Chauvin Sculpture Garden

From a useful website:

Little is known about the reclusive Kenny Hill, a bricklayer by trade, born around 1950. In 1988, he settled on some property on the bayou in Chauvin (pronounced show-van), Louisiana—population 3,400. Hill pitched a tent as his home and, over time, built a small rustic home that demonstrated an interesting use of space and attention to detail. Then, in 1990, without explanation, he began transforming his lush bayou environment into a fantastic chronicle of the world as seen through his eyes.

Less than a decade later, more than 100 primarily religious concrete sculptures densely pack the narrow, bayouside property. The sculptures are a profound mixture of Biblical reference, Cajun colors, and the evident pain and struggle of the artist’s life. Most figures—black, white, male, female, child, or solider—are guided, supported, or lifted by seemingly weightless angels. The unique angels, some inviting passage, others prohibiting, vary from blue skinned, bare-footed, and sightless to regal celestial figures clad in medieval garb with the black boots of the local shrimp fishermen.

AG and I visited here this past weekend, and my first reaction was: “this is what happens when you don’t have an editor”. But it was an unexpected and pleasant surprise near the “end of the line” in southern Louisiana. I also have to give a shout out to Annie Miller’s Sons’ Swamp Tours and Bayou Delight Restaurant, both outside of Houma. The former was pleasant and reasonably priced, and the latter was just an obscenity of southern Louisiana cuisine (i.e. fried food “porn”: fried alligator, crawfish, frogs’ legs, boudin balls, shrimp, etc.) I recommend the “Cajun Platter”. See below for more pictures of the sculpture garden.

Saint Marron

St. Marron, a folk saint unique to New Orleans, was the patron of runaway slaves; the name derives from the French word marron, meaning a runaway. He was usually represented by an image of St. Anthony, apparently this saint not only found lost people, he aided those who “got lost” on purpose.

-Carolyn Morrow Long, A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau

Botanica moments

1. I went to a rather scary botanica in east Oakland right before I left California. Saw a lot of interesting stuff, and they had dozens of statues of Santa Muerte. If that had been the first botanica I had ever visited, I would have been really creeped out by it.

In the back, next to the consulting room (botanicas tend to do a lot of that kind of business), there were two twin niches: one to the Virgin of Guadalupe, another to la Santa Muerte, all decked out as if she were a Virgin. If I had a camera, and was permitted to take a picture, I would have. The contrast between the “light Mother” and “dark Mother” was Jungian theory in living, folk Catholic color. They were going to have a “fiesta de Santa Muerte”, but I could not make it, since by then I had left California.

2. Not quite a botanica, but something similar: it was at the New Orleans Spiritual Voudou Temple, which if you go in the entrance, looks like a botanica with a New Age flavor and ridiculously overpriced. Anyway, I took advantage of their offer to go into the “altar room”, though few ceremonies actually take place there. As I entered and exited, I noticed a large doll dressed in white with a mitre on its head.

“Hey,” I thought to myself, “that’s John Paul II.” I was too afraid to ask my guide about the doll, but I was not surprised to see him there. So you know, at least in one place in New Orleans, a Voudou priestess invokes the spirit of the late Pontiff. JP-2, we love u!

There is an actual botanica up the street a bit from downtown, but it mostly deals in candle magic and statues. Plus, it has more of the original, Cuban santeria / palo mayombe flavor to it. It has a particularly impressive statue of St. Lazarus, or Babalu-aye.

3. AG and I went on a tour of the French Quarter that ended at St. Louis No. 1 cemetery and the tomb of Marie Laveau. There is still devotion in the city to the Voudou Queen, and various piles of Mardi Gras beads and trinkets were left at the foot of her free standing grave. But I noticed another offering on the side of the tomb that was a little odd: a copy of Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged. I hope her devotees will bring her better reading material in the future.

On Miracles

above: from the parish church in St. Martinville, Louisiana

Disbelieve nothing amazing concerning the gods or divine dogmas.

-the third Pythagorean symbol

Two blogs that I read, from two entirely different people, have had posts on miracles recently. The first comes from that rather snarky Lutheran blogger who says what all Protestants think but don’t feel they can say, Josh S. In his post on miracles, he basically takes the “minimalist” position: the miraculous only exists to sustain and establish the Word of God, which is faith in Jesus Christ; the only thing of any importance:

The Death of Amédé Ardoin

Origins of Zydeco

A clip from a documentary

Bottle Spells

Lafayette, Louisiana, September 3rd, 2004 :

Among the soda bottles and lost basketballs floating down the Vermilion River, there are things much odder and mysterious.

The Vermilion River could be called a one-way hoodoo highway.

Over the years, more than four dozen ordinary, little brown plastic prescription bottles have been found in the murky water — each filled with blue or pink powder and strange, rambling spells meticulously written on scraps of paper.

Paul LaHaye, the watershed projects manager with the Bayou Vermilion District, oversees the collection of tons of debris pulled from the river each year.

Each time one of the brown bottles surfaces, LaHaye dries out the contents and places them in a plastic baggy or cardboard box labeled “Voodoo,” that sits in his office.

Read the rest here