A (wo)man's best friend

My favorite local artist is George Rodrigue, who was born on March 13, 1944. He is more famous than some of the local artists selling artwork on the streets of New Orleans because of the myths and stories that have been said about the reasons for his most famous paintings, which are known to be of the blue dog. On the ghost tour, we were taught about how he first started his work drawing his pictures of his own personal dog. He is called the blue dog because his original work of art was blue, with yellow eyes (yellow is an important color to the New Orleans culture because it resembles the loss of a loved one), and a red background to go along with the pattern of primary colors. There are now different variations, for example, there is a red, white, and blue one. All of his paintings of the blue dog are bright and vibrant and represent him as a person, but more so the New Orleans culture. The George Rodrigue gallery is on Royal Street, along with many other art galleries, which I thought was ironic because he seems to be so well known throughout the world, he is artist royalty in the New Orleans culture. He did many types of work but is most famous for the blue dog. I wish I could have had a conversation with him to understand where his inspiration for doing artwork of his dog came from. I picture him to just be sitting there one day sketching his dog as a joke. By reading his story to fame you can tell that he had no intentions of becoming a worldwide sensation; he was just a regular guy doing what he loved, like any other artist or performer in the great city of New Orleans. Rodeigue’s passion was art and you can tell through his work. They are so simple, but still say so much. It is inspiring to me that he can make something like a dog one of the most famous legends in the Cajun history of the city. Art is something that speaks through pictures and colors, not words. It can be misinterpreted or interpreted in many different ways; it is complicated to me. My mind is more of a black and white kind, I like things to be simple and cut and dry. I like things to be direct and accept them better if they are written down in words that make sense to me and are straightforward; this is why I think I was attracted to Rodrigue’s work because of the simplicity of it. It’s just a story of an owner loving his dog so much he painted a picture of him, that’s it; it’s simply amazing. It is good to know that the simple things in life are still wanted and accepted in this crazy world we live in. A dog is a (wo)man’s best friend and apparently can make you famous, so I’m doing life wrong.

Two different version's of George Rodrigue's Blue Dog portraits

            Art has never been something I’m interested in, but dogs are my one true love. If anyone knows me, they know that I love all dogs and I can’t even tell you how many dogs I pet in New Orleans, the stray ones, homeless ones, and all (sorry mom). I’ve had many dogs in my lifetime, but none of them have been famous, but now that I know it is possible I think I will go home and paint a picture of my golden retriever, Maverick. You guys have never seen a dog as cute as mine, honestly I could look at him all day long; he is a piece of art all by himself, he is very photogenic and loves when we have photo shoots. I’ll post a picture of him at the end of this post just so you can see what I’m talking about. Anyways, art is hard for me to talk about because it is so intricate and I’m more of a simple girl, which is exactly why I like this artist. He literally became famous because he painted and drew pictures of his dog, how cool is that? His art wasn’t really what made him famous in my mind though, there is an old tale that someone else made up about the dog and that is what made him a famous New Orleans artist. The tale is a Cajun tradition called loup-garou and goes something like this: it is a legend to achieve obedience in children; when parents and grandparents are trying to get their children to go to bed they tell the kids if they get out of bed after being tucked in the loup-garou would come and get them and drag them to chambers of hell (kind of morbid for kids, but they believed it, I will definitely be using this story on my own children if I ever have any). It is related to the blue dog because the original creation by George Rodrigue somewhat resembles a wolf-like creature that was scary to children, which is why it became the face of loup-garou after it was published. Because of the worldwide fame this legend created, Rodrigue ran with the idea and made hundreds of different styles of his original blue dog painting. Also, now there are children’s bedtime stories being published by authors. He made such an impact on New Orleans he still has his own, functioning gallery still open to the public with works of art for sale and he is an icon in the artistry culture of the city. We visited his gallery on our free day and the paintings were so vibrant with color and so interesting with many details. I was sad to hear that George had died on December 14, 2013, but his funeral mass was open to the public and held at St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square, which was cool so his followers could attend and pay their respects to a man who started out as nothing, but ended up being the complete epitome of the American dream.

The man, the myth, the legend, Maverick Bonati