This story was written by Linda Dautreuil
While the north shore celebrated Bastille Day on July 17, one spot on Lockwood Street in downtown Covington reminded revelers of a circuitous route to Chauvin, traveled by artists who feel a connection to land, water and the ecosystem of the southernmost parts of the state.
For several years, the unusual sounding LUMCON has been spoken in art circles, sometimes without general understanding of what the initials signified or the importance of the work accomplished there. Since 1979, the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium has coordinated and stimulated activities in marine research and education by providing a coastal laboratory facility to universities in Louisiana.
Such a facility often attracts unlikely partnerships because of the breadth of the mission and its importance to scientists, artists and the general population. For 11 years, Gary LeFleur, associate professor of biology, Nicholls State University and Dennis Sipiorski, professor of visual art at Southeastern Louisiana University, have led projects engaging groups of artists and students. Daily activities in the weeklong workshops include lectures and trips to the barrier islands for observation, photography, and sketching or painting.
LeFleur specializes in hands-on scientific information and curiosities. Sipiorsky directs photography and black and white film processing. Being a sculptor and painter, as well as photographer, Sipiorsky at times demonstrates how large quantities of supplies can be transported by a single artist determined to create en plein air. Reports from the field describe his trek through waist-high water with large canvases or panels overhead, painting and drawing supplies, cameras and sketchbooks leading the group of artists and students who tend to attempt navigation with more compact equipment aloft. This year, the workshops were not possible due to budget cuts in the universities, and that sense of loss is also palpable in the most recent artwork hosted by Henry Hood Gallery.
All of the artists in the exhibition, Louisiana’s Endangered Coast, have participated in LUMCON workshops held annually in May. Many have traveled there more than once. The experience has been so meaningful that the idea for the exhibition was planted before the oil spill, but it took on additional significance in light of the disaster.
Seven of the nine artists showing made an unofficial journey to observe the early effects first hand and to see the area one more time in conditions close to that of the previous spring. All were moved by the experience, and photographer and graphic artist Karin Eberhardt brought back a small sample of crude from Timbalier Island, which was mixed with more traditional mediums in the work of painter Gail Hood and several others.
In addition to the timely nature of the exhibition as a whole, these works of art displayed at 325 East Lockwood St. demonstrate very individualized responses to the fragile nature of coastal landscape. Delaina LeBlanc, well known in Louisiana for her mixed media drawings and reliefs, now teaches at Florida State University. Her work on display is an array of scapulars, which are devotional articles often worn by Catholics, derived from a common piece of secular clothing, the apron. Monastic scapulars are usually large panels but the more common devotional scapular today is made up of two small rectangular pieces of cloth, wood, or paper containing religious images or text. The two are connected by small cords draped over the shoulders. LeBlanc creates a different kind of devotional using images of the coastal landscape.
Another domestic reference finds expression in the wire sculpture of Folsom artist Yvonne James. Dressmakers use forms to approximate the female anatomy in order to provide properly fitting garments for women. In her sculpture, Last Isle Ladies, James references historical accounts of the Hurricane of 1856, which swept away a resort hotel on Last Isle and most of the guests during a formal dance.
The intricate wire forms represent the artist and her sisters. Attached to each is an arrangement of bronze thorns, pointed, sharp, and buried in the chest where the heart might be located or attached to the spine which braces the human form. The thorns are symbols of danger, suffering, and loss. They may also suggest transcendence of the soul within if we act in time.
There is yet another story that evolved in the community of artists who have in common LUMCON and SLU. Justin Barfield was born and raised in Covington. After studying engineering for four years, he was motivated after Hurricane Katrina to pursue the arts at SLU. Barfield favors the process of photo intaglio plate etching using plexi and copper plates and photo sensitive materials, which result in the inked and wiped plate and clean sheet of paper to run through the etching press.
Barfield recalls, “I think I fell in love with this process because it is so labor intensive. The fact that all great things come from those who work hard was instilled in me through my family and will never be erased.”
These qualities are noticed by almost everyone who has been in contact with him. Ralph Patrick has employed him in his seafood business for many years and speaks of his work ethic as something he demonstrated on the job each day. Ernest Milsted and Dennis Sipiorski noticed it when he worked his way through the visual arts program in printmaking at SLU, and Milsted became a mentor in the printmaking studio. Following in the footsteps of these artists and educators who encouraged him to dig deeper, Justin Barfield has been accepted into graduate studies at University of Notre Dame. He leaves behind a summer of appearances on the Louisiana art scene. His photography and intaglio prints are exhibited in multiple venues: the St. Tammany Art Association’s Annual Summer Show, and the Bastille Day Exhibition, Louisiana’s Endangered Coast, open through Aug. 28 in downtown Covington.