c2007 Bruce Greene
The price tag reads $1,000. The piece is from the artist’s “1980-87 first period.” I stifle a chuckle. That’s what the gallery description says. “A rendering of the New Orleans Superdome.” Pre Katrina, the deep maroon colored stadium appears on the horizon surrounded by lime green cactus-like trees floating in the sky. Red flowers blossom from spindly branches. The documentation concludes with “ Untitled, markers on stretched canvas.” The piece is unsigned but attributed to New Orleans folk artist Willie White.
First period, I think. The words rattle around and will not leave me alone. First period, I mutter the sound of that phrase before speaking out loud. “I remember a period before that…the real first period.” Perhaps it was the only period. In any case, it remains a permanent marker in my mind. My bittersweet relationship with New Orleans will always be measured by the night I came face to face with Willie White.
“At least I’ll be in New Orleans.” That’s what I told everyone before I decided to spend my whole summer at the institute. Loyola University was to be the home of an intensive National Endowment for the Humanities summer institute considering the work of four Southern women writers. I knew I was fortunate, that competition for this limited enrollment was fierce. But the thought of being one of the only men admitted, being indoors all day, and not knowing anyone else left me doubting my decision to go. If the institute doesn’t live up to its promise, I thought, at least I’ll be in New Orleans.
That single line echoed in my head two weeks later when Vickie and Cheryl outlined their plan. Only this time, if this venture doesn’t pan out, at least I’ll die in New Orleans was the new version. Some places you just cant walk around after dark. I knew better. My time as a young Vista volunteer had taught me much about borders and boundaries. I definitely knew better. Yet there was something more here, the chance to meet an artist, the chance to see more of the city, and, perhaps, the chance to take a risk. Were these two folk art fanatics cultural anthropologists, or were they simply naïve tourists?
Vickie and Cheryl evoked pure Southern California. The former, an art and English teacher and the latter, a graphic designer, bonded in San Diego. When Vickie, in a genuine effort to expand her Advanced Placement curriculum, was selected for the New Orleans institute, Cheryl promised to visit and run around New Orleans looking for triumphs and treasures. One evening Vickie, in a rare after class appearance, joined a small group of us at the Juarez, an authentic Mexican restaurant that was obviously up to Vickie’s soaring standards. Dressed in Jordache Jeans, with matching jacket, Vickie gleamed with the addition of two large gold hoop earrings. She pulled a chair over to our table and cheerfully introduced us to her visitor, Cheryl. Looking like a model for LA Gear, complete with ponytail to the side, Cheryl wore no jewelry, save the handmade friendship bracelet twisted around her wrist.
It was an abandoned copy of Richochet, a fledging art magazine that first introduced them to the folk art world of Willie White. The cover photo of a Willie White original was seductive. The piece depicted large green dinosaurs and serpents with long red tongues, amid plants that resembled blue, yellow, and black tomatoes and large sliced watermelons. Black crosses hung surrealistically in the air, hovering above strange spiny plants. The article inside was only a few paragraphs, but did contain a photograph of a front porch with cut cardboard leaning against a fading red metal chair, and the dimly lit profile of Willie drawing on one such former box top with crayons and markers.
It had been an unusually long day. I awoke at 4:30 in order to read two Eudora Welty stories and one by O’Conner. If I could get to the air-conditioned P J’s Coffee shop by 7 am that time was reserved for Kate Chopin’s work. Alice Walker was always in the late afternoon. The Juarez was a chance to spend part of the evening in air-conditioned comfort. After dinner, it was fairly easy to yield to my sense of adventure. I was simply too tired to read and agreed to go along. Dryades Street was all we really knew, perhaps the 1900 block according to a French Quarter art dealer. “It’s only a few blocks off St. Charles,” Cheryl pleaded, “we can take the streetcar.” Not at night I insisted, do you know how deceptively fast these neighborhoods can change?” By the time we reached Vickie’s car, it began to rain. Not the normal 7:00pm thundershower I had become used to, but a real Louisiana “gully washer.” After two passes up and down Dryades St. it was clear we needed to ask someone about Willie White. Would he be known? Would his neighbors know how his first paintings were done on fences and literally on his front porch? Did they realize that this 77-year-old bullfrog of a man painted images from his dreams, and more often images he recalled from watching TV? Did any of them own his impressions of horses, or skyscrapers or planets with rocket ships often made from left over house paint? Certainly they must have wondered why mostly white folks came here and paid him as much as $20.00 for his drawings on old box tops. People came; people paid. They took the drawings, he took the money.
Dryades Street certainly reflected its history. Once a portion of a large plantation, the rows of Shotgun houses continued to deteriorate from their original stature and function as either slave quarters before the Civil War or servants quarters afterward. The inconsistent pattern of this neighborhood, a checker boarding of fairly affluent streets followed by pockets of abject poverty, only to evolve into modest working class homes a few blocks later, was a throwback to the contour and demography of 19th century New Orleans.
We stopped near a street corner where five men huddled around a smoking barbeque. The rain thickened. Splashing my way up to this gathering I spoke to one man who separated himself suddenly from the rest. He turned to his companions and echoed my request. They said nothing. Their look said leave. Walking back toward me, with the residue of a smile he spoke.
“You might try 2 ½ locks further down; you might find him on the other side of the street; there might be some children on the porch there.” He might have told me what I wanted to know.
We found the kids, and double-checking that well-cropped magazine photo, concluded that the red chair in the photo was the same one dripping water before us now. Cheryl knocked on the door and a woman in her 40s quickly answered. Nancy identified herself as Willie’s niece and proceeded to tell us “how it is.”
“Come on in outta this rain, I need to tell you how it is now. A lady brings him canvases, and you go through her. She represent him.” Willie had an agent!
“Nothing leaves through that door, it wouldn’t be right. Anyway, he’s got his work cut out.
While my friends went off to look at Nancy’s work, I received an invitation to sit from a man she called Uncle Jack. He motioned toward a chair so worn and stained that I considered standing before I realized who Uncle Jack was. He initiated a conversation and I allowed myself to be from L.A. simply so he wouldn’t have to say San Francisco. Fs are difficult for a person with few teeth. Within minutes we were all ushered into the kitchen, first to look at the work of Omar, a California cousin who was trying to crack the art market. Finally Nancy produced three drawings. They were clearly Willie White originals. One had large red crosses in each corner with one dimensional black horses splayed out before them, another had the watermelon halved surrounded by spiny trees and blue horses. The third was green dinosaurs on yellow and clearly signed in red in the lower right corner. Were we supposed to make an offer? When we expressed mild interest, she pronounced them unfinished.
While the storm cleared, we remained confused. Within 15 minutes we left, assuming the role of displaced foreigners with no decorum. Maybe if I’d remained in that chair, next to Uncle Jack. Maybe if I sat and talked while all the scrambling for his agent’s card was going on, I’d have done what seems so obvious now. I might have told this folk Buddha how much I loved his work. Might have discovered his ideas about what and why he paints. Somewhere amid the “representative” and the rules, somewhere in finding Willie White, something else got lost.
Willie White died in 2000. His paintings, on canvas, now bring upwards of a few thousand. I would have thought Hurricane Katrina gave Dryades street the knockout blow. Not so. Like parts of the Quarter, it’s always been on higher ground.
