"Fats Dominos Cadillac" PhotographThis photograph was just accepted into a juried exhibit - "First Annual University of Mobile Juried Art Exhibition" which will open to the public May 3-30, 2008 at Thomas T. Martin Hall on the University of Mobile campus. If you are in the area, you may want to drop by to see the exhibit.
It was was also chosen by the National Endowment of the Arts to illustrate a story in their NEArts Magazine (Vol. 5 2006). The article, "Restoring the Quality of Life: NEA Assists Hurricane Ravaged Arts Organizations", focused on how the NEA assisted art organizations and artists with the aftermath of Katrina, and featured two other of my Katrina photographs.
I was asked to contribute to the article because I was the recipient of a $1,000.00 grant from the Hattiesburg Arts Council to attend the Bruce Barnbaum Photographic Workshop. The workshop grant was funded by a parent grant from the NEA to assist artists in the area affected by Katrina. This workshop gave me the opportunity to take my art to a new level and am grateful that I had the opportunity to have attended.
It was was also chosen by the National Endowment of the Arts to illustrate a story in their NEArts Magazine (Vol. 5 2006). The article, "Restoring the Quality of Life: NEA Assists Hurricane Ravaged Arts Organizations", focused on how the NEA assisted art organizations and artists with the aftermath of Katrina, and featured two other of my Katrina photographs.
I was asked to contribute to the article because I was the recipient of a $1,000.00 grant from the Hattiesburg Arts Council to attend the Bruce Barnbaum Photographic Workshop. The workshop grant was funded by a parent grant from the NEA to assist artists in the area affected by Katrina. This workshop gave me the opportunity to take my art to a new level and am grateful that I had the opportunity to have attended.
The Story Behind the Photograph
"Fats Dominos' Cadillac" is yet another artistic photograph that came out of the vast destruction of Hurricane Katrina. Back in 2006, some of our same photographic workshop people had the opportunity to go into the Ninth Ward of New Orleans to document the damage of the flooding of the Ninth Ward. Our intent was to create artistic images out of a disaster that destroyed thousands of homes.
While photographing homes that were filled with inches of mold, cars that had been deposited on top of other cars by the water, and broken dreams (actually a heartbreaking task), we heard that Fats Domino's famous pink Cadillac was in the area. A few of us hopped into my car and went to look for his recording studio where it was supposed to be.
We found the studio, but saw no Cadillac. Disappointed, we were about ready to leave
when we saw a man coming out of the studio, locking the door behind him.
The man was quite a character. He wore overalls and a T-shirt and had a very long, bushy beard and, of course, a baseball type cap. It turned out that the man was a musician and a childhood friend who went to school with Fats. Presently he was managing the studio, or what was left of it. He plays in a Cajun band in New Orleans. He let us photograph him, but said we could not publish the photo. That photograph would have been a winner, too!
We struck up a conversation, and when he found out that we were a group of photographers who were documenting the storm damage (many of our group were from out of state), he invited us in to have a look.
The entire house had been flooded, so everything had been stripped out leaving only the wall studs, and this pink Cadillac sitting in an empty room. The only other things in the entire old house were a pink toilet and lavatory in an adjoining room. That, and two crystal chandeliers that they salvaged from the ceilings that they would again use that were sitting in the back of the couch. They are being saved to hang when the studio is rebuilt.
The old Pink Cadillac had been sawed off and cusomt-made into a couch years ago. Before the flood, when you sat on it, the rear lights lit up. Fats' friend told us that Fats planned to rebuild the studio and have the Cadillac couch refurbished and make the lights work once again. He told us that the real Cadillac was with Fats in an area of New Orleans that did not flood.
While photographing homes that were filled with inches of mold, cars that had been deposited on top of other cars by the water, and broken dreams (actually a heartbreaking task), we heard that Fats Domino's famous pink Cadillac was in the area. A few of us hopped into my car and went to look for his recording studio where it was supposed to be.
We found the studio, but saw no Cadillac. Disappointed, we were about ready to leave
when we saw a man coming out of the studio, locking the door behind him.
The man was quite a character. He wore overalls and a T-shirt and had a very long, bushy beard and, of course, a baseball type cap. It turned out that the man was a musician and a childhood friend who went to school with Fats. Presently he was managing the studio, or what was left of it. He plays in a Cajun band in New Orleans. He let us photograph him, but said we could not publish the photo. That photograph would have been a winner, too!
We struck up a conversation, and when he found out that we were a group of photographers who were documenting the storm damage (many of our group were from out of state), he invited us in to have a look.
The entire house had been flooded, so everything had been stripped out leaving only the wall studs, and this pink Cadillac sitting in an empty room. The only other things in the entire old house were a pink toilet and lavatory in an adjoining room. That, and two crystal chandeliers that they salvaged from the ceilings that they would again use that were sitting in the back of the couch. They are being saved to hang when the studio is rebuilt.
The old Pink Cadillac had been sawed off and cusomt-made into a couch years ago. Before the flood, when you sat on it, the rear lights lit up. Fats' friend told us that Fats planned to rebuild the studio and have the Cadillac couch refurbished and make the lights work once again. He told us that the real Cadillac was with Fats in an area of New Orleans that did not flood.
The couch had been on the cover of the only Christmas Album that Fats Domino ever made.
The album was "Christmas Gumbo" from 1993.
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