Latest news with #BlueDog
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Before the Blue Dog,' the work of George Rodrigue
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — In the French Quarter, The Cabildo is now home for a doghouse. Inside is Louisiana's best-known dog, Blue Dog, of course. WGNO Good Morning New Orleans features reporter Bill Wood is taking you into the show called 'Before the Blue Dog.' King of American Seafood crowned in New Orleans It's here through the end of September. It's a look at the work of Louisiana artist George Rodrigue that happened before his now famous dog. His life, his Cajun heritage and the state he lived in and loved that inspired his work. And of course, his history with his favorite dog. 'The blue dog was this pop art symbol. A shape that could be the anchor to every canvas that he had to build the universe around,' said his son Jacques Rodrigue. Jacques oversees his dad's legacy and lifetime of paintings. Thousands and thousands of them and about half are The Blue Dog. The Cajun canine that became his hallmark. 'Dad had amazing work ethic. None of this happened by accident. So, that's what we share about his life,' said Posts Anita Dunn tells GOP panel Biden 'aged physically' but led decision making When you sip 'Sweet Louisiana Sunshine,' teachers drink in something new Investigation ongoing after teen shot, killed in St. James Parish What were the mysterious objects flying over Uptown New Orleans? Where Y'at this Weekend: Ogden Museum, Armstrong Park, Jazz & Heritage Center, The Swamp Room Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
CTV News
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Montreal's Blue Dog bar to close by end of month
Blue Dog, a bar and music venue on the bustling Saint-Laurent Street downtown Montreal, will close by the end of July after 18 years in business. The bar made the announcement on social media Thursday, saying it will not be able to honour bookings after July 19. 'Due to a number of factors, it's with heavy hearts that we share we're closing,' the bar said on Instagram. 'We know this may come as a disappointment, and we deeply regret the inconvenience.' Montrealers online speculated the closure was due to noise complaints as the bar was recently fined. Champs bar, which is right next to Blue Dog, temporarily closed due to noise complaints and had to ban dancing as it lacked permits. Blue Dog had recently become a full-time venue for live music. But a representative from the bar told CTV News it simply was not busy enough anymore. '[It's a] really small business with small margins and we had been keeping it going as long as we could without making a profit and that's really it,' they said.
American Press
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- American Press
Passion for preserving: Bell City man gives new life to old furniture, one piece at a time
1/5 Swipe or click to see more Corey Chauvin is recreating an antique pair of bathroom vanities for a Nacogdoches, Texas, homeowner complete with 12-inch barley-twist legs that are being custom-made in Pennsylvania. (Crystal Stevenson / American Press) 2/5 Swipe or click to see more Corey Chauvin is restoring this mid-1800 bar that was created in Lebanon. Only 50 were made and few are left. Inside the cabinet is a built-in turntable and radio. (Crystal Stevenson / American Press) 3/5 Swipe or click to see more Corey Chauvin said his stepfather used this exact model of a Sears Craftsman saw table for his remodeling projects. Chauvin said when he saw this table online for sale, he had to have it. 'I showed my stepdad, and he said, 'Yep, that's the same one.' (Crystal Stevenson / American Press) 4/5 Swipe or click to see more The left section of this three-piece bookshelf built in 1890 once belonged to famed Blue Dog artist George Rodrigue. Corey Chauvin is restoring it for its new owner, who lives in Sunset. (Crystal Stevenson / American Press) 5/5 Swipe or click to see more Corey Chauvin said he's constantly learning and teaching himself new ways of restoring historical pieces. He keeps a copy of 'The Furniture Bible' handy for reference. (Crystal Stevenson / American Press) Corey Chauvin has made a career out of reviving vintage wares and breathing life into sometimes forgotten pieces of history. It's a labor of love, and is something Chauvin does not foresee ever growing tired of. 'I have a background in carpentry and remodeling,' he said. 'Growing up my stepdad did remodeling so all my life I was always around it. I started laying flooring when I was 14 or 15 years old and I always puttered around with woodworking and furniture and building.' His business — Father and Son Creation — came about by accident just over two years ago. 'We started building little knick knack stuff like shelves, planter boxes, cooler stands and then someone I built something for asked me if I repaired furniture. I said, 'Yeah, sure.' ' The customer said his wife inherited an old dresser that had been her aunt's. Made in the 1930s, the wife couldn't bear to part with it, but it wasn't exactly usable either. 'Still to this day, that was my favorite piece I've restored,' Chauvin said. 'I brought it back to him and he said, 'I have several more pieces for you.' That's how this all started. It just fell into place.' Word got out about Chauvin's skills and now his shop is filled with furniture in need of repairing and scraps of wood for carpentry projects he is building from scratch. Alongside his 15-year-old son, the pair diligently scrap away broken veneer and recreate missing or broken pieces of furniture to give new life to historic pieces. 'I'm kind of a history guru and I love the challenge of restoring pieces that were made with tools we don't have anymore,' he said. 'Back then they didn't have stains. They used teas, coffee grounds and the sun to stain wood. Phillips headscrews weren't invented until the 1940s so pieces made before that mostly used flathead screws. And before that, they used hand-cut nails. That's when you get into the 1700s and 1800s. The stuff they did with what they had is astonishing.' Chauvin is in the process of restoring part one of a three-piece bookshelf built in 1890. The owner said the bookshelf had belonged to famed Blue Dog artist George Rodrigue, who kept it in his New Orleans studio. 'They didn't have power tools, saws, nothing,' he said. 'Yet the piece is covered in inlays — which are incredibly hard to do even today. It was all carved by hand.' Chauvin — who does not use chemicals or paint strippers — said he is scraping the original finish from the shelves using sanders and wooden blocks. The new owner wants a natural finish on all three pieces. Chauvin said he's always learning and developing his craft. 'With antiques, if you mess up you mess up bad,' he said. 'If you ruin the finish, ruin the wood you can't just go find another one. I do a lot of research before I start a project and develop a plan of what the customer wants and what's possible.' Chauvin said the process of restoring antique pieces is becoming a lost art. 'There's people who do woodworking, there's people who do furniture but there's not a lot who do antiques anymore,' he said. 'Part of the reason I wanted to start this business is to teach my kids how to do it, and keep them away from too much time with technology and apps.' He said his son is getting the hang of it, but is fearful of making mistakes. ''You're going to,' I tell him. People ask me if I mess up. I say, 'absolutely.' It's part of learning. What do you do when you mess up? Learn how to fix it. I've never destroyed a piece, but I've messed up, I've broken things, I've had to remake things. It happens. But each time I learn how to fix it.' Chauvin's favorite wood to work with is red oak. 'You can do a lot with regular plywood, too. You can use red oak or maple, both of which you can get locally,' he said. 'I'm big on local. I'll pay more for local over ordering. I'm a local business so I want to buy all I can from local businesses, too.' Another piece Chauvin is restoring is a bar built in the mid-1800s in Lebanon. It belonged to the father of a local family who brought the piece with him when he moved to America. Inside the bar's top lid is where bottles and shot glasses are kept. It is lined with glass and the lid has a mirror. Inside the bar's lower cabinet is a turntable and radio — both of which are powered by light bulb electricity. The piece survived a hurricane but has some water damage to the outside doors. It also has sun damage from when it was left outside to dry while the storm-damaged home was being repaired. 'This was the father's prized possession. Every weekend, if they had company over, he would put on his records. They were all in Lebanese so nobody could understand them. He would serve liquor out of this cabinet. The family wants to keep it as original as possible. They only want to replace what we have to.' Chavin said this furniture is one of his 'research pieces.' 'I have to replace the veneer top so I'm trying to find the exact match. Yes, we could totally strip it, add a new finish and make it look like the day it was made but all the character and charm would be gone.' When an antique piece is restored, there is no better feeling, Chauvin said. 'When you spend days, weeks, even months working on it and then it's done, I hate to see them leave sometimes. If I could keep everything, I would keep everything.'
NBC News
19-06-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Bernie Sanders dives into a key House battleground Trump carried in 2024 with a new endorsement
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Thursday announced his endorsement of Democrat Rebecca Cooke for Congress in Wisconsin's 3rd District — making a foray into one of a handful of districts that could decide the next House majority, which President Donald Trump carried by 7 points less than a year ago. 'Rebecca is a working class fighter who developed her populist roots in rural Western Wisconsin. A daughter of farmers, a waitress and a small business owner — she's lived through failed policies from Washington elites and is ready to deliver tangible outcomes that working people will actually feel,' Sanders said in a statement shared first with NBC News. Sanders' endorsement brings renewed national attention to a race that Cooke lost by less than 3 percentage points last year as GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden earned a second term. And it also highlights a notable cross-section of support for Cooke — who has also been endorsed by the Blue Dog Democrats' PAC, a longtime supporter of party moderates — as Democrats in Washington and around the country review the party's policy platforms, personalities and coalitions after they suffered defeat to Trump in the 2024 election. Cooke said in an interview that Sanders' endorsement meant a lot to her because 'Bernie really is no bulls---.' 'He's been able to pass legislation in the fray of Washington while remaining really true to his core values that center around the working class, and his voice has never really wavered,' she said. Cooke said she voted for Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary and has valued his authenticity ever since. 'Why wouldn't I seek support from someone like that in an era, kind of, where nothing feels authentic, when Bernie really is?' she added. Last year, Cooke campaigned on a message focused largely on the economy and ran ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin in her district. She also ran with the support of the New Democrat Coalition and Blue Dog Democrats, two groups of moderate congressional Democrats who tout their support for bipartisanship and working across the aisle. The Blue Dog PAC endorsed her again this month. Sanders followers and some Blue Dog types have clashed over the years over policy and the direction of the Democratic Party. Cooke acknowledged that 'it could seem surprising, you know, to welcome an endorsement like that from Senator Sanders.' 'But I really think that it's important that we let go of purity tests in politics and that we stay disciplined on creating election wins,' she said, adding that in her campaign she hopes to shed the labels of 'moderate' or 'progressive' and gain support from a broad base of voters. 'I am a Blue Dog and a new Dem, but I'm also very progressive where it counts,' Cooke said. 'I don't like the labels and the boxes that kind of have been created, because immediately, you know, you're written off and 'othered' in your party because you're this or because you're that. And really, I'm just — I'm running because I'm for western Wisconsin, period.' The national stakes Democrats need a net gain of at least three districts to retake a majority in the House in 2026. And Wisconsin's 3rd District is expected to be highly competitive again in 2026. It's one of just nine Republican-held House seats rated as toss-ups by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. As Cooke welcomes Sanders' support in a district Trump has carried three times, after Barack Obama and other Democratic presidential nominees carried it in previous elections, the Democratic Party is grappling with how to move forward from the 2024 election. Some Democrats — like Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts — have said Democrats alienated some voters in recent years by insisting that candidates agree with certain socially progressive norms and use 'woke' language that not all voters understand. 'We have to, you know, quit demonizing people along the political spectrum. Otherwise we're, we're never going to get there. We're never going to achieve the things that we want to get done," Cooke said. Sanders, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020, kicked off a nationwide 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour this year, rallying with voters across the country and urging Democrats to fight Trump and his allies and to listen to voters' concerns about the economy. Sanders made several stops in Wisconsin, including in Eau Claire County, which is in the 3rd District. Sanders' endorsement statement praised Cooke as a potential "partner in Congress" who shares his goal of "building opportunities for the working class." "She will be an ally to me in the House as she works to enforce antitrust laws against corporate monopolies that have bankrupted family farms like hers, raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage and expand Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing," Sanders said in the statement. He has already thrown his support behind several other candidates in the 2026 midterm elections. They include Maine's former stateSenate president Troy Jackson, who is running for governor; Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed; and Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney, who is challenging Rep. Shri Thanedar in the Democratic primary in a Detroit-area district.
Wall Street Journal
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘BLUE: The Life and Art of George Rodrigue' Review: A Louisianian Painter on PBS
During an interview for 'BLUE: The Life and Art of George Rodrigue,' the artist's son Jacques says that if you had called his grandmother a 'Cajun,' she might have slapped your face. But the 'derogatory term' that would have ticked off grandma was something his father—best known for his 'Blue Dog' paintings (see the Absolut vodka ads)—made into a brand. And a cause. Rodrigue, who died in 2013, was a repository of influences both ethnic and artistic, much like current-day Cajuns themselves. Descended from the French-speaking Canadians exiled by the British after the invasion of Nova Scotia in 1755, the people who would eventually be called 'Cajun' found refuge in southern Louisiana and created a culture that food and music—and some say Rodrigue himself—channeled into mainstream America during the late 20th century.
