Conversations on Culture & Money
Hopefully by now you’ve heard about our plans for March 23rd. Yesterday brought news of the addition of Ratty Scurvics to the cast, thanks to Miss Trixie Minx. Today we unveil two interesting perspectives on the great flaneur.
1. A 1924 Lafcadio Hearn woodcut by Edward Larocque Tinker
Courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection
2. The Official Poster of A Late Night Lafcadio Hearn Revue by Bunny Matthews
Two weeks to go, folks.
We’re shooting a video for our good pal, Bunny Matthews, who celebrates his birthday and the return of the Antichrist this evening by playing with his Playboys. Party with us tonight and stay tuned for the video. This is how PSP kicks off Mardi Gras…
Illustrator Bunny Matthews developed his style during grunt work in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, his time in Jamaica, and through an obsession with the French Quarter, his “world of bohemian enchantment.” Matthews has contributed writing and artwork to The Times Picayune, Offbeat Magazine, and the sides of many Leidenheimer Baking Co. delivery trucks. The self-proclaimed world’s leading anthropologist on Yat culture, he has focused his work on capturing and enlarging personalities of New Orleans, such as his typical Yat-head characters, Vic and Nat’ly. Of his many exhibitions (“Chihuahua: King of New Orleans Dogs” (Scheurich Gallery), “The Art of Bunny Matthews” (Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans), “Bunny Matthews: Art For Heterosexuals” (Space Gallery), “Da Eve O’Destruction” (Vega Tapas Cafe), “Too Many Bunnies” (Arthur Roger 434)), his most recent, ”Black and White” (Arthur Roger Gallery), focused on the lingering racial divides in the city and also played with the oily cloud that hangs over the region following the BP offshore rig spill. Matthews also worked as a music journalist, primarily with Offbeat Magazine.
His “monumental painting,” “Nint’Wardica”, hangs in the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.
Nint'Wardica, Bunny Matthews
Sources:
Harkin’s Florist, Matthews’ Gallery
For my second semester of my junior year of college I was halfway through my first year as an English major with a Film and Digital Media concentration. Still I was confused as to what I had signed up for. I had been undecided for my first two years of college, so when push came to shove and I was advised to get on board and pick a major for the start of my junior year, why would I feel like choosing any of the majors that were offered to me before? Nothing had happened in the past year that was going to change my mind. When I went to my advisor, I was told about a new concentration opening in the English department. I knew that I enjoyed writing and I was more interested in the modern way of doing things. Therefore, Film and Digital Media sounded just like the progressive movement that could keep me interested for another two years. As anyone could guess, I signed up, with only a small idea of what kind of path I had set myself on. That first semester I took my first two Film and Digital Media courses: Introduction into Film and Digital Media and Film and Film & the Art of Lit. Adaptation; the latter of these two being the better course. I was expecting the introductory course to clear up any questions or concerns I had about the major I had almost blindly selected. But answers were not what I received at all. Honestly, the course should be used to bring someone up to date on social media and film, as well as basic computer multimedia literacy. And the second course, while it was insightful, did not really provide me with any definitive explanation for this concentration. As a result, for my second semester of classes I signed up for two more courses that fit the Film and Digital Media criteria: Film Comedy and Developing Digital Content.
Film Comedy was much like Film & the Art of Lit. Adaptation, but that was to be expected as both courses were designed by the same instructor, Prof. Andrew Macdonald. While this class was an interesting course to take, it did not give me any help as to where I was heading with this major. Developing Digital Content did just that. I signed up for the class because I had previously been a student under Prof. Lofstead in the Film & the Art of Lit. Adaptation class. I was expecting something along the lines of the Introduction into Film and Digital Media course. That would entail movie watching, blog writing, and the occasional internet adventure. What I got was a course that was structured outside of the curriculum and in the real world, something concrete, substantial. Fortunately for me, this is exactly what I was looking for. This course was taking something that someone would be paid to do and bringing it into the classroom. Someone with an English, Film and Digital Media degree would be hired to do. Finally, an example of what this major entails and what the future could hold for someone with it.
For the course, the class would be working for the non –profit organization the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities on their PeoplesSayProject. The purpose of the project was to bring together the different creative generations centered in New Orleans and discuss the present and future of the city’s culture and economy. For the class we were instructed to create content for the figures that would be featured at each event. This would involve research, writing, and interviews. Not only would we be able to experience having an actual “gig”, but we also posted published online content that we could reference for future use. Now I have an idea of what an English major with a Film and Digital Media concentration can do after graduation. What information I was working with before this course was foggy and gave a bleak outlook for the future. I can’t say that I am completely content with my decision based on my image of an English major, but goddamnit I need to finish out in four years. English at least allows for me to express creativity, and the Film and Digital Media concentration keeps me out of the “Dark Ages” and away from the education route that so many English major seem to take/fall back on. Developing Digital Content showed me the online aspects of the literary, journalistic, and social frontiers and the possibilities of being your own publisher. Also, I learned the tendencies of the new generation of online readers as well as what draws the interest of the eye on the computer screen.
The site for the project, www.thepeoplesayproject.org, was created by Prof. James Lofstead using WordPress as the engine. Each student created an account for the site and was given editorial access to the content posted by that account. We were instructed to create one article for each of the four events and one shorter response for each as well. These articles were posted as “posts” under the category for the theme of the particular event. The posts were supposed to relate to one or both of the speakers, or to the theme of the event relative to New Orleans. The responses were intended as feedback for both the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and for our instructor. The class had a warm up event by creating content for the Mardi Gras Indians and the Creole Wild West Tribe before jumping into full gear.
The first of the Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities events had a music theme that featured artist Andy Murray from Royal Fingerbowl and hip-hop artist Truth Universal. My article was focused on Andy Murray and his affinity for sea chanties. I had to look up what sea-chanties were and where they originated, then take my findings and post an article relating to Andy Murray and his own work. My response to the event was inspired by Truth mentioning labels during his discussion. Therefore, I wrote about my position on whether a beginning music artist should sign with a label or not and how I was influenced by what Truth said. The second event had a art theme and featured local artist Ayo Scott, son of John Scott, and Bunny Mathews the creator of the beloved local comic Vic nd Nat’ly. For this event, I wrote an article about the “Y’at” and its connection with New Orleans. I linked it to the event by discussing how Bunny is helping to keep the “Y’at” culture and dialect alive in his comic Vic nd Nat’ly. My response was concerning the struggle for artists to make a living in New Orleans with all of the competition and “the saturation of New Orleans symbols.” The third event was theatre themed and featured the young co-CEO of Cripple Creek Theatre Company, Andrew Vaught, and the old, slightly befuddled John O’Neal (Junebug Productions). Each of these men was entertaining and enigmatic in their own way, and both were dedicated to promoting social awareness. I struggled with my article for this event, as I never was an avid participator of the theatre. I wanted to post content relating to theatre in New Orleans and ended up publishing an article about the history and renovation of the Saenger Theatre. Most of the content, except for the pictures, was taken off of Wikipedia, but as I learned in class, much of online content is simply republished or taken from another site. Many examples of this can be given, and regardless I cited my work. I decided to make my response about their beginnings and dedication to their missions. The last event had a theme of film. It featured Glen Pitre and Brandon Odums, Louisiana filmmakers. Pitre is responsible for many films like Belizaire the Cajun, Cigarettes & Nylons, Hurricane on the Bayou, the Man Who Came Back, and The Scoundrel’s Wife. And Odums is a founding member of the viral film project 2-cent TV. For the event, I was assigned to post content regarding Pitre’s the Man Who Came Back or the Scoundrel’s Wife. Lucky for me, I went online and saw that it had already been done by another. I then chose to recap the “beef” between 2-cent TV and Tom Joyner, and was content with the final result. For the response this time I went over the filmmakers accomplishments and discussed the creation of new film projects in the city as a result of hurricane Katrina. Overall, I enjoyed this class and working for the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities on their PeopleSayProject. I learned about my major and where I am headed, along with how to develop and publish my own content online.
Keller Fisher
CEO and design principal for NOYO, Ayo Scott and New Orleans legend Bunny Matthews (Vic & Natly, Nint’Wardica) sit down with host Brian Boyles to discuss the business of making art in the Crescent City.
Recorded at the Louisiana Humanities Center, 3.15.2012
Bunny Matthews is no ordinary artist, nor should his artwork be paralleled with traditional cartoons or comic strips. Bunny finds his inspiration from regional current events as well as stereotypes associated with the New Orleans lifestyle. On the one hand, Bunny takes the most prevalent news headliners and molds them into satirical yet communicative masterpieces. Other pieces poke fun at Big Easy themes from heavy drinking and “Fat Tuesday,” to exaggerated creole accents and NOLA’s decadent cuisine, each piece perfectly balanced between comedy and social commentary.
Both thought and symbolism lie between the relaxed strokes and silly one-liners. Bunny, when defending his artwork, explained how the most successful cartoon artists are not only naturally creative, but proficient writers—writers who can tell an entire story in just a few short words.
Therefore, when it comes to sharing the work of a distinctive artist like Bunny Matthews, it is no surprise he accepted the offer to display his work at the Arthur Roger Gallery of the New Orleans Warehouse District, occupying a 5,100 square foot space with three separate exhibition areas. The gallery can be found on the corner of Julia St. and Constance in New Orleans own “Gallery Row.” The surrounding area resembles a modest version of New York City’s art scene (where the owner of Arthur Roger Gallery actually briefly opened a second gallery). While the exterior of the gallery mostly blends in with it’s neighboring exhibits, the interior is constantly flooded with a unique variety of artwork. The gallery is dedicated to featuring artwork from both the most recognized New Orleans talent as well as artists from around the country. Notable artists which previously collaborated with Arthur Roger include Robert Gordy, Ida Kohlmeyer, Charles Arnoldi, Derek Boshier and Roger Brown. Other great work by Robert Colescott, R. M. Fisher, Peter Halley, Robert Hull, Leonard Koscianski, Clarence Laughlin, Peter Saul, James Surls, Bruce Weber, Joel-Peter Witkin and Philip Wofford has also skimmed the walls of this distinguished gallery. The displays are also not limited to traditional painting and drawing pieces but also feature digital, sculptural and photographic artwork.
In addition to finding the most unique artists for his gallery, Roger often develops individual relationships with many of the artists. In the case of Bunny Matthews, Arthur was actually responsible for the suggestion and inspiration of one of Bunny’s most famous pieces—besides that of his Vic n’ Nat’ly characters—known as “Nin’t Wardica,” an 8×15 foot mural reminiscent of Picasso’s “Guernica.”
Below you will find several photographs of the current on display at the Arthur Roger Gallery.
For more information on Bunny’s exhibition at the Gallery last year and the photographs above, visit arthurrogergallery.com. To learn more about Bunny’s past artwork as well as future exhibitions, visit bunnymatthews.com.
To get to know Bunny and hear about his life as an artist in new Orleans, come to The People Say Project on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 6pm at the Louisiana Humanities Center at 5:00. Find more information on our homepage.
New Orleans artist Bunny Matthews is probably best known for his long running comic strip Vic and Nat’ly. The comic follows the characters Vic and Natl’y, two ninth ward residents who speak in the distinctive Y’at dialect of New Orleans. The comedy of the cartoon comes directly out of the language, culture, and current affairs of New Orleans.
First appearing in the Times Picayune, Vic and Nat’ly have evolved from being just comic strip characters, to be a deeply ingrained part of New Orleans’ culture. Bunny has taken the Vic and Nat’ly out of the funny pages and put them into a number of New Orleans’ businesses, museums, and even an insectarium.
Matthews’ drawings are now used as both advertising and public art in and around New Orleans. It is likely that the almost everyone in the city has seen a Vic and Nat’ly cartoon even if they don’t know it. The Audubon Insectarium has a series written and illustrated by Matthews called “A Roach’s History of New Orleans,” which tells the city’s history from the perspective of cockroaches. (If you want to know more about “A Roach’s History of New Orleans” click here.) Matthews’ has illustrated for companies such as Zatarain’s, Toyota, Coca-Cola, and Barq’s. But the place you’ve probably seen Bunny’s work is on the side of a Leidenheimer’s bakery truck, showing Vic and Nat’ly chowing down on a po-boy.
Matthews has also painted murals for the Louisiana State museum and in the Arthur Roger Gallery. He also has does the album artwork for the band, The Graves Brother Deluxe.
His art can also be found in many of the city’s businesses and restaurants. The most famous of which if the series of comics he produced for Harkin’s Florist. The comic series, which is still being produced, show Vic and Nat’ly celebrating the season with flowers from the Harkin’s.
Harkin's Valentines Comic
The the first of these comics came out during Christmas of 1981, and they’ve been coming out ever since. Even the more obscure holidays, such as Secretary’s Day, have their own comic.
By making so much of his art available for the public to see in New Orleans, Bunny has cemented his art into the fabric of the city so completely that it is now inseparable from its culture.
Jonas Griffin; New Orleans; March 2011
Forget lilting Oak trees, St. Charles Avenue or Bourbon Street, and wrought-iron balconies. Bunny Matthews’ New Orleans is a step beyond any tourist’s conception or the Uptowner’s picturesque view. As presented in his “Vic and Nat’ly” cartoons, Matthews illustrates a culture of the city whose people are, according to Bunnymatthews.com, an “oft-neglected slice of New Orleans…parochial, salt-of-the-earth denizens.”
A combination of laughing-at and laughing-with cranky Vic and brazen Nat’ly gives this strip its special place in local humor. One almost has to read aloud his cartoons to make sense of the warped spellings that communicate his characters’ unique Yat accent. Example: “Mus’ be hawd woik— paintin’ nekkid goils all day!” And certainly much is lost if readers don’t voice the strips because Matthews’ effective and whimsical dialogue can transport you to the heart and soul of the city. Matthews describes the people of the Ninth Ward, who inspire him for the cartoon; “The people who never left…the real die-hard New Orleanians.” In the early 1980’s, Matthews spent much of his time in the Ninth Ward, delivering records and meeting the people who lived there.
With this eye into the Yat subculture of New Orleans, Matthews confronts tragedy in his Nint’Wardica (2010). This painting is an ekphrasistic response to Picasso’s Guernica. Matthews reinvents this classic work to represent the city’s recent pains.
Matthews uses shades of black and white to expose New Orleans’ ills to its people, an audience that has been historically divided along such color lines. The mural, painted on a tapestry of Tyvek, gives the people of New Orleans a chance to see the city’s tragedies contained in a work of art; Nint’Wardica is an elegy. Though New Orleans has proved a resilient spirit, the ability to rejoice and never loose pride in itself, Matthews’ painting offers an opportunity to reflect, mourn and ultimately inspire in spite of the seriousness.
Beyond the initial orientation of the cubist graphics, sadness and at times out-right horror rise into view: a murdered young black man, Louisiana’s regal state symbol of the pelican drenched in oil, dead fish. With the presence of Vic and Nat’ly, the first with a flashlight as in a storm and the second as curvaceous as ever, the work is tender, too. These beloved characters of the po-boy shop aren’t kept static in their comic strip, but they have been drawn into the tough realities we all share.
Suggested Reading:
“Vic and Nat’ly” Archive: http://bunnymatthews.com/archives/portfolio-item/vicandnatly
“Black and White,” feature Story with Matthews: http://bunnymatthews.com/archives/portfolio-item/blackandwhite
New Orleans artist Bunny Matthews has contributed a series of illustrations to The Audubon Zoo’s Insectarium. The illustrations give a history of New Orleans from the point of view of an often over looked resident of the city: cockroaches. The series is called “A Roach’s History of New Orleans” and spans the city’s entire history–from its discovery by Bienville, to the invention of jazz, and of course hurricane Katrina. “A Roach’s History of New Orleans” is a funny and original look at some of the major events in the city’s history told in Bunny’s signature artistic style, check out the entire series in our gallery:
Nint' Wardica, Bunny Matthews, New Orleans 2010. Oil on Tyvek
On April 26, 1937 one hundred thousand pounds of high explosive and incendiary bombs rained down on the village of Guernica, killing one-third of the population, sixteen hundred civilians. 73 years later, on April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded killing 11 workers and releasing 205.8 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
These disastrous events began a devastating ripple effect that began with those directly affected and soon spread to reach the world. These ripples traveled through many mediums, in the case of the oil spill they even traveled quite literally in ripples on the ocean’s surface, and in the case of Guernica they traveled in a wave of war that swept Europe, terrorizing civilian populations.
But one of the most important ways the reverberations of these occurrences reached the corners of the Earth was through the hearts of the millions who heard about them and sympathized with the suffering. This sympathy can be awakened in many ways, perhaps a story on the news, or a photograph of the scene, but even before such things existed humans relied on art to commemorate misery.
So in these troubled times, it is not surprising that the insight of an artist gave face to the horror, in a way no newspaper could. Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica not only became a memorial to the blood spilled on that April day, but an enduring challenge to all those who see it to truly consider the cost of war. 73 years later, Bunny Matthews took this challenge and twisted it into Nint’ Wardica, a modern glimpse of a new face of war, one that is raging right here in Louisiana.
One of the most prominent figures in Picasso’s Guernica is a bull that peers out at us from the left hand corner of the mural. Few things are thought to be more Spanish than the tradition of bullfighting. These regal creatures are placed in opposition to some of the country’s most highly honored and respected celebrities in fights that test both strength and cunning. This bull can be seen to stand for this tradition and the power of Spain’s culture. But the realities of bullfighting are much more revealing about what might be behind this particular bull’s hauntingly human eyes.
The bulls are bred for the express purpose of fighting; the ones that show the most ferocity are chosen to be sent to the bullfights. Once there they are observed, aggravated, and stabbed in crucial muscles causing weakening and blood loss until the matador enters to make his celebrated kill. By the time the slaughter actually happens, the bull has lost significant amounts of blood and strength and the matador’s kill is just the final straw. The bull is not exactly an innocent victim in this charade, several matadors have died in the ring, and for a while more horses (used to carry the riders that make the initial stabs) than bulls died in the ring. But the fact remains that the bulls’ motives for attack lie in provocation and fear while the people’s lie in their thirst for blood and entertainment. The attack on Guernica was a similar match up.
The Nazis dropped bomb after bomb on a civilian population whose village had no strategic military value. When they made their final slaughter, after over three hours of bombardment, those who weren’t dead were hopelessly demoralized, called “the greatest success” in a secret report from Berlin. The Nazis were not threatened by the men, women, and children living in the cultural capital of the Basque people. They took an opportunity to practice their new blanket-bombing tactics on a group of people whose historical culture favors independence and democratic ideals, making them a threat to Francisco Franco’s overthrow of the democratic government. Much like the once strong bull depicted in Picasso’s painting, Guernica was run through without warning and left to its blood and suffering.
In Nint’ Wardica, the solemn bull’s counterpart is a crab, dripping with oil, next to the smoking rig that brought that plague upon it. Much like bullfighting is for spain, seafood is a cultural pillar of the Gulf Coast, particularly when it comes to crustaceans like the crab. Crabs and crawfish not only offer delicious nutrition but a wonderful activity around which to center socialization. Crab and crawfish boils are occasions used to celebrate, commemorate, and intoxicate, they have strengthened the fabric of Southern food culture and formed a mouth watering institution. Behind this institution is an industry, one that we recently found out rests on very trepid waters.
The Deepwater Horizon explosion not only killed eleven rig workers but also put a death threat on Southern Louisiana’s 2.4 billion dollar seafood industry. Now it is estimated that from 2011 to 2013 the industry will suffer a $115 million to $172 million loss in gross revenue. This will come on top of the losses already incurred from the closing of the fisheries, the countrywide hike in seafood prices, and the impact on restaurants that rely on customers who were too scared to consume gulf coast products even after they were deemed safe. That crab has not only been poisoned, it too has been irreparably demoralized.
Perhaps there is no better way to express deep soul wrenching anguish than with the image of a mother losing a child. For centuries viewers’ hearts have been wrenched by the incredible sorrow so exquisitely expressed in Michelangelo’s Pieta. True to its name the sculpture exhume pity from all those who see it. Picasso drew on this for his statement on the forfeitures of war. The woman on the left side of the painting clutches the body of her lifeless child, appearing to howl up to the sky, from whence her nightmare came.
In Bunny Matthews’s version, the woman holds the form of a dead fish. She howls out for the people who saw their livelihoods coated in thick brown slime, and slowly suffocate like the creatures they depend on. The financial blow that the oil spill dealt to the area’s seafood industry workers put a glitch in a way of life that had been cultivated for generations. Many people lost family businesses reliant on the Gulf Coast ecosystem, others left the area in ruin, and still others are clinging for dear life to whatever slippery remnants are left, much like this woman clings to that dead fish. She may be mourning the loss of the fish in her hands and what it will mean for her life, or she may be mourning the loss of certainty in the future her children.
Although children are often said to be the epitome of innocence, sometimes animals are revered even more so. After Hurricane Katrina some studies showed that showing pictures of stranded or injured pets brought in more donations for relief than did those of humans in need. In bullfights, as was mentioned earlier, more horses used to die than bulls. The audience couldn’t bear to see their suffering so now they are equipped with protective padding. Perhaps for this reason, the central figure in Guernica is an innocent horse, run through with a javelin, screaming in pain. The wrenched position of the horse’s head suggests that the attack was unforeseen, and undeserved. So too were the people of Guernica shocked by the attack on their village, and stories of their pain, along with this painting, convinced the world that it was undeserved.
Who better to represent the undeserved pain of the Pelican State than the pelican herself? In Nint’ Wardica, she hovers center stage, oil coating her face and body. On the Louisiana flag is an image of a mother pelican sheltering the nest containing her offspring, she nurtures them by tearing out her own flesh to feed them. This symbol has been used by the Catholic Church as a symbol of Jesus’s self sacrifice and was adopted for the Louisiana flag for the same reason. Louisiana’s love affair with the pelican has been a long and tortured one.
Since the colonial days the Brown Pelican has stood as a representative of the state, but in the 1960s they disappeared from Louisiana, and very nearly from the world, due to use of the pesticide DDT. With the birth of the environmental movement DDT-use was banned from the United States and the pelican was reintroduced to the Pelican State from colonies in Florida. In 2009 they were removed from the endangered species list and considered resurrected. But the 2010 oil spill once again put their lives in peril. Hundreds of birds were found dead or dying, coated thick with oil. These creatures still hold a special place in the hearts of Louisiana natives and wildlife enthusiasts who are still working hard to ensure that these birds do rise again, as is called for by Nint’ Wardica.
-Margaret Sands
Citations:
http://bunnymatthews.com/archives/241
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/economic_impact_of_gulf_of_mex.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/us/05pelican.html?_r=1
http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/guernica_nav/main_guerfrm.html