“Intendencia: A TownThat Doesn’t Exist” was an art show at Pensacola Florida’s beloved vegan cafe, End of the Line on September 6, 2024. It was his first show in his hometown.
The basis of the show was to depict Pensacola in a magical way via use of a surrogate town called Intendencia. Intendencia is a town very much like Pensacola. Except it doesn’t exist. Not in a way we can ever reach physically, it can only be experienced through art and imagination. It has a base, it has a beach, it has an underground. Its daytime demographics are not much different from its phantom sister city. But at night, remnants of magic emerge, barely there. After its sun goes down, and the working folk have taken to the bed, weirdness and oddity abound in Intendencia. Kids run the streets in sleds and smash up mailboxes blaring their distorted music from car stereos. Spells are cast, songs are sung, lovers rise and are ruined. Trains are gods, beers are potions, punk bands are choirs. Intendencia looks very familiar. It looks like Pensacola. But it isn’t, it’s Intendencia, a town that doesn’t exist.
11 pieces of art were created for the show were created using found objects and salvaged wood. A novel written by Varg about Intendencia is planned.
Featured pieces will be posted here on Revvarg.com.
A renewal vows ceremony that was also a surprise party for the wife, the Blair / Huminiak renewal ceremony for Ashley and Nick was a uniquely French Quarter event. Ashley had no idea when she walked out of Irene’s Restaurant that her friends and family, a brass band, and a reverend with a pulpit on wheels were waiting for her out front. A short second line to the riverfront followed led by Ashley and Nick and the deal was resealed shortly after.
Photo by Sarah Jean
“Have Love, Will Travel” was the phrase Nick and Ashley chose to have etched into their stacked lath heart and it represents the many cities and destinations Nick and Ashley have traveled to and lived in over the course of their relationship, and marriage. Coast to coast and across the ocean, Nick and Ashley have certainly had love and did travel with a sustaining bond, adoration and steady attraction to each other.
It was a great looking and fun loving crowd out on the river that April afternoon. All ages and styles celebrated their love. A spirited reception at everyone’s favorite Lower Decatur street bar followed and continued into the night.
Renewal vow ceremonies are always such warm and pleasing affairs. Couples who have been married long enough to propose a renewal always have a chilled and mellow approach to the ceremony. The interview comes easy and all the friends and family have been through it all together as well. It’s a different vibe than a standard wedding, long loves and long lives abound.
Congratulations on 20 years together Nick and Ashley. We look forward to your future ventures and adventures
————————————————— Ceremony
Brothers and sisters, we gather here today on the bank of this mighty, muddy, magnificent river, to reconsecrate, reaffirm and retestify to, the marriage, union, and bond of Nick and Ashley.
And as we consecrate the love of Nick and Ashley together, we are all also giving consent to that love and showing support for that love. And if one of us so loves Nick,now they so love Ashley. And if one of us so loves Ashley, now they so love Nick. Through their union, their families are one, their friendships are all intertwined and their experiences ever the same. Nick, your wife will always be your witness. Ashley, your spouse will be your perennial spectator.
Brothers and sisters, Ashley and Nick have love, will travel. As they indeed already have, great distances over the last 20 years, around our country and one day hopefully, around the world. But right down the line it’s been Nick and Ashley and their love, together and one.
Back in the day, Nick loved Ashley for being smoking hot, among other things of course. And Ashley loved Nick for the way he looked in his tight pants, among other things of course. And from those early and from those reptile brain beginnings their love has blossomed and sustained itself over the years as they shared a personal intimacy with each other’s souls and their personal histories and how each of them exist in our unfolding Universe as individuals and as a couple.
Brothers and sisters, Ashley and Nick are choosing to be married, to stay married, and to continue living out their lives day to day, moment to moment, city to city, state to state, country to country, married. Ashley and Nick have chosen to double down on their partnership and that is indeed a wonderful thing, to be heralded and celebrated. Because brothers and sisters, getting married is easy, but staying married is a motherfucker!
Nick and Ashley, cherish each other and your love. In the great drudgery and chore of life, it is an iridescent shine across the surface of your souls. When you are close to one another it is a deep, dense and strong vortex whirling around you both. When you are far away it is a loose, languid, and swirling ribbon connecting you together. And it will remain, as it has remained, as you both remain.
Nick, do you stand here today, a different man than 10 years ago, but with the same love in your heart, and do you pledge to continue growing, flourishing and gazing at our Universe with Ashley, from this day forward?
Nick: I do
Ashley, do you stand here today, a different woman than 10 years ago, but with the same love in your heart, and do you pledge to continue growing, flourishing and gazing at our Universe with Nick, from this day forward?
Ashley: I do
As much as Nick and Ashley have rededicated themselves to each other and vowed to remain, let us ask them to celebrate their renewal with a kiss.
One of the best Fat Tuesday toasts ever, it just came out right. This was a legacy toast basically designed to commemorate the many years of Ragnarok’s contributions to Mardi Gras day via some of the boldest and most inspiring creations to roll through the streets. They truly “won” Mardi Gras a few years. So to honor that, we raised 160 ounces of Olde English to them, Hail Ragnarok!
Beautiful lovers! Glorious souls! Let us here, now, recognize this moment and give spirited thanks to the animated and intrepid Krewe of Ragnarok! A krewe never reticent, nver recusant, never shying from the compelling light of revelry you see all around you today. For eight, great, years, this krewe has marched, built, toiled, inspired, and raged their way through the streets of New Orleans, creating a myriad of memories for themselves, but more importantly, for all of us! As we gazed upon their monumental creations – zeppelins, spaceships, horses – easing down the street with a glitter and grandeur that made even the most seasoned or jaded Mardi Gras revelers clutch their loved ones and say “Look at that!” LOOK at that!” For those and so many more memories, and on behalf of the Deurty Boys Gallery, myself and Jeremy Hebert, … We toast your beautiful fucking souls! Hail Ragnarok! Hail Ragnarok! Hail Ragnarok!”
I called you “Bella The Beauty” because you were a fetching girl, an Audrey Hepburn type. Many times I counted myself lucky to be seen with you, like a man who feels like his lady is too good for him. You had high cheekbones and big brown eyes that were narrow and shaped to perfection and you had this perfect spot on your head like an enchanted third eye. Your little frame was cut and chiseled in musculature, and you could stare right into me if you wished. I truly adored you.
You arrived at a perfect time in my life and were the only living thing I have ever been solely responsible for. It was a joy. You gave me reason to rise out of bed in the morning and to come home early at night. You got me off the couch and out on the levee after dinner. You explored our world nose down and I wish I’d been more patient with you out there some nights, as you experienced our existence on Earth in a way I never could, smelling the secrets of the soil.
You were a comfort, a friend, and a companion. I felt kinship when I turned under the covers at night and sensed your 20 pound presence on top of them. It grounded me. Someone was there. You pacified me after night terrors and kept me company through bouts of insomnia. That one night, you were my only living tether to reality. The patter of your toenails on the floor while I washed dishes or folded laundry were the light motif of a familiar friend and a reminder that I was functioning as a responsible human because you were alive, healthy, and happy. Living with you was not living alone.
You were protective to a fault. If I got out of the truck I always found you in the driver’s seat when I returned. You sat where I sat any time I was gone. Yes, sometimes you invented foes. Possums and postal workers were no great threat. But other times you were more intuitive than I was. You knew about that one guy. You were duty bound, a good girl.
I wish I would have called you to me instead of rushing to get you the morning of your fight. You saw me move forward and took it as an advance. You put yourself physically between me and the threat. You were a soldier.
You were a muse and a hero and an inspiration for me, the way an aged oak tree or a haunted owl or field of flowers might be to someone else. You were a child of the Universe and it will frustrate me forever how that Universe was so unkind to you, always seeming to deliver another trauma or hardship that you had to hurtle. I’m sorry for that. I will hold a grudge.
To help, I bought you the good food, and always tried to take you with me, and kept you up on medications and appointments. I walked you many nights and most of them, we had the river and the city beyond to ourselves it seemed. We were like spectres of the late night in our solitude out there. And yes, I let you finish a few meals of mine, or threw you a beef bone for better or worse.
Because you had been abandoned before, I tried to take you wherever I went. So we went to Miami and Michigan and Memphis and stayed in cabins and went on hikes all over the South. Bella rode.
The Universe worked its last stiff match with you and I don’t blame you for tapping out this time. Maybe the surgeries, the antibiotics, the anesthesias, the painkillers, the steroids, or the many upheavals you endured wore you down. I’ll still close the gate behind me or maybe put my plate on the floor or save a soup bone for a few weeks I suppose. Your fur will cling to blankets and upholstery. Your toys will lurk under couches and mattresses. Everywhere there will be little ghosts of you lingering in our timespace. I’ll hold on to those things as I hold on to your memory and our bond, the unique binary system we formed these tough last years. It improved me. It strengthened my mettle.
As you seemed to lose your spirit more recently, I picked you up and just held on to you and felt your living presence and tried to be as present as I could, for you and for myself, several times a day. Knowing at this age how quickly our present becomes our past. But these moments always pass through us, regardless of how aware we try to be of them before they do.
Now you have passed through, on, away.
I received word and rushed to get you and brought you home and sat with you as you lay there, not alive, but as alive as you ever would be again. You were warm, limp, ethereal. There was an overpowering rush of grief that filled our room. A thunderstorm ran through outside. Your heaving chest which tormented us for 36 hours, was finally still. I sat there with you drinking and listening to minor chords for an hour or so. Making sure to feel as much as I could, so later I could heal as much as I could. After a while, the ugliness of death began its encroachment on us, and your wake concluded.
I’m sorry this happened at the onset of Spring but, I will look for your in the backyard blooms of the rose bush. Your atoms will live on through it. I’ll always carry my custodianship of you close to my soul. It was a true treasure to serve you and I’ll always cherish your charge. Thank you so much, Bells.
I first saw the door in a warehouse of a fellow artists who was having to get the space cleared quickly. She spent years collecting antiques, curiosities and fine lumber and found herself in a situation where it all had to go. My buddy Josh is a contractor with a great eye for valuable fixtures and carpentry. He told me to grab the door because it is worth something. So I parted with $540 and we put this 9′ x 5′ piece of antique cypress in the back of my truck. It sat on my porch on Pacific Street in Algiers for a few years before the muse finally spoke to me on it. It’s a beautiful piece even without a single bit of art on it. Pocket doors this size fetch thousands of dollars in salvage yards. The trees it was made from were easily hundreds of years old and the door itself easily a hundred. I am honored by this door,
2/4/2022 was a frigid February day under the Peristyle at City Park but, warmth was in abundance within the hearts of all who witnessed the wedding ceremony of Jennie Merrill and Cory Boudreaux. The cold weather gave everyone the chance to show out in a fine display of cozy coats, scarves and hats which adorned the congregation as Cory and Jennie exchanged vows. A culinary theme organically emerged throughout the events around the wedding and in the ceremony itself as Jennie spoke…
“I was content with my cooking because it was always the best I’d ever known. And eventually I discovered new knowledge that made me push to try and make it better. 5 ½ years ago, that “I love you”, was genuine. But just like when I started cooking, it was such a small step into a much bigger world. A world in which we both had to learn new skill sets- how to communicate, how to forgive, how to mess up and try again. I’ve botched a lot of recipes, and I’ve botched a lot of moments in our relationship, but what truly mattered was learning from those mistakes and pushing forward with our new knowledge. And that change made us grow.”
Jennie and Cory’s ceremonial gift was a merlot and ivory colored set of mounted stitched hearts with stacked antique lath wood. Etched on panels surrounding the hearts are the words “I love you more than ever, and I haven’t yet begun,” a poignant lyric from Bob Dylan’s “Wedding Song.”
A true New Orleans wedding, the Boudreaux / Merrill party departed City Park and made their way to historic music venue Tipitina’s where we devoured famous fried chicken, made many toasts, got a little rowdy, and moved our booties to The Essentials until the wee hours.
“The simple stitched heart which is featured in many of my pieces is a symbol of our human soul and what it endures by simply being alive, loving one another, being present, and aware. It is not our hardships, traumas, woes that define us but rather how we heal, and carry, those turmoils. Each slash is a symbol of something healed from, perhaps only partially.” – Varg
A grief altar is like a Christmas tree. You set it up at a certain time of the year and decorate it. Except instead of in December, it’s in October. And in lieu of glass bulbs and tinsel, you adorn it with prayer cards and mementos of your dearly departed. Forgo the snowmen, bring the skeletons. Each altar is salvaged carpentry converted into a small staging area with imagery, nooks, platforms, hooks, hangers and small shelves to mount trinkets and mementos symbolic of your late loved ones. I use mine seasonally but that is by no means a requirement. Grief knows no one day or series of days. It exists evermore. What these altars provide is a space in which to dedicate one’s mourning and loss, to honor it. Even to compartmentalize it if need be. These are meant to be a physical manifestation not only loss but of love, for they are always intertwined.
This is the earliest pic I have of my set up on Jackson Square, this is late 2008 or early 2009. Like 15 or so years ago. It’s a bit heady to think about it. I certainly couldn’t have done it without the Square. The commerce out there told me what art was good and what wasn’t. My prices were pretty low. My art was quite primitive but it all, eventually, sold. The imagery that sold more briskly, were made more often, the prices inched up slowly. There was definitely more paintings and less sculpture. There is no lath. There is no stain. But, even from the beginning, there was hearts and gators. I have always stuck with them. They have always been a source of inspiration. I remember that gator in the pic sold for $200 and I was astounded. I have to thank the City of New Orleans for valuing art and artists and licensing us to sell on the Square. It allowed me to become a gallerist and a home owner and hopefully a decent citizen of New Orleans. I’ve made lifelong friends out there on the Square, had memories that I could never forget and some I could, and some even that I did. God bless Jackson Square.
I never really intended to make alligators. What I wanted to do was make ONE white alligator. I was listening to the song “Formation” off the album Lemonade on repeat in 2016 and there is a line from that song that mentions albino alligators and I creatively latched on to it as a means to make a folk art tribute to Beyonce. She was all about New Orleans at the time, and the entire aesthetic of Louisiana as sort of a primitive, mystic, dystopia was in abundance. It was a few years after Beast of the Southern Wild and right in the middle of True Detective Season 1 and Bey featured a lot of Southern Gothic imagery in the digital accompaniment to Lemonade. I thought a white alligator might be the best way to contribute to this artistic movement.
Except everyone who saw it wanted a green one. So, never one to disappoint my muse of industry, I made a promise to myself to create a green one once this white one sold, which it did within a few days of us opening the doors of Chartres and Dumaine. “Beyonce,” the white gator will always be the first piece of art sold at 901 Chartres. She paid our first month’s rent. Thanks Beyonce.
The man who bought it had been bugging me to make alligators for years but my muse of inspiration (who always has the final say) blew him off. So, when he walked by and saw “Bey” he bought her after a little negotiation. I wanted one price and he wanted a lower one which I agreed to. He wished it was green but I talked him into the white. Later, when I made a green one he wanted to trade them out but I would only do so if he matched my original price which he never did. “Beyonce” is now displayed at The Great New Orleans Alligator Museum on Magazine street which has become a bit of a curiosity to locals over the years because it has never opened. And yall, I have been inside and it is indeed cool as hell in there. When it does open, go in there and see a true museum quality artifact, the fist gator I ever sold, the first piece ever sold out of Deurty Boys Gallery, and a tribute to Beyonce Knowles.
Outside The Great Alligator Museum on Magazine St.Beyonce and dancers perform a prayer backstage before her show at the Louisiana Superdome, Sept. 24, 2016.Gator head detailCreepin’ ass gator
