This program is made possible by Raising Cane's chicken fingers.

Donna Sanders Family foundation.

Henry and Pat Shea, Haney Family Foundation.

Humana.

Eric and Jacqueline Dixon.

Ellipses.

Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission.

Louisiana.

Endowment for the Humanities and the following underwriters.

And.

I can't think of a symbol that represented a person as much as blue represented George Roderick.

Dad was an icon, not just for Louisiana, but for all of America.

Now he was big.

He was bigger than me.

Everyone who knows Rodriguez work at some point.

Comparison to the American artist Andy Warhol.

The critics didn't like it, but he was selling the paintings.

He became such an icon with these blue dogs that it started spreading and started spreading.

Louisiana started spreading in the nation and started spreading in the world.

It just kept going and going and getting bigger and bigger.

George was definitely a pioneer in terms of his expression of Cajun life, and it wasn't until he went to art school in LA that he realized how special and unique his culture was.

Kind of.

The more I stayed in Los Angeles, the more different I knew I was.

That was the first time I really realized that, oh, so Louisiana is different.

People are different.

I want to paint my early childhood feeling.

George didn't paint what Louisiana looks like.

George painted what Louisiana feels like.

And that's the essence of a great artist.

A great artist is defining the world that they live in.

And when George came along, he was very fragile.

There was this giant, oh movement that we had kind of lost so much of our culture.

And there was something about those paintings.

They had a haunting quality, the darkness and the oak trees.

The Blue Dog is rooted in a Cajun folklore story.

What he does with the Cajuns is he creates this style of working that he would refer to as bayou surrealism, where it's part imagined, but he's also working from photographs of people that he actually knows.

But constantly carry a camera.

And if I see an interesting face or an interesting person.

You know, I try to photograph in a pass on it.

Bodyboarding.

The Blue Dog is tied to that, but also allows him to expand from that.

It gave me an opportunity to comment on present day life, present circumstances.

This dog is bewildered and looking at us.

Why am I here?

What is life about?

George always painted through George's eyes, and his eyes always remembered Louisiana.

I'm an artist.

I'm Cajun, my business man.

I'm a give all of my energies to the canvas.

And.

I need to.

Be.

Making it in.

He.

Did it in.

An.

All right.

Ready to roll show opened last.

But in five, four.

Three.

Two.

One.

In 1984, the World's Fair was in New Orleans, and a group of investors decided that it was a good time to put out a book of Louisiana ghost stories to commemorate the World's Fair.

One of the stories was called watchdog, and it is a story about a devil dog.

One of the stories I wanted to paint was a loop.

Garou.

This is Crazy Wolf, which was like the boogeyman.

That's because this was a story his mama told him as a boy, or in a lot Cajun French story.

Like a fictional thing that I got four legged.

I guess that start to scare it about a little Cajun kid.

She'd say, Baby George, if you're not good today, now Luga is going to eat you tonight.

As always, dad had to work from a photograph of something, and he found this picture of his old dog and used her as the rough model for this painting.

Watchdog.

Oh, if I was a dog.

I brought home a puppy, and she was very scruffy looking.

A cocker spaniel, terrier mix, kind of smart kind of bear.

She needed an elegant name to upgrade her image.

So we called her Tiffany.

You know, I remember her as being, you know, kind of like my sibling.

Almost.

She used to sit at Georgie's easel when he painted.

She would sit in this very unique pose with her foot kind of out, and he would take his camera and get on her eye level and shoot her directly on.

And so I just painted that as a loop.

Go through the shadows of the moon inspired the dark gray blue color.

I thought I was terrific.

I was a fan, from the start.

Now, I'm not going to say that I liked it more than his other work.

It was a radical departure, but what I liked was its directness.

Its simplicity and the force.

So if you look at Georgia's early dogs, they're powerful and they're intimate.

They're strong.

Some people say he was barking up the wrong tree.

I don't think so.

Fast forward four years to 1988.

George has an exhibition at the Upstairs Gallery in Beverly Hills, California.

I had a show in L.A., and I brought all my Cajun paintings and the Lou Garou paintings, which was my five.

Well, I overheard people call it The Blue Dog, and he'd never heard those two words put together before he gets back in the exhibition to Lafayette, and he's thinking about that, and he gets up and he goes to his easel, and he paints this giant dog on a seven foot canvas, and he calls it Lou Garou.

He gives it yellow eyes, and it's in thick, goopy oil, and it's wild.

And it is the first painting in 25 years that he has painted without a landscape in it.

So when he came back from the show in LA, we had just opened our gallery here in New Orleans, his French Quarter, and he decided that for the super Bowl, which is in town this year, I'm going to fill my gallery with nothing but Blue Dog paintings and call it the Blue Dog.

For the first time, every news organization was in town looking for stories, and it just took off like a rocket ship.

It's a veritable Blue Dog empire by an artist who has created a new dimension for man's best friend.

Can you talk a little bit about your background and your influences and art, and how you got to where you are today?

Well, I'm from New Iberia, Louisiana, and I grew up there.

I went to high school there with grammar school there, and in the third grade I got polio, and he lost the use of his legs, obviously couldn't go to school and it was highly contagious.

No one could come over.

I go over to George's house to play.

One day his mother came to the door saying, George can't play today.

He came down with polio.

Well, I was devastated because not only was he a good friend in those days, you had an iron lung.

Are you were dead for that whole year.

I couldn't walk, and I stayed in bed and my mother brought some clay.

And I started modeling with clay and started making different animals.

And from modeling with clay, I got picked up drawing charges.

Mama went down to the little store on Main Street.

She had a friend who work there in New Iberia, and she was explaining this problem about George being so bored.

And the friend said, well, over there in the corner, try that.

We just got in those art supplies.

And George's mama says art supplies.

George doesn't like art.

George didn't know art, and my mother bought the paint.

My neighbor said, I started painting.

But I didn't like the paint in between the lines.

The most popular paint by numbers set then, was the Last Supper, and he, of course, did not have any interest in painting the Last Supper.

So I turned the canvas over and painted pictures on the back side of a paint by numbers.

It the first painting that George Rodrigue, who painted thousands of paintings, who hangs in museums around the world.

The first painting he ever saw by anybody in his life was his own.

I actually met him on tending Catholic high school in New Iberia when they first opened.

It was 1958.

Coach Blanco taught us civics.

He was the football coach and he was the husband of our late governor, Kathleen Blanco.

George would doodle and Coach Blanco would throw him out of the class to George.

Stand up, George and George.

And I've said, how many times have I told you that you're not going to amount to anything drawing?

We dated for five years.

He was my first love for sure.

Put the hand on the school.

Hold the line it.

I realized his artistic bent when I asked him to do posters for me.

When I ran for student council of my high school, George went to several semesters at the University of Louisiana here in Lafayette, and he got accepted into the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.

He packed up his car.

He got on route 66, never been west of Texas before, and drove to LA and landed there with no place to live and no money.

That's the smartest thing he ever did, because he had teachers who were part of the real art world and advertising world.

His classmates, his friends were like, you're from Louisiana.

They never heard the word Cajun.

For him, it was surely a culture shock and began to realize, wait a minute, the whole world isn't Cajun.

It's interesting because with all the things going on in the world in Los Angeles, especially in particularly protests for the Vietnam War going on, George was unaffected by all of this.

He was on a mission.

However, one thing that did really affect him that was going on in California at the time was a gallery called the Ferris Gallery.

This was in the late 60s.

I was up in California when Andy Warhol had his first exhibit there, so I knew something new was going on.

The professors and teachers, George said, dismissed it.

They just thought it was a joke, but the students were fascinated by it.

This idea of repetitive imagery and hard edges, very bright, strong colors, contrasts when you have a ubiquitous image that is reproduced.

So consistently, of course, comparisons are going to be made.

So George's classmates at Artcenter College of Design went to New York, and George did for a short time, but it wasn't for him.

And then the situation happened with his father.

His father was 65 when he died.

He became ill when George was in school in Los Angeles.

So he had to go home.

But he also made the decision to stay home and to be an artist.

There.

And it was really brave.

So when he came back in the late 1960s to Louisiana, he wanted to capture what he felt was his dying culture.

Before dad started painting the Cajuns in South Louisiana.

Most of it was done by European painters who were used to more of a bird's eye view with a big, big sky.

He starts to get the ideas on his drives home from California to Louisiana.

He noticed something different coming back, all out with the big open sky.

And the way George described it, the big skies of Texas become small in Louisiana because Louisiana, we're looking at the sky from beneath our magnificent oak trees.

You know, there was there was this pop art movement going on, and I came here with knowledge of all that going on and trying to paint oak trees.

So he chose the oak tree, if you will, as his Campbell's soup can.

To me, it was just a graphic design.

It was an abstract painting.

Then it got serious and that's when I started.

This is what I'm going to do for a living.

It all goes back to eventually.

There are substantial critics that think that Evangel and this are best American poem ever, but it's Evangeline Oak.

It's so culturally significant to this part of the world.

This is the legendary Evangeline Oak, immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow epic poem about Evangeline and Gabriel, who lost each other in the grand arrangement.

And George painted that throughout his life.

He first started painting it with a model in Lafayette, Louisiana, named Diane Bernard.

Joyce was not a plain air painter.

He would just take photographs and paint from the photographs.

We would come out here and take maybe 100 or 200 pictures, and I'd go to his house and he'd say, oh, look, I just painted you.

And he'd have some beautiful piece of art.

I thought George was a genius.

Just nobody captured any of the art in Louisiana.

The way George did with the oak trees and the Cajun people and the culture.

The oak tree itself and all of dad's paintings.

It represented so many things.

It was where the Cajuns found shelter, where they lived, where they escaped the humidity and the heat.

But it also represented the barriers that kept them isolated from the rest of the world.

Now.

The Cajun culture has always been kind of on the brink.

You know, they were run out of Nova Scotia, Acadia, because they were expelled by the British.

Most of them made their way to Louisiana, probably because they heard people there speak French.

It was a French colony.

They felt they would be more at home.

And when they landed here, the French aristocracy, they were thinking, who are these poor, illiterate fishermen and farmers, you know, so they said, why don't y'all go take that land over there west of us?

It was a struggle.

It was hard.

That was the rice land.

That was the land which no one had developed or the swarms of these people came here and struggle, you know, for 50 years to try to put out a life.

But, you know, in human tragedy, sometimes something unique and beautiful is created.

And the fact that they brought what they were all about to southern Louisiana.

But then because of the land, the bayous of southern Louisiana, this culture gets born.

It's French, it's Louisiana, it's a little Native American.

It has African influences in it.

And this is what makes it a culture worth protecting and recognizing.

We married in 1967, and he was painting landscapes at the time, and I loved it.

He had a show in Baton Rouge and it was about 50 paintings, all these very dark landscapes.

And he brings them to the Louisiana State Museum, and he stalls the whole show himself.

And the guy calls him and says that a reporter is going to be coming from the Baton Rouge Advocate to review the show.

George is very excited because he has never been reviewed before.

He opened up the newspaper the next day, and right there was a headline painter Makes Bayou Country dreary, monotonous place.

And as George said, it just got worse from there.

His paintings are flat and drab rather than teeming with life.

His bayou country is a shadowy, depressing place, with none of the life and color that pulses there.

One feels that the artist takes Acadiana much too seriously, and perhaps himself as well.

He was more determined than ever, and he was mad that she didn't see what he was trying to do.

I think early on he realized no press is bad press because you're being talked about.

That ultimately worked in his favor.

Everybody at his first show in Baton Rouge flocked to see what those ugly paintings were.

He sold out the entire show, had more money in his pocket than he had ever had in his whole life, and learned a very important lesson to not listen to critics.

That eventually led to painting the people into a primitive, pasted on look, because they were exiled here and people had a hard time.

Some people had a hard time understanding, not like, where is this guy coming from?

And then once you understood it and you really got to understand him, then the whole thing connected, you know, the whole thing connected to George, the whole thing connected to his artwork, the whole thing connected to Louisiana and the whole thing connected to his his family.

After the landscape show, he comes back to his easel and decides it's time to paint the people of South Louisiana.

It was, in a way, making a documentary on canvas of what was happening to the Cajun culture before it completely disappeared.

You.

And he started with an old photograph that he had of his grandfather and a bunch of their friends who called themselves a gourmet society.

The early dinner is incredibly pivotal painting for George Rodrigue.

It was painted in 1971, and the artist said at one time he finally confronted the idea of painting people in this landscape when he felt like, I wonder what it would look like if someone stepped out from behind one of my trees.

At the time that that work was made, people were not used to seeing those aspects of Cajun culture.

We had a different food.

We had different music.

There was nobody to record the last 200 years while we were here.

It's probably a great example of the qualities in George's work that I admire the most, and that is that it's very simple.

It's almost brutal.

You see, the elemental quality and also you get a feeling for the struggle of Cajun life.

There's all these wine bottles on the table and that would say, yes.

You know, frivolity.

Yeah.

Maybe so.

But for me also, it's a little bit reminiscent of the Wine Bottle and Picasso's Blue Period on the table.

And the idea of wine is nourishment rather than celebration and intoxication.

He never sold it.

And I think that's one of the most important aspects about this painting.

I think he probably knew it was unsellable or should not ever be sold, because he certainly priced it among the highest of the paintings that he ever created.

Hello and welcome everyone.

You're watching a very special presentation of Blue The Life and art of George Rodriguez.

I'm Chelsea Norris, joining you from the Cabildo in the French Quarter in New Orleans, surrounded by the amazing work of Rodrigue.

As we celebrate this Louisiana legend and learn more about his life through this remarkable film, this year we're also celebrating 50 years of LPB as Louisiana storytellers.

This milestone is thanks to loyal viewers like you who believe in LPB is Mission of Public Service and join us members, we have a very special guest to introduce you to in just a moment.

First though, now is the time to show your support for LPB.

Call 888769 5000 text give to that same number pledge online at LPB dawg.

Or scan the QR code on your screen.

Let's take a look at the commemorative gifts available during this broadcast for your generous pledge of support.

Become a member right now to support LPB as Louisiana Storyteller, your membership lets us know you value public broadcasting in Louisiana for $12 a month.

Receive the gift combo for Blue The Life and Art of George Rodrigue, which includes the official lapel pin for the blue documentary.

You are watching, and to the book the Art of George Rodrigue.

This retrospective book features 265 of his paintings for $10 a month.

Choose the book the Art of George Rodrigue, featuring Rodriguez iconic paintings spanning his 40 year artistic career.

LPB also has special credit card offers so that you may add Rodriguez to your collection for a donation of $1,500.

You will receive a signed, limited edition 1991 George Rodriguez Louisiana Legends Print.

This rare collectible features portraits of distinguished honorees including General Robert H. Barrow, Doctor Michael DeBakey, Al Hurt, Bob Pettit, and George Rodriguez himself.

For a donation of $4,000.

Receive the complete George Rodriguez Louisiana Legends Prints Collection, featuring three signed limited edition prints from 1990, 1991 and 1993, created in collaboration with LPB.

These rare prints honor distinguished Louisiana legends.

And now we welcome Jacque Rodriguez, one of George's sons featured in the film and executive director of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts.

Welcome, Jack, and thank you for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, this is a really exciting moment for you, your dad, your family and all of us who call Louisiana home.

We're so thankful that this film was out there.

It's the first career spanning film on dad's whole life and career, and I think it gives viewers a chance to understand that none of this happened by accident.

There was an intention there to document Louisiana.

And then the Blue Dog, of course, comes from Louisiana.

Yeah.

It's just like the icon, right?

Yeah.

And none of it happened by accident.

This was a dad and at his easel coming up with these ideas and working hard to to share his story and the Louisiana story with the world.

I love that.

So having your father's story documented on film must have been incredibly special.

I mean, this is your family legacy.

Yeah, we've been waiting for a long time for this.

For a feature length film to to come out together.

And Lee was so great to approach us several years ago because they had done dad's final interview before.

So how did this project come to be?

I mean, you have your your father, you have all these interviews, all of this information.

How did it all get put together?

So for several years, I've been archiving and digitizing dad's, not only his artwork, but his materials.

Old VHS tapes.

Old interviews on those tapes and all documentaries.

So that when, a filmmaker approached, we would be ready and and so, Lee, using that last interview as the basis, hired, Sean O'Malley to be the director and put together this project.

Wow.

What an incredible story.

So you mentioned working with Sean O'Malley, and he recently shared reflections with us as well about why this story had to be told.

Learn more.

I felt like the story of George Rodriguez was one that had to be told, because I grew up in New Orleans.

I walked by his gallery thousands of times.

I knew the Blue Dog, but I didn't know the story behind the Blue Dog, and I think a lot of people didn't know the story behind The Blue Dog.

There's so many layers and there's so much depth to George's work.

There's all his Cajun paintings prior to the Blue Dog ever existing.

The paintings of oak trees that he did.

And those are all intertwined with the Blue Dog, which was before it became the Blue Dog.

The blue grew.

So, I mean, there's a whole Cajun story to tell there.

And that's really interesting to me because on one side of my family, we are Cajun.

So that was another reason I really wanted to get involved with the film and was passionate about it.

But also, it's just a great story of an artist who overcame a lot of adversity to become a success in his field, and it took a long time, and he had critics who didn't appreciate his work.

He had trouble getting museums and galleries to showcase his work, and we tell those stories in the film.

And I'm just so excited that everybody throughout the state of Louisiana is going to get to see this film through LPB.

We're just so appreciative of LPB and excited about this opportunity to show the film throughout the state.

Why public broadcasting?

Well, I think public television always does a great job of presenting educational programing and telling those under told stories.

And I feel like dad's story is definitely one that has never fully been told in a long form before.

And so this was just the perfect model for us as a family to share that.

Wow.

So the Louisiana story goes wide.

It's an amazing model.

Where it can be in syndication for the next three years and on the PBS, passport app.

And so anyone in the country can watch this film as long as they support PBS.

Oh, I love that.

So we're thrilled as well that blue recently debuted nationally on PBS.

And knowing that it now has a national audience for a story that I feel like maybe we know so well, and the Louisiana vernacular to have it go wide.

What does that say about your dad's legacy and the legacy of yours?

We've gotten an unbelievable response for for, several months.

It was on PBS, his website, for free for everyone.

And so we share that link as much as we could.

And the responses and comments were just over the top of how much people learned about that and thought they knew the whole story or thought the Blue Dog was kitschy or a fluke.

But to understand there's so much history and so much intentionality behind dad's work.

It was just great to share.

Oh.

Wonderfully said.

So let's take another look at the commemorative thank you gifts right now.

Become a member right now to support LPB as Louisiana Storyteller.

Your membership lets us know you value public broadcasting in Louisiana for $12 a month.

Receive the gift combo for Blue The Life and Art of George Rodrigue, which includes the official lapel pin for the blue documentary You Are watching, and to the book the Art of George Rodrigue.

This retrospective book features 265 of his paintings for $10 a month.

Choose the book the Art of George Rodrigue, featuring Rodriguez iconic paintings spanning his 40 year artistic career.

LPB also has special credit card offers so that you may add Rodriguez to your collection for a donation of $1,500.

You will receive a signed, limited edition 1991 George Rodriguez Louisiana Legends Print.

This rare collectible features portraits of distinguished honorees including General Robert H. Barrow, Doctor Michael DeBakey, Al Hirt, Bob Pettit, and George Rodriguez himself.

For a donation of $4,000.

Receive the complete George Rodriguez Louisiana Legends Prints Collection, featuring three signed limited edition prints from 1999, 1991 and 1993, created in collaboration with LPB.

These rare prints honor distinguished Louisiana legends.

Become a member today so you can access these amazing thank you gifts and celebrate with us.

As LPB reaches a 50 year milestone of being Louisiana's storytellers.

As I mentioned, we're delighted to join you today from the Cabildo in the French Quarter.

And we just saw George Rodriguez early work, which is on exhibition here.

The early work is actually behind us yet, as in the film, this is the saga of the Acadians.

It tells the history of the Cajun people.

And that's what dad's mission was when he, after he went to art school in Los Angeles to come back and tell the story of Louisiana on canvas.

Well, so he went out to school, got exposed to all of these new ideas as an artist, and then came back to tell a story that maybe was untold at the time.

Yeah, Cajun wasn't a word.

Cajun wasn't in the national lexicon.

It was something that really Paul Prudhomme and his Cajun cooking and a show on PBS, put on the map.

And so dad was so thankful to Paul, for getting the word out there, and that's.

And he has a portrait here.

I think there is.

Yes, yes, we're best friends and did so much work together.

And there were two great cultural ambassadors for Louisiana.

You're so right.

Thank you.

Jack and thank you for all of your support.

Let's see more blue.

The life and art of George Roderick.

His.

What you got here, Catherine?

Okay with this is great for this encourages the actual bowl and pesto that he used to make his own aioli.

No way.

Yes.

Yeah.

And how smooth it is.

So I like this that the women did the cooking in the back, but the men cooked the aioli, which is just garlic flavored mayonnaise.

George told me he chose the Derby House as the setting because it was still standing when he did the painting in 1971 for his grandfather's face.

It took him three days just to paint his face.

Can you imagine?

Each one of these is a portrait jar, said he never painted the same way again.

This is how he developed his style.

And this is when he came up with the idea to to lock them into the land.

That's why they.

They're not in shadows yet.

They are sitting underneath a dark oak tree.

But the people glow in the light of the landscape came from way far away, and it represented the hope of the Cajun.

It's not reality.

It is more of the hope of a culture trying to survive in the New world.

People don't understand our culture the way that we do.

You want to preserve it?

You want it to be there for your children, your grandchildren.

When the rest of Louisiana started intruding that present a lots of opportunity.

But it came at a price.

There was an official government push to effectively destroy the Cajun culture, and George had paintings that illustrated this.

It shows that in the 1950s, the school system didn't want the students to speak French.

They had to go there just to live in the swamps.

You know, they were not allowed in New Orleans or were not allowed in the populated area.

This is what I want to show the pain, the suffering of all these people.

George's mama was not happy at all when George called himself a Cajun artist.

She thought of the Cajuns as ignorant.

If he told my grandmother she was a Cajun, she may slap you.

It was kind of a derogatory term.

George's mother's father came directly from France, so she considered herself French, not Cajun.

But for dad's generation it was something to be celebrated.

And then he really credits chef Paul Purdum with putting the word Cajun on the map.

We're doing something from Basil.

Basil is a little bitty town in central Louisiana where I was born at, and it's a basil barbecue brisket.

Man, it's the four BS.

Yeah, baby.

He had his cooking show.

He had his black and red fish, and everyone in the country was obsessed with Paul's Cajun food.

And so when they first met, they just were kindred spirits.

They were friend, and they just gave a cultural boost to our region.

George, just loved Louisianans being successful.

James Carville is an example.

James appeared in several of George's paintings over the years.

Sports and politics is equal as a pastime in Louisiana.

So George also started to paint Louisiana governor because they were Cajuns and they were individuals who were successful in.

He was quite perceptive about painting famous people, particularly politicians that got wide coverage.

In the late 1980s, dad was commissioned to paint a portrait of President Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party wanted Reagan to be on a horse.

I think they actually just sent photos of Reagan on his horse.

Reagan was on this really old horse, just with the head drooping down.

So George found a photograph of Gene Autry on his horse that looked the right way that he wanted to paint.

So he put Reagan's head on Gene Autry and.

That's the portrait.

By the mid-eighties, we knew dad had become all but the official Louisiana artist.

He was doing books.

He was illustrating festival posters.

News crews from all over the country were coming in Cajun country.

That's where you get a bottle of hot sauce at the restaurant without having to ask for it.

And the man who's going to lead our little tour of this part of Louisiana is the Cajun artist George Rodriguez.

Everything is is shades of gray and black and dark.

Back in the swamps, this guy is real small.

He was always painting.

Always painting, always painting.

That's.

That's my memory of him.

Basically, like during every night he was upstairs painting.

Let me, He's my dad.

I'm going to go play.

Okay.

Whenever I would come up here, it was kind of a slight wonderland, because it would always be a new image that he was working on.

You know, right there on the easel.

And, I was always fascinated by, like, the palette with all the paints, all the different mixtures that he was putting together, you know, for shading and whatnot.

This was where every painting of the Cajun series was painted, just one man in his chair making these paintings and doing the Cajun, setting up the projector over here, lighting it, sketching out the figures and then creating whatever you want wanted to do.

I remember when he had started doing, like, all the paintings for the, the Bayou book, the one with all the ghost stories in it.

And then when he was painting Tiffany, as you know, they'll move it real.

It was kind of frightening to me because it looked so different from, like, her actual fur color.

He he painted the eyes, like, you know, intentionally to be frightening.

And it worked on me.

When you look at the Blue Dog today, it looks very different.

And so for a Rodrigue hearing the dog called the Blue Dog instead of blue Garou kind of opened up all of these possibilities.

So I dropped all the Cajun influence.

I dropped the oak tree, I dropped everything with the painting, and it changed in my mind.

What was the Blue Dog?

What was it about?

Is being open to this idea created this whole other second act in his career?

He realized that this could be the new graphic design element that could break up every canvas I paint from now on, he treated it like one of his Cajuns, like one of his oak trees.

Bridget O'Brian worked and wrote for The Wall Street Journal, and she contacted jars and wanted to do an article on him.

It was a front page column, and it even had a drawing of the dog right there.

And it was called how many dogs can Fetch Money?

I began my first term as mayor in early 1994, and it was an exciting time for arts and culture.

In New Orleans, you had George Rodrigue, but you had the Marsalis brothers, Wynton and Branford being if you were the embodiment of the redefinition of jazz, you had Paul Prudhomme, Emerald Lagasse, Leah Chase, and many, many others who became internationally recognized for their New Orleans creation.

So George Rodrigue with the Blue Dog, created an iconic brain with something so identifiable with New Orleans, with its culture and with its uniqueness.

It's interesting how one image can get lodged in the public imagination to such an extent that even if you have no interest in art or no knowledge, you immediately know, well, that's the Mona Lisa or that's American Gothic.

And I think Georges the Blue Dog had achieved that kind of iconic status.

When I look at a painting, I got to paint a blue dog.

I don't go back and look and see what I've done.

I try to do something that's never done before, and it's exciting to me.

To be watching George painting early and then seeing the gallery in New Orleans become more and more famous, and opening up a gallery in Carmel and having one in Germany and then having one in Japan.

It was tremendous being part of that.

And so now that the blue Dog is a a series that he is painting, he starts getting attention from major brands like Absolut Vodka and Xerox Corporation and Neiman Marcus.

And he starts being commissioned to illustrate these ad campaigns, which go across the country and worldwide.

That's when it went from people walking and saying, what's with this dog?

To people walking in saying, I know that dog celebrity started to collect.

There was more and more portraits of famous people.

Arnold Schwarzenegger came into the gallery one day and also Sylvester Stallone.

That was pretty neat meeting both of those guys.

He did a painting of me one time.

What's really great, I still have it.

I turned into a big fan as well.

You know, there was just something about George that just very unique spirit about him.

It was infectious.

In 1996, the Democratic National Committee approached George Rodriguez to make the official inaugural portrait for president Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

This presidential portrait showed them walking into the 21st century.

The photograph he was using was the two of them walking off of Air Force One, as dad would get commissions like the Clinton presidential portrait.

The people commissioning it wanted a blue dog in it.

You didn't feel like it belonged.

You know, the Blue Dog is not a little thing down at our feet.

It is in your face.

It is something else.

The president insisted to me when I saw it, I was not surprised because I knew with affection.

President Clinton, by the Gore had for the state in his coat.

George was a wonderful promoter of his own art.

He valued it and the very beginning he would paint a bunch of paintings and put them in the trunk of his car and drive around south Louisiana and sell them right out of his truck.

He would hang his paintings in restaurants and bank lobbies.

Partly it was because he couldn't get museums to do a show of his or galleries, and the Blue Dog was something very iconic and different that a lot of people didn't believe in.

But he believed in himself and and he for every know he got, he wanted to work that much harder, improved people, that he could do it.

There were a lot of critical people in the art world, in the art culture that were like, well, what is this guy?

He proved them all wrong.

Those kind of people think that an artist is incredibly popular.

There must be something wrong.

You're a genius at marketing.

No.

If I'm a genius, I'm a genius at painting.

Because the paintings you can't market trash.

You know you can, but is still trash.

His willingness to succeed, his ability to market himself and to be a artist who was not struggling.

You know, it's a cliche, but it's so often true.

And George set aside all of that and and was willing to be an unabashed success.

I think he was a great example for a lot of people for that reason.

I really have never had the opportunity to make anyone like George.

He made a huge impact on this city.

He made a huge impact on the art world and made a huge impact on me.

I think a lot of people don't realize how versatile he was.

I find it fascinating to see a progression of one theme.

Joe Lieberman, for instance.

You look at the early really blonds and they're fantastic.

Joe Lieberman as his own.

You know, it was a famous Cajun song.

It was written by a prisoner in a jail in in Port Arthur, Texas, for Joe Lieberman.

Paintings got exhibited in France and won a big award.

He had an exhibit in Paris that was very well received.

And Le Figaro won a one of the stalwart publications in Paris and in Europe described him as Louisiana's Rousseau.

It was a time when Louisiana was really connected with France, and I was a Cajun artist, showing all over the world.

I was given an image to the culture in, and no one had done that at the time.

Before me.

To see now, as the theme of Joe Louis goes through his work to see the lighter pieces.

He did another show, Leigh Blond, in 2007, and it's a mixed media, and he added some vibrant colors.

He added more texture to it.

And it's it's very abstract and it's incredible to see those two paintings side by side.

Thank you again for joining us.

For Lpv is broadcast of Blue The Life and Art of George Rodrigue.

I'm Chelsea Norris, director of uncommonly fine art, volunteering for LPB today because like you, I believe in the mission of Louisiana Public Broadcasting to connect us through meaningful stories such as this, plus all the other programs, resources, and information LPB provides every day of the year.

We will be rejoined by special guest Jacque Rodrigue in just a moment.

But first, I'd like to thank Roy Martin for their corporate challenge during this program.

This means that Royal Martin will match dollar for dollar, the first $2,500 called in during this program, making your support go that much farther.

So call 888769 5000.

Text give to that same number pledge online at npr.org or scan the QR code on your screen.

Let's take another look at those commemorative gifts available during this broadcast.

When you become a member right now, become a member right now to support LPB as Louisiana Storyteller, your membership lets us know you value public broadcasting in Louisiana for $12 a month.

Receive the gift combo for Blue The Life and Art of George Rodrigue, which includes the official lapel pin for the blue documentary You Are watching, and to the book the Art of George Rodrigue.

This retrospective book features 265 of his paintings for $10 a month.

Choose the book the Art of George Rodrigue, featuring Rodriguez iconic paintings spanning his 40 year artistic career.

LPB also has special credit card offers so that you may add Rodriguez to your collection.

For a donation of $1,500, you will receive a signed limited edition 1991 George Rodriguez Louisiana Legends Print.

This rare collectible features portraits of distinguished honorees including General Robert H. Barrow, Doctor Michael DeBakey, Al Hirt, Bob Pettit, and George Rodriguez himself.

For a donation of $4,000.

Receive the complete George Rodriguez Louisiana Legends Prints Collection, featuring three signed limited edition prints from 1999, 1991 and 1993, created in collaboration with LPB.

These rare prints honor distinguished Louisiana legends.

Welcome back.

I'm joined by Jacques Rodriguez, the executive director of the George Rodriguez Foundation of the Arts.

Welcome back.

Thank you.

In the film, we just saw the introduction of the Plutot, this sensation in the art world.

Your father inspired.

Talk more about your early life and being surrounded by your father as an artist.

So growing up, you know, dad was all but Louisiana's official artist, and, people thought he was crazy for abandoning that to start painting the blue top.

And so I hope people can look at this film and realize that, you know, this wasn't an obvious thing to do.

People think, oh, you paint a blue dog, you're going to be famous and and and very successful.

But that's that was not at all how it should have worked out.

And so I think this film does a great job of capturing both areas of his career.

Well, so kind of that precursor before the explosion of success, of course.

Yeah.

And none of it was meant to be.

But because of dad's work ethic and how dedicated he was the painting, the Cajuns, for so long, he knew how not to ruin the Blue Dog series, which was getting all this new pop art and attention.

And whereas, with the Cajun works, he was looking back towards the past.

The Blue Dog gave him a chance to look forward to the future.

Oh, beautifully said, I love that.

George Roderick was a cultural ambassador for Louisiana and is even a 1991 Louisiana legend.

Talk more about kind of how that legacy of culture and understanding that culture really led to his success in Louisiana and beyond.

Yeah.

Dad always said if he wasn't from Louisiana, he may not have started to paint in the first place.

Wow.

And so it's because of this culture and this identity that he, approached the canvas and wanted to document it.

And LPB was so instrumental in his early career in painting those Louisiana legend paintings.

He just loved it.

All those portraits of those those fantastic legends.

And he actually the only mistake he'll ever admit to painting, was in the portrait that includes Ron Guidry.

Yeah.

He was a left handed pitcher, but that painted him as a right hander.

And so that'd flip the image with him?

Yes.

In that poster and said, wow, it's a really fun image.

That still is.

That's a fun fact, I like that.

Filmmaker Sean O'Malley speaks about capturing memories from those who knew George lives.

Here's some more from Sean.

Some of my favorite memories that were expressed in the film had to be Drew Brees talking about working with George Rodriguez on a painting post-Katrina.

It raised a lot of money for some great causes in New Orleans post-Katrina.

And we're talking about three icons coming together.

George Rodriguez, Drew Brees, and the Blue Dog.

All New Orleans icons that just I don't know.

It was such an inspirational story to hear drew tell it, and it just did so much good for the city.

And it was really a special, piece to have in the film.

I also loved hearing Andre Rodriguez, George's oldest son, talk about his memories of going up to his attic as a young boy and visiting his dad while he was working in the, in the third floor of their home in Lafayette.

I think it was a great snapshot of George's time working on his Cajun paintings, and I also think it shows how dedicated he was to his craft.

He was always painting, as Andre said, and I think we get a little snapshot of that in the film through this.

Archival footage and through Andre's, telling of the story.

And it's really heartfelt.

Another piece that I love is Jack Rodriguez, George's youngest son, and Wendy Rodriguez, his widow, talking about the New Orleans Museum of Art show that happened in 2008.

I mean, that was just an incredible show.

It was the first time that the New Orleans Museum of Art had ever done a retrospective or a big show of George's work, and I think it was a victory for George, because I think he was under appreciated in Louisiana for a long time.

And that was something that came about where droves and droves of people came out to see his work, because everyone in the city loved George.

I just think it took a little while for the museums and the art community to come around to his work, and it was so fulfilling to be able to tell that story.

Become a member right now to support LPB as Louisiana storyteller.

Your membership lets us know you value public broadcasting in Louisiana for $12 a month.

Receive the gift combo for Blue The Life and Art of George Rodrigue, which includes the official lapel pin for the blue documentary You Are watching, and to the book the Art of George Rodrigue.

This retrospective book features 265 of his paintings for $10 a month, choose the book the Art of George Rodrigue, featuring Rodriguez iconic paintings spanning his 40 year artistic career.

This year, we celebrate our 50 year anniversary.

That means 50 years of serving Louisiana.

Public media has never been just about programs.

It's been about people, about purpose.

And this film certainly is the best example of this and why your support matters.

You are the public we serve, so thank you for supporting LP's mission of public service.

Jack Blue premiered internationally, correct?

Yeah, we were so lucky to be invited last year to participate during the Venice Biennale for an exhibition that was up for nine months of dad's work on the Grand Canal.

And so as part of the one of the deals of working with the organization there, we had they had an extra palace where they agreed to show the film for the first time to an international audience.

And it was really fantastic to do that.

And that's really springboard us for this film to be in film festivals across the world.

Why?

Film festivals picked it up, and that showed it to their viewers.

And it one's been winning all kind of major, major awards.

And of course, premiered here in Louisiana, first domestically at the New Orleans Film Festival.

Wow, what a story.

I mean, it makes the world seem so small for the Blue Dog now, right?

I mean, it's everywhere.

Yeah.

And people that have watched the film, the reactions, you know, a lot of people in Louisiana love the Cajun work, but maybe didn't understand the Blue Dog work.

And a lot of people outside of Louisiana love the Blue Dog work, but had no clue about the Cajun work.

And so to have this film as one package to explain both halves of the career is so unique and so special.

And so we want everybody to see as much as possible.

That's wonderful.

What has been the most gratifying thing about sharing your father's story, in terms of kind of the reactions you're receiving?

I mean, we talked about it premiering at a palace at the Venice Biennale and also being right here where I can watch it through LPB.

Yeah, I think everyone's learning something new.

And we had so much great archived materials, and Sean and the team at LA really did a great job of packaging this.

And so for years to come, people are going to understand that story.

Oh, I love that.

I mean, really a living legacy.

Yeah.

It's, it's definitely going to open up a lot of doors and hopefully more scholarly and, institutional examination of paintings like these.

And because that's what we really want, we want people to place dad's career in the greater context of the art world.

And I think this film will open a lot of doors to do that.

Nice.

Well said.

Let's take another look at the commemorative thank you gifts right now.

Become a member right now to support LPB as Louisiana Storyteller, your membership lets us know you value public broadcasting in Louisiana for $12 a month.

Receive the gift combo for Blue The Life and Art of George Rodrigue, which includes the official lapel pin for the blue documentary you are watching, and to the book the Art of George Rodrigue.

This retrospective book features 265 of his paintings for $10 a month.

Choose the book the Art of George Rodrigue, featuring Rodriguez iconic paintings spanning his 40 year artistic career.

LPB also has special credit card offers so that you may add Rodriguez to your collection.

For a donation of $1,500, you will receive a signed limited edition.

1991 George Rodriguez Louisiana Legends Print.

This rare collectible features portraits of distinguished honorees including General Robert H. Barrow, Doctor Michael DeBakey, Al Hirt, Bob Pettit, and George Rodriguez himself.

For a donation of $4,000.

Receive the complete George Rodriguez Louisiana Legends Prints Collection, featuring three signed limited edition prints from 1990, 1991 and 1993.

Created in collaboration with LPB, these rare prints honor distinguished Louisiana legends.

This film is such a wonderful reintroduction of George Rodriguez and his work.

Thank you so much for being here.

Of course.

And we're we're thankful to LPB for sharing that story with the state.

And let's go back to Blue.

Oh, it's Mardi Gras day.

Yeah.

Anyway, George was blessed to have two wives who loved him and, supported him.

And were each one, in her own way, was a Rock of Gibraltar for George so much, but not track painted a lot of potential.

Let's.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Wendy was definitely one of George's jolly blonds.

His favorite one.

She was his muse.

And she was such a. And she still is such a great booster of George and his work.

He used to say, you know, we've got all these different types of art.

He said, it's too much an art.

The more personal you are, the better you become.

George put her on a pedestal all his life.

He did do some great paintings of Wendy, and they are in his books.

George and I were to get married on March 1st of 1997, and he just kept telling me that he was taking care of the invitations and their wedding invitation was George in a tuxedo with the blue dog as his face, and Wendy, you know, a beautiful blond in her wedding gown.

George was very romantic, and he made gifts for me all the time.

He was happy in his generosity.

I saw him put people's kids through college.

I saw him give people cars.

I didn't know much about art as far as business.

I owe that all to George.

Success that I've had.

Tony Bernard started off as a billboard artist, and that's when I met him, and George was excited to work with Tony on some new billboards.

But more than that, he liked Tony and he wanted to encourage him in his own art.

I dabbled a little bit on canvas, so I was trying to pick his brain about painting canvases.

I remember this to this day.

He says, when you go home, you need to paint on canvas.

And I told him, I said, well, I paint all day, you know, and I'm exhausted.

And he said, you need to do that because 20 years from now, if you don't, you'll be exactly where you are.

And before you know it, Tony becomes Georges.

I don't know, studio assistant, but it was so much more than that.

They became extremely close friends.

If I learned anything from them in 20 years, it was to be generous to to people and not only to the people that you know.

You know, people that you don't know that need.

This is the scene on Napoleon Avenue, a neighborhood of stately homes flooded to the front door.

Choppers.

Above us are crew drives until we have to walk.

The water is getting too deep and it's getting deeper.

We're told there's a hospital about six blocks away, and we're going to try to make it there.

When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, we were in Houston already having a rendering exhibition.

So we just stayed and watched on television.

The nightmare we all watched.

That was our home.

We didn't know if our houses flooded or not.

We didn't know if the city would ever come back.

New Orleans was devastated after Katrina.

80% of the city flooded.

It sucked the life out of the city for a long time.

The first thing that we did, of course, was, try to take care of our staff, some of whom lost everything.

The other thing that we did right away was to get the art out there.

And I can remember passing Jack again and again.

He and I up and down those stairs and paintings up there.

For some reason that really stands out in my mind.

This picture was taken outside of his house, and we were standing in the street, overwhelmed by the devastation of the city.

George received a copy of the photograph and did this sketch from the photograph.

It says Tony.

Thanks for all the help.

In 2005, the year of Katrina, I saw George depressed.

After Katrina.

The suffering was weighing on him.

The suffering of the city he loves the people.

He loves.

And so for a while, that didn't paint at all.

He was unsure of the future.

Katrina just it hit him pretty hard because the aftermath was arguably worse than the actual event, and there was a widespread feeling of hopelessness that needed to be overcome.

George stepped up by doing a blue dog painting and a signed limited edition silkscreen.

It raised a half million dollars for the Red cross.

Very quickly.

We were in Lafayette, Louisiana, and that is where he painted we Will Rise Again, but he didn't like it.

It wasn't working right.

He felt that the water, looked like marble instead of water.

And he really wanted this idea of the dog being submerged.

And so he went to Tony Bernard's house, and he photographed his swimming pool.

The water.

Then he had that photo of the water printed on a big canvas.

And then he started again and he painted on top of that.

And that's why it's so effective.

The dog emerging out of the water.

And while also submerged, we will rise again.

That's when I saw his giving, you know, his compassion for Louisiana.

Dad painted we Will Rise Again.

And other pieces that were specifically designed to raise funds for Katrina relief and in the campaign itself, raised several million dollars to help the city of New Orleans.

My wife nine.

When we first got to New Orleans, we felt that this was a calling.

This was a calling to not just be the quarterback for the football team, but to be part of the rebuilding and the resurgence and the resurrection of one of America's greatest cities.

I do remember very vividly it was the 2007 offseason when I get a call saying that, hey, this, you know, legendary artist George Rodrigue wants to paint you alongside Blue Dogs.

It didn't take me long to realize, what a legend George Rodriguez was.

And what a legendary story.

Blue Dog is and just how it's really become a part of this culture.

It's no secret that Drew Brees and the Saints were part of the city's comeback.

They inspired the city.

They gave us hope.

And Drew Brees was central to that narrative.

So it was a natural for Drew Brees and the Blue Dogs to be captured by George.

George was a huge football fan.

He loved the Saints.

You can't imagine to be able to meet and paint drew Brees was like, let me just say it was way more exciting than the presidents.

I mean, I remember sitting in the Saints indoor facility on a stool, you know, with my my white Saints jersey on to see the finished product, the big beautiful oak tree behind a little bit of this dim lighting.

And then of course, you know, Blue Dog right there at my feet.

It almost made me feel like I was part of the story.

And I'm and during most of George's lifetime, we struggled with the museum situation.

But the first big one to happen was actually in 2007, and that was in Memphis at the Dixon Gallery Gardens Museum.

The first time I met George and Wendy.

I was, hired by the Dixon Gallery and Gardens to organize and curate a major Rodrigue retrospective.

And it was big enough that the board of directors at the New Orleans VCM of Art paid attention, including Mr.

John Bullard, the director.

I was a little reluctant to embrace the Blue Dog, which was stupid on my part.

I was coming in from the airport in Paris in a taxi.

A little groggy, and I looked out the window.

And here was this enormous blue dog on a billboard advertising Xerox.

And then we drove a little further, and here was another one.

And then another one.

I said to the driver, I said, you don't, you know.

Oh, yes, Russian blue.

Yes.

George Rodriguez, I said, goodness of a Paris cab driver knew all about George and the Blue Dog.

Then I can't fight its popularity anymore.

I'm going to embrace.

2008 the city and the museum was still in the throes of recovering from Katrina.

We said, look, George, this would be a great time to do a big exhibit of your work because it would bring people back to the museum.

Working with John Bullard on that show was was fantastic.

It's a different space than in Memphis, so we could do a little bit more there.

The museum was able to work with George and Wendy Broadway to assemble the largest retrospective of his career work.

Well, it's unbelievable.

You know, it's really, really unbelievable.

I mean, I've been painting for 40 years, and I've had shows all over the world, and nothing is like coming home.

So of course, we started with his early landscapes and this beautiful paintings of oak trees with moss draped limbs.

And then we moved on to his paintings of Cajun life.

And then after that we moved into, of course, the discovery of the Blue Dog.

And then that whole period, really in the 90s, when Blue Dogs seemed to be everywhere, and then the best portraits.

I don't remember how many there were, but it was a lot.

So you've got people like Chef Paul Per Down.

You've got obviously all the presidential portraits.

You've got Huey Long and Earl long, you've got Drew Brees, you've got also family portraits.

You've got beautiful portraits of George's sons.

That gave people a chance to look at the work differently.

You know you have to see it all in one place.

You have to walk through 100 paintings to understand the evolution and understand that was just one guy.

It was one guy painting these dogs and trying to tell a story.

And none of that would have happened without the Cajuns before.

And dad got the feel that appreciation for his work, even as a prophet in your own town, that the town loved you.

He renewed and elevated the city's reputation as one of the great cultural places worldwide.

Only one other exhibition topped that show.

In the more than 100 year history of the new Orleans Museum of Art.

And that was King Tutankhamen.

In 2012, George painted a piano.

You can imagine how difficult and awkward this is.

He had a pain in his back, and he also for years had been talking about a pain in his his painting shoulders.

But he thought he'd been painting for 40 years.

You know, so he just wore his shoulder out.

And at night he used to come up and he would go like this, and he'd go, and you rub my arm.

They'd hold his shoulder and finally got him to go to the doctor.

Dad was getting his shoulder checked out and and the did an MRI here in New Orleans, and they told him to go see a specialist in Houston.

But after some tests were done, it it turns out that there were tumors, in his, in his shoulder, that had originated because of lung cancer.

Charge never smoked.

And usually we associate lung cancer with smoking, of course, but that's not always the case.

There's all kinds of chemicals out there.

And in this case, they thought that it was the paint.

You know, we lived on the first floor.

The gallery was a second floor.

And he painted up here on the third floor.

This was an attic space that was not well ventilated.

And he probably painted a thousand Cajun paintings up here.

And ultimately, we believe the oil paints and spray varnishes that he used up here led to his lung cancer.

When we got the news, George was very calm about it, and he decided immediately to fight it.

George felt he was okay.

He's just ready to take the chemotherapy.

And sure enough, it went into remission.

His energy was coming back.

The tumors were shrinking.

Everything was responding well, and he started to tell everyone he was cured.

The first time he beat cancer, he and Wendy called Margo and me and said, come on, we're going out to dinner.

We beat the cancer and you know, we're going to go celebrate.

And George was wearing this tie.

And I said, George, I love that tie.

Can I buy one somewhere?

He said, no, no, no, you can have this one.

I've cherished this tie and I can't wear it without thinking of George.

We disclosed it to the public that the cancer was in remission and under treatment, and everything was was looking great until it.

It wasn't great.

In the spring of 2013, George and I were driving to California, and on the way we stopped in Houston for his Pet scan.

I was in the hospital with Wendy and George, and the doctor came in.

He said, I think that we've got most of your back problems.

I feel good about it.

I've seen the X-rays, but looking at all the X-rays of your back, we've discovered that you have cancer in six different spots.

I left him in, and I saw George would have after that.

He said.

I don't want to talk about this cancer stuff anymore.

When he.

All I want to do is paint.

So we get to California and he starts painting.

And about that time, George Jones died.

And my George loved George Jones.

Certainly, if you're George Rodriguez, you're going to go out with big statements, your biggest ones.

So he does this painting.

Of the dog on a tombstone.

It's as though instead of, on occasion, walking out from behind the oak tree in front of it, it is the dog, but it's not really the dog.

It's wearing a tie.

And it is George, and it is glowing from the inside out.

Blue, not white.

There's a river.

Or is it a road?

Or does it matter?

On that journey leading back to that light.

And then at the base of the tomb is old blues hat.

My hat.

And in combining the ideas I've paid tribute to George Jones and thinking about his own journey.

George called it.

He stopped in her to play.

And my phone rang.

And before I answered, I knew what the what it was.

And it was Diane that worked for him.

When I heard a voice, I told her, I know what you're going to tell me.

She.

Who?

When George passed.

We lost a lot.

We not only lost a great artist, we lost a great ambassador to the state of Louisiana who lost a good human being, a great husband, father.

And we're really.

Until the pandemic or things slowed down for me.

And I got to really reflect on all of it.

And and during that time, I had a son that would have been the best grandfather ever.

Tim.

I really think one of his legacies is his commitment to arts education and his ability to deploy and continue that commitment through his foundation.

He was super generous with his time.

He would spend time teaching.

Kids are always paint what you like because if you like it, you know it better than anyone else.

You don't know that next door to Rodrick that's out there.

He was, a rock star when he would walk in.

He was one of the kids.

We visited schools all over the world together, and he loved it.

He used to say that to be studied by a child or study with a child is more important than hanging on the walls with the great masters.

George and the dog have traded places.

The blue.

If the dog has drained into George and he is definitively the blue dog man.

And those eyes that are so strong.

Have faded away.

The best thing about the Blue Dogs that everyone sees something different when they look at it.

The eyes were so vivid and so important, and George's Blue Dog paintings that he always said the eyes are the most important part of the dog.

The eyes are the window to the soul of the dog.

There's an innocence, you know, a sincere innocence about it that always strikes me.

My favorite thing is when I find they're looking back.

I just feel like I'm looking at home.

I feel joy when I look into the eyes at the blue Dog.

I love Tiffany, but mostly what I think about is George.

It makes me feel thankful for his contributions.

I see us, me and him.

I see my wife.

I see my journey.

And I don't often stare into the eyes.

I look at the dog itself.

Because George had these dark, dark eyes.

But I think about George because the Blue Dog is George, and George is the Blue Dog.

I miss my friend.

You go back 40 years and you say this started here at an oak tree, and there's a there's a line that goes through all those paintings to get to where I am today.

For an artist to be known for two distinct, separate bodies of work is really pretty unprecedented.

And it lives in people's homes and in people's hearts.

This is one when George was knocking it out and having fun.

What seemed incredible about being an artist, right, is that that stuff lives on forever.

Yeah, he doesn't go away.

I mean, that that that's like asking, you know.

Is Beethoven dead?

You'll never meet another human being like George.

He's still painting somewhere.

This dog is saying, why am I here?

And where am I going?

And what does it all mean?

I've had it where I've felt inside of me.

The honesty of it is reflected in the painting.

They communicate the richness of this culture, which is a part of me.

This is such a moving story about a true cultural ambassador for Louisiana, George Rodrigue.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Chelsea Norris, supporter of LPB.

Welcoming you back to the Cabildo in the French Quarter, where we are surrounded by the iconic work of George Rodrigue.

It's thanks to public television that George Rodriguez story is being shared with all of you, the nation, and even the world.

And it all begins with support from our viewers who become our members.

Your support makes the difference.

We invite you to show us you value LPB.

Call 888769 5000.

Tex.

Give to that same number.

Pledge online at LPB dawg or scan the QR code on your screen.

We want to count you among our members as we celebrate 50 years this year, LPB has selected commemorative gifts to thank you for your support.

Let's take a look.

Become a member right now to support LPB as Louisiana Storyteller.

Your membership lets us know you value public broadcasting in Louisiana for $12 a month.

Receive the gift combo for Blue The Life and Art of George Rodrigue, which includes the official lapel pin for the blue documentary You are watching, and to the book the Art of George Rodrigue.

This retrospective book features 265 of his paintings for $10 a month.

Choose the book the Art of George Rodriguez, featuring Rodriguez iconic paintings spanning his 40 year artistic career.

LPB also has special credit card offers so that you may add Rodriguez to your collection for a donation of $1,500.

You will receive a signed, limited edition 1991 George Rodriguez Louisiana Legends Print.

This rare collectible features portraits of distinguished honorees including General Robert H. Barrow, Doctor Michael DeBakey, Al Hurt, Bob Pettit, and George Rodriguez himself.

For a donation of $4,000.

Receive the complete George Rodriguez Louisiana Legends Prints Collection, featuring three signed limited edition prints from 1999, 1991 and 1993, created in collaboration with LPB.

These rare prints honor distinguished Louisiana legends.

And now we welcome back one last time, Jack Rodriguez, executive director of the George Rodriguez Foundation of the Arts.

What an amazing and moving film this is and what a legacy George Frideric has as a great man, father, artist and louisianan.

Thank you for sharing the story of your father with us.

Of course.

Yeah, we're so excited that this film is out there and people can understand that, you know, dad wasn't a factory.

He was one man at his easel creating these works.

And without the Cajun works, there would be new flow doc series.

And without being from Louisiana, he never would have started painting, paint and Cajuns in the first place.

And so this film does a great job of summing up.

Wow.

And you were there.

I mean, that's the thing you were.

We're all learning about it.

But this was your life.

Yeah.

I mean, growing up in the house that's featured in the film and and to share that for the first time with an audience was really, really special.

Yeah.

Because that's I mean, that's your childhood that you're sharing with the world, right?

Yeah.

It's it's something that that taught us how to do.

I mean, it was the family business.

Yeah, life was art and art was life, and there was no real difference.

And so all of our family vacations were built around exhibitions.

And and that was what we did.

And dad made it all fun.

What a way to grow up.

What do you hope viewers take away from watching this film?

Yeah, I hope they understand that none of this was by accident.

It was dad's work ethic and drive that really forced all of this to come through.

You know nothing about the Cajuns should have been an art sensation.

Equally, nothing about the Blue Dog should have been an art sensation as well.

It was just because he believed in himself and he had that self-confidence to make anything work.

And so, through these thousands of paintings that exists and through films like this, we get the share.

Share, dad, forever.

I love getting that insight.

Let's hear more from the filmmaker, Sean O'Malley, about the lasting legacy of George Rodriguez.

I think the lasting legacy of George Rodriguez begins with his Cajun paintings.

He was one of the first people in America to really give us a visual representation of what it meant to be Cajun, the struggles of Cajun life, the joys and the celebrations of being Cajun.

And I think Clancy DuBose said it best when he said George was making a documentary on canvas of what it was like to be Cajun, of what Cajun life was all about, and then that came all the way full circle into the modern era with The Blue Dog, which was really an extension of the Cajun culture.

It became a pop art icon, but it started out as a Cajun symbol.

So I think that's his lasting legacy that he told us what Cajun life was like.

He gave us a sense of what it was like to be Cajun, and an appreciation for the Cajun culture that maybe didn't exist before George came along.

Become a member right now to support LPB as Louisiana Storyteller, your membership lets us know you value public broadcasting in Louisiana for $12 a month, receive the gift combo for Blue The Life and Art of George Rodrigue, which includes the official lapel pin for the blue documentary You are watching, and to the book the Art of George Rodrigue.

This retrospective book features 265 of his paintings for $10 a month.

Choose the book the Art of George Rodrigue, featuring Rodriguez iconic paintings spanning his 40 year artistic career.

Welcome back.

We're here at the Cabildo in the French Quarter.

We have the music behind us, and I am back with Jack Rodriguez talking about more of his favorite memories from the film.

Yeah, one of my favorite parts was actually getting the chance to film in my mom's house, where we lived on the first floor.

Yeah, the art gallery was a second floor, and dad painted in the third floor, and it's the first time we ever had a camera crew up there.

And my brother and I, looking through that stuff, it's kind of a time capsule.

Since when he left in the early 90s.

And it's the first time we share that.

And seeing where thousands of those Cajun paintings were made.

And to walk through that space was just, I'm so glad we were able to capture that.

It's going to live forever, ever.

In this film, thanks to public television.

Think about the generations of Louisianans who have supported LPB is Mission of Public Service.

We invite you to be a part of the LPB family by becoming a member.

Speaking of family, tell me a little bit about your mom and your dad.

What was so mom who's featured in the film?

We're so glad to have her tell her story, but she was president of friends for LPB when I was growing up in the 90s, so she had to do segments just like this, and I used there.

I remembered watching those on TV all the time.

So we've always been a supporter of public television and its mission.

And it's it's so vital for all of Louisiana to get this educational programing out there.

Wow, what an exciting moment for all of us.

And to celebrate your family.

And thanks so much for letting the world in.

I mean, what did that feel like for you and your brother?

It was amazing.

And public television was the perfect venue for it because dad's history painting the Louisiana legends, he loved going to the galas and and hearing this music of Louisiana reminds me of dad's, one of dad's favorite story about Jimmie Davis.

When he won the award for Louisiana Legends, he sang You Are My Sunshine when he was really, really late.

And, in his age.

And dad just cherish that memory.

And it's because of LPB and it's because of public broadcasting that that those things happened.

Yeah, that's a special relationship to let LPB into your home, into your your mother's space and your father's space.

And we're so grateful that that allowed us to tell this story.

Yeah, we certainly trusted public television to to get the word out.

And it was the perfect vehicle and venue for us.

A love that.

Let's take a last look at the commemorative thank you gifts right now.

Become a member right now to support LPB as Louisiana Storyteller, your membership lets us know you value public broadcasting in Louisiana for $12 a month.

Receive the gift combo for Blue The Life and Art of George Rodrigue, which includes the official lapel pin for the blue documentary You Are watching, and to the book the Art of George Rodrigue.

This retrospective book features 265 of his paintings for $10 a month.

Choose the book the Art of George Rodriguez, featuring Rodriguez iconic paintings spanning his 40 year artistic career.

LPB also has special credit card offers so that you may add Rodriguez to your collection.

For a donation of $1,500, you will receive a signed, limited edition.

1991 George Rodriguez Louisiana Legends Print.

This rare collectible features portraits of distinguished honorees including General Robert H. Barrow, Doctor Michael DeBakey, Al Hurt, Bob Pettit, and George Rodriguez himself.

For a donation of $4,000.

Receive the complete George Rodriguez Louisiana Legends Prints Collection, featuring three signed limited edition prints from 1990, 1991 and 1993.

Created in collaboration with LPB, these rare prints honor distinguished Louisiana legends.

Thank you for joining us and thank you so much.

Shock.

Well, thank you to LPB for sharing that story.

Absolutely.

It's been a real pleasure having you here and sharing this film with our viewers statewide.

Thank you for your calls of support and we look forward to another 50 years.

I want to grow from here.

And so I'm all different from you.

Robert on strong Crocker.

And so I offer.

Up everything on about your furniture and your.

Things.

This program is made possible by raising cane's chicken fingers.

Donna sanders family foundation.

Henry and Pat Shea Haney family foundation.

Humana, Eric and Jacqueline Dixon, Leipzig's Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission.

Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and the following underwriters.

And.