color. If you just start using color, you know. You think you'll ever break away from that big black oak tree? I don't know. I don't need it there anymore. You know, it's just a symbol to me and I really don't know. Does self-confidence affect an artist? Does it change your painting as you gather more confidence in your product, in your work? It must. I think it did. The first

time I can remember that I sold something, I got money for it, then I felt good, you know. How much? I'm an artist. I want to do, I'm an artist and I'm gonna do something else, you know, keep doing more and more and more. And I look at it as a challenge. I challenge myself every day because it's between me and that canvas and that's, that's all. There's no other attitude or anything else is involved when I paint. It's just me looking at the blank canvas, and I look at it as I'm solving this problem. Is the vision of what's going to be in the canvas in your head? Do you, for example, do you start with an idea or do you see the painting in your head when you sit down at that empty canvas? The first time I see the painting in my head is after I do a sketch, you know. I'll start with an idea of ...I just completed a farmers' market painting. Well, that's where the idea became from-- an outside farmers' market. So

you have to do research on the market, on the type of people went there, and everything about it, and then start the preliminary drawings and then once it gets to the final drawing on the canvas, then I'm pretty sure I know how, you know. Execution is just the final step. But the fun part is from the beginning of the idea until execution. Painting, you know, is, is just a final thing, you know. It's the finale, but everything before it has to be right. If everything before is wrong, you'll never finish. You paint late at night, do you not? Yeah, I paint mostly all night. All night? What time do you start normally, George? I start 8:30, 9:00 o'clock and paint until 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. Do you still use that Civil War sword to...? Yeah. Would you explain to folks what I'm talking about? Well, it's just a brace to hold your hand steady, your

hand when you're painting the eyes. I saw a friend of, a friend artist of mine in France had a sword and I was using a stick. So when I saw his sword, I said that's what I need. [Laughs] George, what is the sensation when you work for days on a painting and you finish it and you stand back and you say uh-uh, that ain't it? What... is it distressing? Does it tear you apart? You don't, you try not to get to that. You stop it before, you see. Halfway through the painting, you make adjustments, you know. I think art school taught us that. You never want to do a painting because it takes so long to do, you know, you might have 50 hours, 60 hours invested and at the end you can't say it's wrong. I mean there is no way it could be wrong. If you spend that much time and if you have checkpoints along the way. Halfway is when you start changing things. Is painting a lonely existence? No, I think it's the actual time you

paint, you have to be by yourself and quiet. You know you can't have a...I can't answer, I don't like to hear a telephone ring and you know you have to be by yourself. Could you live without painting? Could you survive? Say you had to put those brushes away tomorrow. Yeah, I guess I could. I think everything I do is creative, you know. I look at painting as just one outlet. I think, you know, I could sculpt, I could design. What else do you enjoy doing, George? I know you've got two beautiful children and a lovely wife. What else do you enjoy? Any other hobbies? Is there time for it? Well, there's not much time. There's so much traveling and traveling I really like. I love to drive you know. Yes, it's amazing. I drive. You know and you just evolve as having to drive a lot. I go a different lot of places. We once went to Tennessee to a printer and I flew and George drove. He likes to drive. I think that's when you do your thinking. Well it's quiet, you know.

It's quiet. And you like your own company. But you would have to standing for hours in the front of a canvas. You have to think, you have to, you know, think of things to create all the time. Now, you have the most interesting home and gallery, I guess, that I've ever seen. You live in Lafayette. Yeah. And what street is that? It's on Jefferson Street. On Jefferson, which is the main street of Lafayette. And you moved a very old house, didn't you? Well, the house was there. It's a hundred-year-old house. The house, which was a gallery, started as a gallery, and we lived in one of the little rent houses on the side. What did you have to do to it? We had to lift it. House weighed 50 tons, and we lifted it up. We had it lifted and built the house underneath, built the whole story underneath, which took about two years. So now I end up with a three-story house. And the gallery is on the first?

Second. Second story. The first story is... It's the living quarters. Living quarters. and you paint -- third story -- on the third story. Now, when I was with you last in Lafayette, your little son, your oldest son, was very proud. He was drawing and painting. Does he have some talent? Yeah. He does. Yeah, I don't know if he's going to continue it, you know. We always say that he's the one that's going to make it because he'll get a 50-year head start which is, which is usually the case on artists, you know. Though all great artists' families, it's the second generation that makes it because the first the kid grows up. So, if I'm smart, I'll save my money and buy his paintings right now. That's right. Well, you can buy me out. For a long range investment, I can buy you out. Anything's for sale. You can buy his right now. What are you working on now? I'm right now, the present, I'm working on having a show in France at the Le Salon exhibition in France. In 1973, I won the

exhibition and every year I enter again, you know, one or two paintings. Once you win it, you become a member of the society. And that's, you know, that's what I'm trying to do. I want to share with our friends a wonderful story. Gloria Vanderbilt, the designer and heiress, got hold of some of George's paintings and became a great admirer of his. And he didn't know to what extent she was an admirer. So one night he and his wife were at work in their home in Lafayette, the telephone rang and why don't you tell what happened. Well, Veronica said Gloria Vanderbilt's on the telephone and we have a lot of, you know, a lot of crazy friends and, you know, Gloria Vanderbilt, so I get on the telephone and I say Mais chere, that's Gloria Vanderbilt from Breaux Bridge? And she says no Gloria Vanderbilt from New York. [Laughter] And that's how the conversation starts, you know. President and Mrs. Carter, a

former president, and Mrs. Carter honored you, did they not? She selected my book, the first book I did, as the official gift of the White House. And gave it to foreign dignitaries? Yeah, gave it to foreign dignitaries. George, how would you like to be remembered as a painter? When it's all said and done and you put that palette finally aside? You're like Picasso. You'll live to 100 and keep painting and making money. How would you like to be remembered? What would you like people to say? I would like to be just remembered by as someone who captured a part of Louisiana that has gone, you know, because I see it leaving already. I, I just in the 15 years I see it change and I think if I can do that, you know, that's all that's important-- to give the people something - a memory - a flavor, a memory of something that is truly unique in this state. Do you think that you have inspired other Cajun artists or musicians?

Because you were the first one that I know of to really establish your name in a, in an important way in your world. I wonder if it's been an inspiration to others? I would guess. I don't know. I know when I started, you know, no one knew an artist. No one was a full- time artist. The only artists that I knew were in New Orleans around the French Quarter, you know, struggling. And so I decided to move, you know, to live in Lafayette in the swamps, in the woods and just, and just be with myself and I felt very confident that the paintings would speak, you know. And they did. And I want to thank you, my dear friend, for joining us here on Legends. And there's a real good chance that long after you and I have passed from this scene, folks will be looking at and enjoying and, above all else, remembering the lovely,

haunted, kind of exotic world of the great Cajun people. Thank you very much, George. Thank you. Funding for the production of Louisiana Legends is provided in part by the Friends of Louisiana Public Broadcasting and by Union National Life Insurance, a

Louisiana company serving Louisiana and the South since 1926. [No sound]