SHADOWS AT THE SHADOWS

Shadows on the Teche photo by
Victoria Sullivan

According to Morris Raphael’s book about Weeks Hall, former owner of The Shadows-on-the-Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana, the “master” of The Shadows was an excellent photographer and “anyone with a Leica camera had a passport to The Shadows…Weeks owned two Leicas and was a pioneer of sorts in the field of color photography…Weeks did such brilliant work with the camera that the Eastman Kodak Company recognized his talent [by providing] him with certain film and processes and regarded him as one of their experimental people…”* If Hall were alive today, he’d have given James Edmunds several passports to the Shadows for his work in “Shadows at the Shadows,” an arresting gallery of color photographs now on exhibit at New Iberia’s famous National Trust mansion on the Bayou Teche.

I must make the disclaimer that I’m not a professional art critic, but I can tell when a photographer has a “good eye,” and Edmunds’ work surpasses that general evaluation of his photography. The exhibit ranges from a stunning photograph, “Shapes and Shadows,” that features a huge olive jar formerly displayed in Weeks Hall’s garden to an unusual shot of the “Floor at Bergamot” in New York City. Photographs of landscapes, rooms, bridges, the moon, courthouses, and, of course, Edmunds’ favorite subject, his lovely wife Susan (“She mesa me smile” shot with a NIKON D5100) are handsomely framed and hanging on the walls of a room in the Visitor’s Center at The Shadows. The exhibit formally opened October 21 but will be featured through November 28, 2017. 

Most of Edmunds’ photographs were taken on an iPhone 7+, and Edmunds will be leading a workshop,”Phone Eye: Making the Most of the Camera in Your Smart Device,” on Saturday, November 11, 2017, at The Shadows. Edmunds’ skill with this device is evident in 18 of the 54 photographs featured, but his proficiency with SONY and NIKON cameras equals his mastery of the Smart device. I was impressed with his ability to capture the shadowy rooms and grounds of the famous National Trust property, and my favorites among these photographs are entitled “Night Gallery” and “Pantry.” 

I’ve observed Edmunds’ career since the 70’s when he emerged as a photographer, and have watched him expand his skills to include work as publisher of a newspaper, writer, filmmaker, musical producer, art critic — a regular Renaissance man.  I’m particularly impressed with his advances in photography. He shares many of his arresting photographs on Facebook where I first noticed his work recording shadowy forms in equally shadowy rooms.

Edmunds and his wife, Susan, have become avid travelers since Susan’s retirement from her work as Public Relations Director at the Iberia Parish Library.  Susan, a naturalist, is also developing her talents as a nature photographer. She and James spend weeks touring small towns in the U.S., as well as the larger cities of New York and San Francisco and have a kind of Whitmanesque appreciation for the American scene. They are among New Iberia’s most talented couples and have contributed much to the culture of the Queen City on the Teche. I also think that Edmunds has helped to live out Weeks Hall’s wish for the Shadows-on-the-Teche: “…Its inherent charm to me has been its placid seclusion from a changing world, and in that will be its value to others. This quality must be preserved…”* 

*Weeks Hall, The Master of the Shadows by Morris Raphael

A FESTIVAL WORTH CELEBRATING

Months ago, I made a commitment to help raise funds for and participate in a “first” event, “Heaven, Hope & Hurricanes,” a spring gala featuring our good friends Brenda DeKeyzer Lowry and Joshua “Bubba” Murrell that will take place in Sewanee, TN, my second home. It’s sponsored by the Advisory Board and Sisters at the Convent of St. Mary, and as I’m both a board member and an Associate of the Order of St. Mary, I’m firmly committed. At the time I agreed to the Sewanee event, I had no idea I’d be invited to participate in a reading at another “first” event, The Dave Robicheaux Literary Festival named for James Lee Burke’s famous fictional character who has made places like New Iberia’s Main Street and Victor’s Café familiar to readers of books in the mystery genre. The festival will take place during the same week-end as the Sewanee event. I had to decline the second invite with big regrets because The Literary Festival is going to be one of New Iberia, Louisiana’s most notable events this year.

Storytellers from Iberia Parish and from throughout Louisiana will participate in a literary round-up April 8-10; will join in festivities like “Bayou City Jam,” a cochon de lait at The Shadows-on-the-Teche; a Neon Rain 5K Run; a ULL Academic Symposium of panel discussions; and an authors/publishers roundtable. The Iberia Performing Arts League will perform sketches based on a Dave Robicheaux novel and other one-act plays. And, of course, there’ll be music and food from a food truck festival in Bouligny Plaza. Saturday evening “Black Cherry Blues and Boudin” will be featured, and the Grand Theater will show In The Electric Mist for the occasion. There’ll also be a bouree tournament for Cajun card players. The only way in which I can participate is by having a table at the book fair sponsored by Books Along the Teche, manned by my good friend, Janet Faulk-Gonzales and featuring several of Janet’s, Victoria Sullivan’s and my own titles, some of which are based in New Iberia.  Look for the table in front of the Chamber of Commerce office!

We’ve had lots of festivals in New Iberia, but this event seems to include everything that reflects the joie de vivre of Cajun country, and I’m one more sad puppy because I’ll miss the entire week-end of festivities. I hope one of my friends will save a commemorative poster created by Trent Oubre and will send it to me.

I’ll be thinking about this celebration while passing a good time on The Mountain and wishing I could be in two places at one time!

  

BLOGGING AND “THE BERRY”…

Shadows on the Teche, New Iberia

Often, when I’m meditating on a subject for a blog, I think about E.B. White, the master essayist, who probably would’ve been kicked out of the blogosphere today because his essays in the New Yorker, Ford Times, New York Times, Harper’s, and other journals would’ve been too lengthy for the average post-modern writer and reader. In the post-modern world, any writer can be as good as any other writer, no matter how scantily thought out or hastily researched his work… everything seems to be considered equal in all fields of artistic endeavor... talent is relative... "anyone can do it,” etc.

However, I don’t subscribe to the idea that all creations are equal and believe that poets, writers, and artists need to put in 10,000 hours of practice at their craft–according to one evaluator, it takes at least that much time for a person to become successful at an endeavor. My mentor in the poetry realm, Louisiana poet Darrell Bourque, immediately comes to mind. Then there’s Paul Schexnayder, a prolific New Iberia artist who has gained national recognition for his whimsical art. (Paul illustrated my young adult book, Kajun Kween.) Today, only a few people achieve excellence in the fields of literature and art, although all the tweeting, blogging, face-booking, e-booking activity, and online poetry/art corners would seem to indicate otherwise. That’s why I frequently say I’m still practicing, and I don’t have too many years left in which to practice.

E.B. White, the ultimate essayist, admitted that some people feel it’s presumptuous of a writer to assume that his little excursions or his small observations will interest the reader, and he says there’s some justice in their complaints. He confessed that he’d always been aware that he was by nature self-absorbed…and, in his writing, had given too much attention to his own life, rather than to the lives of others. He writes, “But when I am discouraged or downcast, I need only fling open the door of my closet, and there, hidden behind everything else, hangs the mantle of Michel de Montaigne, smelling slightly of camphor…” He refers to another master essayist, Montaigne, who certainly put in his 10,000 hours, and whose excellent essays mock the idea that everyone who takes up the pen or writes a blog is a natural–born writer and needs no revision after his/her scribbling hits the page.

These thoughts came to me this morning as I considered writing a blog about New Iberia, Louisiana, (aka “The Berry”) the town in which I have a home part of the year, the Queen City of the Bayou Teche where I lived for over forty years before deciding to spend part of the year on The Mountain in Sewanee, Tennessee. The thoughts were inspired by an article about CNN recognizing New Iberia as a city among small towns in the U.S. that have made a “comeback” in recent years. However, when I look back at a 12-page article I once wrote about “The Berry,” I realize that I can't do justice to New Iberia in a sketchy blog just to satisfy post-modern readers who read on the run and who had just as soon have a 300-500-word vignette to affix to the refrigerator with a colorful magnet.

From Kajun Kween

In the original article about New Iberia that I wrote for Acadiana Profile magazine during the late 70’s, I described New Iberia in this manner: “History, romance and art are almost organic to New Iberia. Something in the nature of the city–abounding with live oaks, cypress, banana clumps, bamboo thickets, rice and sugar cane and heavy with the influence of its Spanish, French and Acadian settlers–has inspired many an artist and poet to deal with the lush landscape which entranced Spanish colonists who migrated to the Teche country. These Spaniards gave their trading post the name “Nueva Iberia,” in honor of the “land of flowers, a phrase describing their native Iberian peninsula of Malaga, Spain.”

The article also highlights the oil industries that have contributed to the town’s growth… the Port of Iberia, which opened new avenues of industry in the mid twentieth century and that originated as a drainage channel running about seven miles south to the Intracoastal Canal… the Acadiana Regional Airport… and the cultural renaissance that began in 1972 with commercial ramifications in “Operation Impact,” a downtown revitalization project that centered on Bouligny Plaza and resulted in widespread remodeling of downtown buildings, providing a new face for New Iberia.

From Kajun Kween

These snippets about New Iberia are only the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps they’re not even short enough to be called a post-modern blog. I’ve written four novels set in New Iberia, worked as a feature writer for the Daily Iberian and associate editor of Acadiana Lifestyle, and when I return to New Iberia each year, I still find much to write about the rich culture, history, and economic wealth of this fascinating town of 35,000 people who are a mix of Spanish, French, Creole, German, Black, and Scots descent. Each time I return to New Iberia after a half-year sojourn on The Mountain and take my first walk down historic Main Street, I’m greeted by townspeople whose hospitality and joie de vivre are unparalleled in Acadiana. If I stop to eat at one of the restaurants along the way, I’m confident I’ll find cuisine that is c’est magnifique at any place I enter and put my feet under the table! I’d be bold enough to say the cuisine surpasses the food I once sampled in Paris, France.

Blog, essay, post-modern sketch, whatever…I just wanted to salute this town that deserves its crown as Queen City of the Teche. Not every place can make the boast that if tourists once taste Bayou Teche water, they’re irresistibly drawn back to the little town that sits on its banks... and eventually settle there. Brava Nueva Iberia!

Photograph of The Shadows on the Teche National Historic Trust Property by Victoria I. Sullivan; drawings of the Greater Iberia Gumbo Cook-Off and the New Iberia Hot Pepper Eating Contest by Paul Schexnayder.