ABOUT GEORGE RODRIGUE'S BLUE DOG

BLUE DOG

I've recently learned that George Rodrigue had died...I've met George several times  at shows while I still lived in Louisiana and I liked him, 

While I knew him, he was trying to get his old time Louisiana theme to work for him and was having some success.  He had a gallery in the French Quarters of New Orleans as well.  

We live in California now and he came to my notice again when he had a show in L. A. and his own gallery on Rodeo Drive.  It was featuring the "Blue Dog" theme.  He also had acquired a first class publicist and she was his WIFE.  She did a great job keeping his art out there.

I'm sure that the owners of his original "Blue Dog" paintings are glad they bought one.

I'm also sure that his publicist will be eagerly sought out by a new artist.

Elbert

sketch of "Blue Dog" by Elbert Price

Elbert Price and George Rodrigue at book signing in Lake Charles, La. at the Prien Lake Mall in 1976

  

CAUGHT IN THE ACT

"Caught In The Act"

She drove into the art school parking lot in a grey Rolls Royce Corniche convertible with the top down. Her coiffure looked like the stable hand had done it, totally beyond casual. She was about five feet seven inches tall and very attractive... I'm saying "this can't be our model".  She wasn't.  Our model didn't show at start time.

I said "To hell with the model, I'm going to sculpt her".  So I sat up across the studio  and began my portrait blank in preparation. The model came and the class began. 

I sneaked shot several photos of my intended model before she spotted me and delivered a look that clearly said my attention was most unwelcome. I went back to my work and tried not to notice but it was wasted activity.  She took a look at my results and left, never to return.  I always regretted offending her and I know that I did.  I had to complete the sculpture from my photos of her.

 Elbert

THE SECOND ROCK AT ALICE KECK

"The Second Rock At Alice Keck"

In the current dry conditions of our early summer (little rain since last spring) our Ventura River has gone to the look of a desolated white stone skeleton of it's previous self.  I miss it so much that today I painted a reminder of a painting that went to a lady doctor many years ago

When the doctor visited my El Paseo Studio in Santa Barbara, many years ago, she was on her journey to a field assignment in the Sudan, as I recall, and was unable to take a large painting along.  She promised to call upon her return.  I was impressed.

About three and a half years later, she called, asking whether the painting was still available... and she said "I am on a gurney in preparation to deliver my first baby and my husband said I could have anything.  I want my "Rock" painting".

We were both pleased.  Elbert

painting by Elbert Price

THE ROCK AT ALICE KECK

HOCUS POCUS

"Hocus Pocus"

When I was six, I was still living with the three widows in Joy, in the sharecropper's shack.  We knew that Aunt Vera and Uncle Hub were coming for me in August to put me in school in Georgetown.  We decided on a last visit to Aunt Belma and her kids was in order before I left.

When any sort of storm threatened, the three women that I lived with, would go into fits of anguish and I too, became upset.  Kids were always saying "Hocus Pocus is gonna get you".  This scared hell out of me.  I became fearful anytime I saw clouds of any sort.  I suffered often from this acquired fear of "Hocus Pocus". 

At Aunt Belmas one day near noon, I was asked to go and take Uncle Harvey's lunch, in a distant field just as a spring thunder storm was gathering and Aunt Belma had no other family member to do it.  My grandmother told her that I was afraid of storms but Belma would insist.  So off I went with lunch pail in hand.

When I neared the patch where Uncle Harvey was plowing, the storm got nearer and so did the thunder and lighting.  I cringed, but Uncle Harvey was watching.  I stood up and flung my fist upward and shouted "Hocus Pocus can kiss my ass".

I've never feared thunderstorms since.  Elbert     

sketch by Elbert Price

DEAR JULIA,

Thanks for the very thoughtful and original Father's Day card.  I really enjoyed being your dad.  I never knew what you'd do next.  I still brag about your ability to climb fences.  I, like you, when little, would escape and wander about, exploring and self entertaining.

I feel so lucky to have lived to see the internet and the cloud.  Self entertaining types, like us, feel we have found the true "Golconda".

When I was struggling to get the first publicly supported Educational T V
Station, Channel 10, launched in Memphis, Tennessee, I thought that getting important informant information from TV would be a miracle.  I never dreamed of the Internet, little alone The Cloud.  But now we have it.

I know many wonders come next and I know I will have to miss them but as you marvel at it all, remember that you got here at a fabulous time to be alive and that I assisted, peripherally in that achievement.
                                                                   
Love you, Elbert (Dad)

DREAM

I dreamed that I had a tiny helicopter controlled by mashing on it's base with my fingers and by turning my wrist and hand in any direction that I wished it to go.  I, of course, was its passenger and went flitting about wherever I wished.  Elbert