Rotary International
Rotary is a worldwide organization of business and professional leaders that provides humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards in all vocations, and helps build goodwill and peace in the world. Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 32,000 clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas.

Rotary District 6840
Our District covers Southeast Louisiana and South Mississippi. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana and Mississippi with a fury. All of District 6840 felt the devastating effects of the hurricane, including the hardest hit areas, the New Orleans region and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. There was massive flooding and extensive tree damage. Some parts of the District made a quick recovery and others are just now starting. Recovery will take many months, if not years in some areas.

Many Rotarians and Rotary Clubs have contacted us to offer monetary assistance and donations of time, service and materials. Your generosity is greatly appreciated and will have a lasting impact on the lives of thousands in District 6840. Most of all it is a testament to “Service Above Self”.

RODRIGUE STUDIO
George Rodrigue (b. 1944) was born and raised in New Iberia, Louisiana, the heart of Cajun country. For forty years, his work has remained rooted in the familiar milieu of home. Using the oak tree as his main subject in hundreds of paintings in the early 1970, Rodrigue eventually expanded his subjects to include the Cajun people and traditions, as well as interpretations of myths such as Jolie Blonde and Evangeline.

THE BLUE DOG
It was one of these myths, the loup-garou, which inspired another Rodrigue series, the Blue Dog. Painted for a book of Cajun ghost stories called Bayou (Inkwell, 1984), this werewolf-type dog was an already familiar legend for Rodrigue, who heard the story often as a boy. With no image for the loup-garou, the artist searched his vast photo files for a suitable shape. e found this in photos of his studio dog Tiffany who had died several years before. Rodrigue used her stance and manipulated her shape to meet his needs for the painting. Under a blue night sky he painted the image a pale grey-blue and gave it red eyes. He liked what he saw and added this image to his pictorial list of favorite Cajun legends, painting it in cemetery and bayou scenes intermittently over the next five or six years. He switched the dog’s eyes to yellow, creating a friendlier image, and he soon realized that the Blue Dog could take him anywhere on the canvas — even out of Cajun country. He explored his earlier Pop and abstract interests in a more obvious way, breaking his canvas into strong shapes just as he always had with the oak trees and Cajuns, with the addition of bold blocks of color and a new signature-type shape in the mix. The dog became bluer and the paintings more abstract, reflecting Rodrigue’s current feelings about life, once again using an image that he knows and loves best. Today Rodrigue describes himself as an abstract artist who happens to paint things we recognize. Oftentimes the actual subjects within his paintings are secondary to his focus on shape, design and color.

Rodrigue has gallery locations in Aspen, CO, Carmel, CA, Lafayette, LA and New Orleans, LA