Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Spring 2006 - (Page 63) New Orleans artist Phil Sandusky documents the ravages of Hurricane Katrina in plein-air paintings above: Debris Field with Steps of House and Cars, Tennessee between North Galvez Street and North Prieur Sreet above right: Sloops in the Road and uncertainty. In a sense, they are historical moments burned into the city’s history. Seeing these heart-wrenching images stacked side by side in his cramped Uptown studio, viewers with heightened imaginations can almost hear somber strains of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” drifting through the room. Sandusky has spent the greater part of his career as an artist seeking out what he describes as “mundane, ordinary” subjects to paint. “I have felt a calling to show people the beauty in the ordinary things they often take for granted,” he wrote in a post-Katrina journal of his memories and experiences. “Also, when the subject is unre- markable, the seeing and painting dominate the work. Katrina caused me to temporarily diverge from this artistic course, to paint the most dramatic and horrific scenes of devastation because it’s my duty. It’s my city. I don’t know if I will ever be able to observe and make a painting of a wood frame house again without being aware of how it would look if ravaged by the forces of nature, and how easy it is for that to happen. I believe that everyone’s point of view should be so altered. If New Orleans is to survive and thrive in the third millennium it is important that we appreciate how beautiful and fragile it is.” Spring 2006/LOUISIANA CULTURAL VISTAS 63
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