What's happening this week on Art rocks?

A south Louisiana artist also remembered as a chronicler of Cajun culture keeping the heat turned up in a musical talent incubator.

The wisdom of a basketball coach explored through drama and the jewel of an historic church.

Still standing tall in Ascension Parish, that's what's in store next on Art rocks.

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Hello, I'm James Fox Smith, publisher of Country Roads magazine.

Pen and ink drawings by Louisiana artist Floyd Sonnier display a quiet genius for capturing the essence of acadiana's people, places and things.

As he drew, Sonja had a passion for documenting rural life in the Acadiana parishes where he grew up.

Sonja, who is sometimes still known as the artist of the Cajuns, passed away in 2002, but his work lives on in many homes and businesses, including his gallery in Scott, Louisiana, where Floyd's wife, Verlee continues to tell the stories behind his work.

For I grew up on a sharecropper's farm in Acadia Parish in an area called Pointe La, which means Black Pointe.

He started drawing with charcoal that he collected from under the big black iron pots that were used on the farm.

For Boucherie, he's making soap, washing work clothes, and he had a little cigar box that he would keep his charcoal in and draw life size animals on the walls in the barn and under his mother's kitchen table, on every little brick on the fireplace.

He just loved to draw.

Throughout his life.

Then he went to the University of Lafayette, which was USL.

He actually majored in commercial art.

Now, I think his graphic arts.

He redesigned, Evangeline made he made her more modern.

Her skirt was shorter.

He redesigned when he was working as a commercial artist.

There's also a rice company, Cajun Country Rice, that has one of his drawings on their bag, which is in every store in South Louisiana.

And that drawing on that bag is our son Marc, playing the accordion.

He always said he wanted to be considered a historian as well as an artist.

So he loved his Cajun culture.

He loved the French language.

He loved the customs.

He loved the music.

He wanted people to understand how he felt by doing his drawings.

He was pretty much appointed unofficially as an ambassador.

The way Floyd grew up was anything but a plantation.

Life.

He was one of 57 first cousins.

His dad was one of ten children, and they all lived in the same area.

They lived the same way.

They were all sharecroppers.

They didn't have electricity until Floyd was a teenager, so he experienced life studying with a lamp.

The barn was a major influence in his life.

They spent a lot of time in the barn playing, working, working with animals.

They spent a lot of time helping their parents, getting up early in the morning to pick cotton before school feeding animals.

They formed yams, sweet potatoes, corn.

They always did bushes when it was very cold, and family and friends would gather and help, and everyone would leave with meat, crackers, boudin, sausage, they shared.

The black kettle was used for many things around the farm.

What is best known for and for his drawings were like bush trees, but they were used to boil work clothes to make soap they had.

And then he uses the houses in his drawings are referred to as Cajun houses.

They had the steps on the outside, and the reason for that was if they had steps inside their home, they were taxed for having a two story home.

So the story goes that the boys would sleep upstairs and they called it the Le Gar song.

Yeah.

Boys said Sundays were like recess at school.

The kids were playing in the pastures.

They made up games, plays.

They would all gather at his grandparents home on Sunday afternoons.

The boys would get together and they would just spend time in the woods.

They would play marbles as they went frogging.

That was at night.

They had to do the frogging they wanted.

They fished for it as a drawing.

He did a lot little boys playing leapfrog.

That was a big thing when he was growing up.

Music meant a lot to him.

He loved his Cajun music.

He especially liked Irish legend, a musician that lived not very far from where they were from.

And our religion is now a legend in many countries.

And he did a lot of drawings of IRA, probably more of IRA than any other character he ever did in a drawing.

Mardi Gras is much bigger now than it was then, the way Mardi Gras was then, when I was growing up, was the way it originally was started.

The Mardi Gras would ride through the countryside, collecting ingredients for a gumbo.

They would stop at each home and perform and ask for gumbo ingredients and boards.

Mardi Gras drawings.

You often see a chicken running away for that chicken.

That's the morning being the gumbo.

That was the reason for the Mardi Gras and that's the way Floyd experienced it.

It's been 16 years since Floyd passed away.

There's still so much interest in his work.

We get visitors from France, England, Canada and here in his native home.

We were approached two years ago to allow Ballet Acadiana to use for artwork and his life, as portrayed in his book, from small bits of charcoal to be used in a ballet.

After working with them, the ballet was produced using Cajun music for his artwork and his life.

They actually went through his book good and picked up the stories making so doing Mardi Gras, washing clothes, all the things they did on the Sharecropper's farm and they made it look like it was fun.

The name of the ballet is the Papillion, which means butterfly in French foreign.

I actually put a little butterfly in each drawing, and to him it symbolizes the rebirth of the Acadian culture.

Here in Louisiana, there's no excuse for being bored, because our state is always alive with cultural events and attractions.

Here's a list of some cool concerts.

Exhibit, and festivals coming soon to a town near you.

To learn more about these and other events in Louisiana, pick up a copy of Country Roads magazine.

Another resource, the Art rocks website features every episode of the program, so just log on to LPB dawg and follow the prompts.

Experts will tell you that learning to play a musical instrument exponentially improves a student's performance in other academic subjects, but keeping instruments in the hands of busy, easily distracted kids can be a challenge, too.

So take a look at how one Southern California school district is going above and beyond by providing an in-house musical instrument repair shop.

For the Los Angeles Unified School District has one of the largest music programs in the nation.

Thousands of students from elementary through high school participate in a wide variety of musical groups like orchestra, marching band, and jazz band.

Supporting music in the arts.

it's a no brainer.

It's a no brainer for the common sense that we all want to see people excel.

We want them to be connected.

We want them to be a part of something that's greater than themselves.

I think it's very important to recognize that, you know, music is one of the hooks that keeps kids in school.

It's one of the draws of what they're passionate about, what they get excited about.

And music, you know, provides that for young people.

I tried playing soccer, but I never really enjoyed it.

I just did it to please my family.

I never really had anybody to look up to because nobody in my family is into music.

So I actually have people to look up to now.

I would look out, I would look up professionals and I will hear their play.

And then that's what made me, because I would ask my teacher, how can I get that good?

Why don't I sound that well, like and then he would, I, he would tell me was practice what?

All you have to do is practice what to go for.

Our school district, throughout its lean times, has still maintained a commitment towards making sure that we have those instruments there.

On top of being able to have kids have access towards music programs, music builds a student's confidence because it allows them to engage in a process that everyone is not proficient in.

Everyone can't speak another language.

Everyone can play a musical instrument, and to be able to, succeed in that capacity allows students to believe I actually can do this.

And when they sense that they can be successful in this area, then you know something in other areas.

I can learn that and be successful in that as well.

So not a lot of people do play the tuba.

They might play an instrument, but they don't choose the tuba because the tuba, like I feel it's I always feel like it's underrated being the actually one of the only one, only tuba player to come out of Jefferson.

And so I actually play Jefferson.

And then we feel pretty proud because I could say that, you know, I was one of the top dogs there.

I was like, I was very, like very important because without me, there's no band.

Honestly.

But instruments wear out over time and sometimes there are accidents or rough handling.

Sometimes students have a lot more fun with the instrument.

And some of that find my, you know, do some damage to, but now we do see a variety of types of issues and repairs.

When instruments require some tender loving care, they end up here at the district's musical instrument repair shop.

Every year, some 8000 brass, woodwind or percussion instruments will pass through the shop.

The musical instrument repair shop.

Starting in the 1960s, the district at the time was pushing music education.

We have a large variety of instruments in anywhere, from your basic flutes, piccolos to your stand up basses.

When we have these instruments, it's not just that we are making a simple repair.

Sometimes these instruments have more value than just learning how to play an instrument.

You know it could affect a student's life in the future.

You know, help them in a positive way.

And it's very satisfying to, you know, to be part of that.

Without providing music for LAUSD children, you wouldn't have classic groups like The Platters who came out of LA USD, the Penguins with the song Earth Angel, the Coasters, you wouldn't have will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, you wouldn't have the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Los Lobos.

You wouldn't have these titans in the musical industry who have charted just a forward direction in music without the experience they gained in K-12 education.

LAUSD, any way that we can support, whether it be donating an instrument or working with your schools to help with productions and or to help to just teach our kids, you know, the importance of studying the arts and being a part of the arts and living it is is crucial.

Here's a treat for fans of the arts and college basketball alike.

A new production by the Milwaukee Repertory Theater portrays the life and the wisdom of al McGuire, the legendary Marquette University head coach who led his team to a national championship in 1977.

The stage play was written by McGuire's longtime friend and broadcast partner, Dick Enberg, and stars Tony Award winner Anthony Crivelli.

Now strictly off the cuff, always happy I play the moment.

Congratulate the temporary.

It's very important to not be overprepared in life.

There's no way you could be a successful coach if you're not ready to throw out your whole strategy four minutes into the game, if you find out you're wrong, is no pride in being right.

If you lose McGuire, the show is a one man play about Marquette basketball coach al McGuire focusing on, really his his biography, the high points, the low points.

But really what some of the things that we remember him for, I mean, he's a phenomenally unique person with a really unique worldview.

I always put him on bed with like, lots of warm shoes.

Got life.

Who wants a flat feet?

I he's this wonderful sort of poet philosopher of the streets.

And those days we were want to never eat before going swimming because we guarantee to cramp up and drown.

So I dropped the banana, went in for a long swim.

When I get back, the bananas will cook brown in the hot sun.

So I go home.

I tell my mom I cheated myself out of my trip and she says our life ain't always going to get better.

If you wait.

Right now might be the best moment of your life.

So eat the banana.

I was a guy who was very, very concerned with, notions of balance and happiness and always sort of being being true to yourself first.

I recruited a whole different type of workplace, so long as it was a little bit home and I recruited them all the same people I know who set.

But I can honestly say I never saw coming.

I only saw him because that's all I was looking for.

We start with him, talk about his first coaching job at Belmont Abbey in North Carolina.

Tiny little church school, but everyone a good Catholic.

The Benedictine monks arrived.

Yet they weren't sure what to make of that.

But after we went 24 and three in my first year, they were happy to let me do things my way.

Then I hear this big opportunities open up in Marquette University.

Respectable program.

Been to the tournament a couple of times, but I didn't even know where Milwaukee was.

Then follow him.

You know, through getting the job at Marquette to having success at Marquette, maybe you could say Marquette University owes me a lot for all they've done for the team in a school.

And you're probably be right.

But whatever I'd done for them, I owe them even more.

And then the retirement and ultimately his post-playing broadcasting career, especially through his partnership with Dick Enberg and Billy Packer.

So the game begins and I push my button and the right leg goes on in front of Dixie and Billy, sitting courtside on press roll.

So now Dixie says, let's go to al McGuire.

And I were talking to this camera was sitting next to a radiator and a paper towel dispenser with my voice on the toilet while my voice is bouncing off the walls like I'm coming from the bowels of San Quentin.

Dick Enberg wrote it, which is a really great hook.

Boston Celtics We're about 20 minutes more material now than the original version, and looking for, a little more dramatic shape, I think, than there was in the original version.

But I thought Dick himself will say that the first version was really more, more an hour long tribute to Al.

We went 97 and 27 in my first five years.

When he died, I started writing down all the wonderful life lessons that he had taught me.

And finally I realized with all the material, there's a play here.

This man is worthy of a play.

A one man, one act play.

And the joy for me is, and I've seen almost every performance is that he comes to life.

You know, he was bigger than life before death, and he comes to life again on stage.

I play hard, knows.

And I was in Midwest basketball, of course I know how to recruit, and I prove it with my first recruit, Hank Reynolds.

And I don't ever worry about the other team.

All I care about is what my guys are going to do to them.

Stars sort of align to have Anthony Cavallo play Al.

Tony's a Milwaukee guy, originally grew up here.

I actually went to Marquette while al was there with patches.

I was a student, at Marquette from between 1974 and 1976, and, wound up being captain of the squad.

And because of all of that, I had interaction with without.

You know, so I was able to speed by being a cheerleader.

I was on the sideline.

I saw all that behavior.

I had conversations with him.

Who knew that many years later, here I am, you know, playing the the icon that I admired as a kid.

We didn't even have a foul shot yet.

These are the guys you got a chance.

Tony is such a versatile, facile, emotional actor.

The way that he is is able to explore and express Al's full humanity, for me, is really what makes the thing worth watching.

Yeah.

Take it.

Anything else for a minute?

I 85% of the script are direct quotes from.

How did you know that?

No, it's sometimes a good answer.

Yes, it's the best answer.

But the worst answer is no, it's me.

Because maybe puts you off.

I'm not trying to do an impersonation of al McGuire.

We want to get the essence of who he is and bring that forward on the stage.

For my final confession, I'm going to need a deaf priest.

I violated almost all the Ten Commandments about 100 times.

But I didn't kill nobody.

Al McGuire saw life and saw it in a different angle than the rest of us.

And that again, was, part of what made him so appealing.

You know what else is healthy?

Taking a right turn.

Perhaps the most important is take a right hand turn in life, and I'll really subscribe to that.

That don't always go the same way.

Take a chance and go, all right.

Instead of always left and let the unplanned, the unexpected come to you.

And I think there's application for that for all of us.

Congratulate the temporary eat the banana.

What I'm saying is go out and meet the guy with the two teeth missing and wearing the ratty pants.

You'd be surprised how beautiful the unplanned can be.

People.

Still, when you say al McGuire, they think Milwaukee, they think Marquette.

They think of this crazy character who saw the game in a different way.

Shout, scream.

That's my kind of coaching.

That's my world of verbal violence.

A lot of people don't understand how it could be like that in a Catholic college, but just because you just don't mean you're not tough.

Interesting facets to Alfred Emmanuel Maguire.

It all gets down to one.

If we have one, we'll be good.

Stepping back into the boot now for our Louisiana Treasures segment in Donaldsonville, Ascension Parish stands a lovely old church that was built for the black community just a few years after the end of the Civil War.

Fortunately, parishioners at Saint Peter's Methodist Episcopal have done little to change the look of the church inside or out since it was built.

Tanya Williams has researched the history that runs deep here.

Saint Peter United Methodist Church, which was formerly known as Saint Peter Methodist Episcopal Church, was built in 1866 by the Freedmen's, a society which was a methodist Episcopal society out of New York.

It was doing a reconstructive time, so basically that society came down with a mission to set up schools and churches for free black people.

The church was built in 1866.

So now the church is 152 years old.

This year, when you pull up, you just see this magnificent historical structure in.

The thing I love about Saint Peter is when you walk in and you can tell how old it is, you can get a sense of how long we've been here and how stable we've been here.

I'm very humbled to be a member of this church.

You can notice our stained glass windows.

They are very unique and old here.

Also, you can see our paneling, which in the 1970s was updated.

But actually behind this paneling you see our original wall structure that we had here.

And then go along with the Victorian style.

You see all the intricate shapes and details cut throughout the woodwork in here at the church, here on our benches, you'll see we have shields carved on the side.

Also, everything all of our furniture in here is wooden, which is cognizant of that time.

Everything from our benches and our altar where we worship, and also our communion panels.

Here everything is wood, everything and old, but it's good.

Wood is still holding up.

The crystal chandeliers are original to the church.

The architecture style here is Greek Revival or Victorian style, which was really popular in England in the early 1860s, says John Wesley, who was from England.

He migrated here in the early 1700s, that Victorian style, he brought that here.

And so you're going to see a lot of the Methodist churches built during that time has the same style.

We faced financial challenges as far as the upkeep is very expensive with the old materials, you know, replacing the materials and also finding the skilled people to come here and be able to work on such an old structure.

Now we have had two movies use because of the age of the church.

I don't know if you've seen all the Kingsman and also The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons was filmed here.

We get a little funding.

As we get funding.

We do do maintenance and upkeep as much as possible, but it is difficult to, you know, get funding and find a skilled people to work on the church.

When I come here to Saint Peter, it's like I feel the history of it because I know the membership that was here and the prominent members who attended the church, it also, to me, stands for prominence and permanence, because this church has been here a very long time.

We've had several prominent members attend Saint Peter.

One of our trustees here was here colleagues.

Landry.

He was born at a plantation home not far from here.

And he was the first African-American mayor here in the city of Dallas.

Will the on 1868.

And it's said that he was the first African-American mayor in the United States.

He was also an attorney.

he also helped found Dillard University in New Orleans.

He was also appointed postmaster general here.

He was elected to the US House of Representatives and the Senate.

So Pierre Landrieu is definitely one of our prominent members here.

Pierre Landrieu was a pastor here as well.

another prominent member was Sidney Brazier, and he was our local pharmacies, our late leader, brother Ezra Williams.

He went into our attic and we uncovered and unearth all these ledgers, and we had a trustee committee who actually took minutes at all the trustee board meetings.

And so one of the ledgers dates back to 1891.

I like to say that they were actually educated on a plantation.

maybe the master didn't know we knew how to read and write, but we did.

And so I think after slavery was slavery officially ended and they started to go into the schools and the churches that they were able to bring their skill with them.

The church served a dual purpose.

We had a place of worship in the front.

And then we also had an annex, a school called Hartsville Academy.

And that is that for this edition of Art rocks.

But don't despair, you can always find episodes of the show at LPB, dot old slash art rocks.

And if you want more, Country Roads magazine makes another great place for finding out more about what's going on in the arts all across the state.

So until next week, I'm James Fox Smith and thank you for watching.