Day 2 - Framed

Today I started unpacking the show today. Had to frame the photographs. Because of all the blizzards the frames never got a chance to arrive in New York and went south directly. They look really good. And, of course, I was amused by the blue dog sticker on the tool cart, a famous icon from one of Rodrigue's paintings. George Rodrigue is a quintessential Louisiana Cajun artist.

The Tree is in the Leaves

One of the things that happened when I was in Louisiana, was that I took a "Cajun" French immersion class. I had a wonderful time learning forestry, crawfishing, cooking couche-couche and making bousillage--a hybrid mud mixture of mud, clay and Spanish moss used as a plaster to fill the spaces between structural framing. Seen in French architecture of Louisiana of the early 1700s. Wood bars (barreaux), set between the posts, helps to hold the mud mixture in place. The bousillage wall when dry was plastered and then painted. The bousillage also formed a very effective insulation especially against the heat.

The class ended up doing some original skits based on the adventures of Boudreaux and Thibodeaux--a classic Cajun duo akin to Laurel and Hardy. We also performed some traditional songs including "L'arbre est dans ses feuilles." I ended up sketching it for translation assistance. It is a list song, with lines like, "on the branch there is hole, nest in the hole, egg in the nest, bird in the egg, heart in the bird and so on ending with love. I loved drawing the birds I saw out on the swamps. C'est un bon souvenir, hein?