9-18-99

Austin American-Statesman

Blue Dog has its day

Haunting little pup is symbol of our times, creator says

By Anne Morris

American –Statesman Book Editor

Look into the yellow eyes of the Blue Dog, and what do you see? Loneliness. Confusion. Trust. “It’s looking to us for answers,” suggest George Rodrigue, the Louisiana artist who created the haunting little dog and has painted it 500 times in the past 12 years. “The Blue Dog has become a symbol that relates to life today. It doesn’t know why it’s there. In that way, it’s really a mirror image of us.”

Rodrigue spoke by phone from Lafayette, La., as he got ready to take off on a 27-city book tour for “Blue Dog Man,” his lavishly illustrated new book from Stewart, Tabori & Chang ($50) with a tactilely satisfying fuzzy Blue Dog on the cover. Rodrigue signs the book and talks about his art at 7pm Monday at Book People.

Born in New Iberia, Rodrigue studied art first at the University of Southwest Louisiana and later at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angleles. There he decided to Chronicle his culture—something he wanted to do for his family and himself.

The artist laughs and says he “had to go through 20 years of painting Cajuns” before he happened upon what would become his popular signature figure, the Blue Dog. It began as a melding of a werewolf out of French –Cajun folklore with the image of a dog Rodrigue had as a pet. At first the figure he painted was gray, with a bluish cast from the moon. Over time, it evolved into a simple figure of a Blue Dog---different blues, actually—set against various backgrounds. Its popularity zoomed in the 1980s after being discovered in a New Orleans gallery.

You’ve seen the Blue Dog on ads for Absolut Vodka, but it’s also highly sought after as original pop art. NBC newsman Tom Brokaw wrote the book’s introduction and is a serious fan of the art. So are Hillary Rodham Clinton, Whoopi Goldberg, and Harry Connick Jr.

Currently, a small, 8-by-10-inch Blue Dog original, sells for $10,000. Rodrigue just sold a larger painting that took him three months to complete for $175,000. For the past three years, he’s created the November cover for Neiman Marcus’ catalog, The Book. This year the blue Dog will get butterfly wings that carry it into the 21^st century. “It’s the painting for the millennium,” Rodrigue said. “It’s the story of time.”

“Blue Dog Man” includes 60 new original paintings by Rodrigue and relates the image to his rich Cajun culture. It’s the second book about the Blue Dog. The first, “Blue Dog,” published by Viking in 1994 and written by someone else, used Rodrigue’s paintings to tell a fictional story. “Blue Dog Man” is told in Rodrigue’s words, recorded in 20 hours of tapes.

Rodrigue, who operates the Blue Dog Café in Lafayette and has the BlueDogart.com Web site, has no apologies for making his fortune from a single little blue dog. “I don’t feel guilty,” he said. “I’m up at 8am and work until midnight…Success only allows you to be good and to travel. That’s what I tell other artists. It’s a huge advantage to get out and see what the world’s about. You have to do it to get new ideas.”