bayouteche
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Field Notes from Bayou Teche
Somewhere between careful piloting and gentle persuasion, we kept the shantyboat pointed downstream. The Atchafalaya doesn’t take kindly to plans. Humidity climbed, moods sagged, but we held course mostly on charisma and sheer will. After days navigating muddy channels and dense cypress corridors, we pulled out at Butte La Rose with the intention of seeing…
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Growing Roots in Franklin
I was gonna make a joke that we’ve been in Franklin so long we’ve established a garden around the boat, but the reality is maybe we have a lawn of water hyacinth now, but in the next hour the river’s clear. The current is somewhat inexplicable due to the floodgates at Calumet being closed and…
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Tiger Verdin Is an Unstoppable Force
This guy, Tiger Verdin, is an unstoppable force in beautiful Franklin Louisiana. Here’s a guy who is the public relations director for the city, but also plays an important role in the community theater, is an advocate for Main Streets, is a purveyor of public pocket parks, is a mama hen to local businesses—I don’t…
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Freddie DeCourt, Mayor Who Builds Things
The other day I interviewed the mayor of New Iberia, Freddie DeCourt. Freddie was an interesting guy and an atypical mayor. I don’t usually have a whole lotta interest in politicians—I’m usually much more drawn to tradespeople, engineers, construction folk, builders, artists—people who do stuff with their hands. Freddie feels more like the cut-up class…
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Scenes from the Arnaudville Pop-Up
Left over photos from our pop-up in Arnaudville. Photos by Lynda Frese.
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Cribbage under the Moon
An enjoyable evening playing cribbage with Age while the moon was showing off over Bayou Teche at New Iberia.
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What It Takes to Open a Swing Bridge
What’s it take to open a seldom-used swing bridge for a shantyboat? Turns out, it takes a skid steer, a hydraulic auger, a custom-fabbed attachment, a couple police cars, and a utility boat. Oh, and one absolute hero named Andre from the Louisiana Department of Transportation. We radioed ahead thinking it might be a button…
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Dotty Back on the Teche
Shantyboat Dotty back on the water in Bayou Teche. Prepping and launching are definitely harder solo, but I’ve learned to just be slow and methodical. Slightly complicated by a date with a bridge tender at 8 AM requiring special equipment.
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An Evening at NUNU in Arnaudville
We had the honor of bringing Dotty to the remarkable NUNU Arts & Culture Collective in Arnaudville earlier this week. The night unfolded in true Louisiana fashion: a community potluck, incredible live music from Maya Kamaty, and an open invitation for folks to climb aboard the shantyboat, share stories, or just hang out. And hang…
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Lynda Frese is out here making art like the Earth is watching
We sat down with her this week—painter, collage artist, professor emeritus from University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Lynda grew up in Rhode Island, but her work is soaked through with bayou light and Louisiana mysticism. Her collages pull together satellite scans, saucers, sacred forests, and pigment ground from the literal dirt of this place. She…
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“Patriarchs in Stately Rows”
“The trees along the stream’s course are seen first and remembered longest. The live oak makes here its greatest stand in Louisiana: patriarchs in stately rows, long files for several miles; double avenues, with branches arching high above the heads of passers-by, leaves mingling with leaves; clumps at the banks, hanging over the water. At…
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A Fourth of July Salvage Operation
I took a walk this morning and scouted out the bridges across Bayou Teche. Okay, so maybe some of the bridges on the bayou are less passable for the shantyboat. Later we connected with some folks in Arnaudville—the weirdos and freaks, as George affectionately described them—and soon found ourselves invited to a neighborly gathering at…
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Danger! Wreck!
Looking at the routes we are planning to take through Bayou Teche this summer on the maritime maps. With numerous wrecks in the southern part of the Bayou, what exactly are we getting into? This is near Patterson Louisiana where we hope to have a pop-up exhibition. At pop-ups, we dock the shantyboat and invite…
