The Cane River Creoles

How is a culture defined? By its location and architecture, by its music and art, by its food and traditions or by its people? Is the history of a culture drawn from within the wall of its churches, or from the stories passed on from generation to generation?

The dictionary defines culture as an act of developing by education and training, refinement of intellectual and artistic taste; and the customary beliefs, social forms, and materials traits of a racial, religious or social group.

Communities and neighborhoods can have some of these traits that could make it a culture. Families can develop traditions that are carried on for generations, but this is not necessarily a culture. In the neighborhood where I grew up, there wee many traits bordering on culture, but it was not consistent nor did it last.

The Creoles of Cane River, on the other hand, has every component to define it as a culture. Cane Rivers answers all of the questions - architecture, land, music, food a location and most importantly, people.

Paintings the Creoles of Cane River was not totally an unknown to me, I was painting history. I painted the history of Creoles who lived near on and around plantations and on the river. My approach to this project was to combine the past, present and future into the series of paintings to tell an accurate story of the Creoles of Cane River. My paintings could be a support to the research and documentation being discovered on a daily bases.

The last painting in the exhibit is entitled Creole Family Tree. This painting measures 72 x 72 and is composed of 14 paintings some of which were completed in 2004 and the remainder in 2005. There are images of the past and present surrounded by portraits. It contains elements of its culture, land, the river, history, the state map, portraits of Creoles (many of whom I met) and a roster of some Creoles families names.

The Cane River Creoles have establish traditions that have been passed down from generations. These paintings are a small part of the documentation to show America their contributions and hopefully will be a catalyst for the development of research, art and discoveries of the important of the first established Creole Community in the United States.

-Gilbert Fletcher, 2006 ------- Through a commission from the NSU Creole Heritage Center (CHC), artist Gilbert Fletcher has produced a reflection of the Creole legacy of the Louisiana Cane River community. CHC has chosen this means as another effort to meet its mission of documentation, preserving and promoting the Creole Culture and heritage New Orleans was chosen as the site for the initial opening of this traveling are exhibit with planned presentations held throughout the state.

Samples of the paintings in this collection

Africa House (24w x 24h - Oil)	Badin Roque House (24w x 24h - Oil)	Cane River (50w x 50h - Oil)
Clementin Hunter Tour Time (24w x 24h - Oil)	Creole Family Tree (72w x72h - Oil)	Front Street (24w x 24h - Oil)
Issac Dupre - The Last Cowboy on Cane River (24w x 30h - Oil)	Jones House (36w x24h - Oil)	Lair LaCour (24w x 36h - Oil)
Mason de Maraie (24w x 24h - Oil)	Melrose Plantation (24w x24h - Oil)	Metoyer House (24w x 24h - Oil)
Mickey Moran (24w x 30h - Oil)	Mrs. Roque's Meat Pies (w x h - Oil)	Pecan Grove (24w x 24h - Oil)
Roque Brothers Farm (24w x 24h - Oil)	St. Augustine (50w x 50h - Oil)	St. Charles Chapel (24w x 30h - Oil)
Terrel Delphin (24w x 36h - Oil)