A Louisiana artist has come up with a unique way to help people connect with their Acadian ancestors through portraits. These original oil paintings are allowing descendants to step back in time and create images that are bringing their family histories to life.
Portraits of original acadian settlers’ families
Ceci Neustrom of Lafayette looks through a collection of clothes hanging on a metal rack. “These are the colors that they mainly dressed in,” Neustrom explains to Angelle Bourgeois. Bourgeois and her father Donny Bourgeois, both of Lafayette, are about to dress like their Acadian ancestors might have looked when they arrived in south Louisiana in 1765.
Neustrom is an artist on a mission. She began a project ten years ago to paint oil portraits of the two dozen original Acadian families who were exiled from Nova Scotia, and settled in the area south of Lafayette. Neustrom uses descendants of those original Acadians as models for her works of art.
posing for a special family portrait
Angelle Bourgeois tells me that doing this portrait was her father’s idea. They pose, holding hands, imagining how their ancestors might have appeared when they settled here and started farming. “This is gonna be wonderful,” Donny Bourgeois tells me, adding, “It’s gonna get passed down from generation to generation.”
Angelle says she is connected to the original Acadian settlers on both sides of her family, “My dad is a Bourgeois, my mom’s a Broussard. I’ve grown up in Louisiana and Lafayette my whole life,” Angelle explains. She adds, “And each time I bring someone in, they’re always intrigued by the culture.”
acadian portraits from photos to paintings
“Dad, you kind of turn and look at Angelle,” Neustrom says. She is directing the couple as she photographs them in different poses. Neustrom will take these photos home, she’ll look at the lighting, the poses and expressions, and then create an oil painting with the family name. I ask Neustrom about what she can capture as an artist that a camera can’t see. She replies, “A camera can’t see the heart and the soul. I am searching for the story of that person.”
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a painting full of emotion
Another Acadian descendant stops by to see her finished painting. Pam Zuschlag, who’s great-grandmother was a St. Julien, posed for her portrait in the backyard of her home. In the painting, she’s wearing wooden shoes, sitting next to a religious statue and holding a Catholic rosary. Zuschlag gets emotional when she talks about her painting. “I see the generations of women before me, people that I didn’t know and what they went through,” Zuschlag says with tears in her eyes.
paintings for historic home in city of broussard
Neustrom is diplaying about a dozen of her Acadian portraits at the 1876 home of Valsin Broussard, another Acadian descendant. The Broussard home is being turned into a visitors center and museum for the city of Broussard. Neustrom is unveiling a new portrait of Valsin and his wife Emma. She used two old sketches of the Broussard couple that are on display in the old home. Broussard amateur historian Eddie Duhon spoke to me about the paintings. “I think every person has its own history and this town has a very rich history,” Duhon said.
The portraits tell an Acadian story from the clothing to the daily chores, the culture and religion of the early settlers. “It’s just been this wonderful journey of my continued learning about the Acadian culture,” Neustrom explains. The paintings are also providing a unique glimpse into the past, to a time when families exiled from Nova Scotia arrived here and started a new home in a new southern Acadiana.
For more on Lafayette, Louisiana portrait artist Ceci Neustrom, visit her fine art website. Click here.
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