Photo by Philip Gould. Courtesy of the Hilliard Museum.
Lionel Leleux works on various fiddles he is making. 1991.
Each year, Lafayette’s Hilliard Museum presents an exhibit in collaboration with Festivals Acadiens et Créoles and the Center for Louisiana Studies. This year, they present Crafting the South Louisiana Sound, a collection of locally made musical instruments guest-curated by Anya Schoenegge Burgess and Chris Segura of Sola Violins. The exhibit presents over sixty musical instruments and accessories (like drumsticks and amplifiers) made in South Louisiana, including several styles of guitar; ‘tit fer; percussion; rubboards; and bones, an unusual instrument made of parts of steer leg bones and played like spoons.
The array of instruments on display shows the determination of people in this part of Louisiana to participate in instrument making, even when isolated from traditional centers of the craft; most of the instrument makers lacked formal training in these complex arts. Burgess cited Mark Savoy, the accordion maker, who learned how to make accordions in the most old-fashioned way of all: he pulled one apart and looked inside. The exhibit presents excellent craftsmanship while also paying tribute to some triumphs of good old-fashioned Cajun ingenuity; visitors will see a guitar made of spare plumbing parts and a fiddle made out of a Prince Albert tobacco tin. These instruments show another expression of the much-admired South Louisiana ability to do a lot with a little. To hell with a silk purse, give a South Louisianan two pigs’ ears and he’ll make dinner with one and figure out how to play a song on the other.
The exhibit will remain on view from September 8—October 15 at the Hilliard Museum.
