GARDEN DISTRICT G O O D W O O D • TA R A S PA N I S H T O W N C A P I TA L H E I G H T S LSU LAKES MELROSE PLACE BEAUREGARD TOWN
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W e d n e s d ay, S e p t e m b e r 17, 2025
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Danny Heitman AT RANDOM
Confessions of a lifelong Louisiana scavenger Like a cat bringing an unlucky bird or mouse to the doorstep, my grown children sometimes like to share news about things they find in their adventures out of doors. Luckily, their treasures are more benign than what the proverbial cat drags in. Earlier this summer, they were visiting each other in California when they decided to gather shells from the beach. A picture soon arrived on my smartphone — a lovely image of seashells lining a beach towel, creating a banner that cheered me throughout the summer. When I flip through pictures from this anxious year, that snapshot will be a keeper. What is it, I was moved to wonder, that drives our impulse to gather bright, shiny things? Maybe it’s the primal hunter-gatherer in our genes, a survival tool we’ve continued to carry into our comfortable modern lives. I thought about all of this over the summer as I read the late Penelope Fitzgerald’s reminiscences about foraging for odd little treasures during her British childhood a century ago. It’s no surprise that Fitzgerald’s sharp eye for the glimmering bits and bobs of the rural English landscape would lead her to become a novelist, an occupation where a gift for the small detail can be a plus. When the young Fitzgerald was sent out for errands, she’d find time for a little scavenging, too. “On the way there and back, across the fields and by the roadside, I had my collecting to do,” she tells readers. “Feathers, pheasant feathers in particular, were needed for ... headdresses. My brother, when he was at home, was a warrior brave, and I was Minnehaha. Then there were horseshoe nails, cast horseshoes, snail shells, beechnuts, pignuts, flints, and wayside flowers. When I got home, everything was laid out on my bedroom windowsill to be counted and recounted, one of the most reassuring activities for a small child.” Some of us don’t outgrow the scavenging habit, and I count myself among the tribe. I live a few blocks from my office, so I often walk to work, and the things I find along the way tend to end up on a shelf above my desk as a small reminder of life’s variety. “They’re talismans of a sort, pointing me toward a simple reality,” I confessed in a magazine essay earlier this year. “It’s the idea that the sheer plenitude of my daily walks unfolds in their inexhaustible
STAFF PHOTO BY ROBIN MILLER
A selection from George Rodrigue’s ‘The Bayou Collection’ hangs salon-style in the LSU Museum of Art’s exhibit, ‘A Bayou State of Mind,’ featuring 80 works by 33 Louisiana affiliated artists. The show runs through Jan. 4.
For the first time, collector loans 40 George Rodrigue pieces for landmark exhibit
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BY ROBIN MILLER
a cultural homecoming for many of Louisiana’s most beloved visionaries,” said Mark Tullos, executive director of the LSU Museum of Art. The exhibition is about how artists reflect, reminisce and are inspired by Louisiana, according to Schulte, and is broken up into three categories — “Urban Experience,” “Rural Memory” and “Water.”
Staff writer
he’s there, not in the center of the crowd but in a space off to the side with just enough separation from the others to quietly command attention. Here, she’s “The Watchdog,” though we know her as Blue Dog, inspired by George Rodrigue’s white terrier-spaniel mix. “This is George Roä Watch a drigue’s first painting video of the of the Blue Dog, and we have it in this show as exhibit. part of his ‘The Bayou GO TO Collection,’ ” said MiTHEADVOCATE. chelle Schulte, LSU COM. Museum of Art curator. “There are 40 pieces in this collection, and this is the first time they’ve been on exhibit together outside the George Rodrigue Family Trust.” A private collector, who asked the museum to remain anonymous, bought the collection and loaned it to the museum’s exhibit, “A Bayou State of Mind,” featuring 80 works by 33 Louisiana-affiliated artists.
Connected by bayous Rodrigue’s collection dominates the show, filling the main gallery’s walls and setting the framework for the story told by this exhibit
Show features 33 artists
PROVIDED PHOTO BY TONY BERNARD
George Rodrigue’s 1984 painting, ‘Watchdog,’ is the artist’s first painting of his iconic Blue Dog. The painting is part of his ‘The Bayou Collection,’ which is included in the LSU Museum of Art’s exhibit, ‘A Bayou State of Mind.’
— a narrative about the people, places, traditions and cultures of Louisiana, from cities to rural areas connected by bayous. And though a “bayou state of mind” means something different to the diverse regions of this state, the bayou is the lifeblood in this show. “For me and other natives, this is more than an art exhibition, it’s
Artists represent different parts of the state, some from out-of-state with Louisiana connections. “We’ve mixed things up a little bit,” Schulte said. “The artists who don’t actually live or come from Louisiana just came here for visits. They were wandering through, and they were so inspired by the landscape and the land of Louisiana that they reacted upon it.” And Rodrigue’s works enhance this show by telling the stories of his rural Cajun culture. Rodrigue was 69 years old when he died in Houston in 2013. He was born in New Iberia and often recounted the story of his sickly childhood, when he was diagnosed with polio and confined to bed. He often talked about his mom buying him a paint-by-numbers set to alleviate his boredom. Rodrigue always ended the story by noting that he turned the paintby-numbers surface face down and
ä See EXHIBIT, page 2G
ä See AT RANDOM, page 3G
Did the Choctaw people fight alongside Andrew Jackson? Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson, with sword raised, rallies American forces against the British in a painting depicting the American victory at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815. IMAGE BY E. PERCY MORAN/ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
BY MATTHEW HAINES
Contributing writer
A reader recently submitted a question that, on the surface, seems simple enough. They wondered, “Did the Choctaw tribe fight alongside Gen. Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans?” The short answer is yes, but the in-depth response is far more
interesting. To understand it fully, we need to look at the years before and after Jackson’s famed victory. The Battle of New Orleans, which took place in January 1815, was the culminating skirmish in the larger War of 1812 between the United Kingdom, the United States and their respective North American allies.
War broke out between the countries for several reasons. One was that Britain — which was engaged in the Napoleonic wars with the French — attempted to restrict trade between France and the young United States. The Americans believed this violated international law. A second practice that upset the
ä See CURIOUS, page 3G