ST. TAMMANY, La. (WAFB) – Artist Carol Hallock has found a way to combine her love of painting with her enjoyment of paddling, a kayak near her home on Bayou Lacombe.

“I always liked anything Louisiana. You know the pelicans, the oak trees. Water on the bayou just surrounds me and it becomes a part of you,” said Hallock.

I tagged along in my own kayak as Hallock scanned the springtime bayou landscape, looking at shapes, the light, anything that would inspire her to put paint and brush to canvas.

“In springtime, it’s bright, bright, bright, bright greens, and they only last about a week,” Hallock said.

In her small kayak, Hallock is seeing her world from water level,

“And so you’re looking up and it’s giving you a different angle and more access to places,” said Hallock.

You’ve probably seen these landscapes along the bayou hundreds of times. Where do you find inspiration to paint something new?

“In a way, the composition may be very similar, but your colors change. Your light changes, the time of year changes, and so it’s always new. The challenge is to, if you’re painting that same thing over and over, make it better,” Hallock said.

Hallock notices how the late afternoon sun adds highlights to trees. The swaying of moss in the wind and shapes reflecting in the water. A lot of folks would come by this, by you on a boat and whisk right by this scene here, but I‘m loving the detail. The lilies, the flowers that that you’re finding in that.

“Dead trees are interesting. They talk somehow,” Hallock said.

It might seem like it would be easier to snap a picture and take it home to paint the scene. Hallock prefers the plein air style trying to do a painting, from start to finish, while sitting on location in her kayak.

“The camera doesn’t have the emotion,” Hallock said. “The camera does not see what you see. It does not see the emotion, the light, and doesn’t feel what you feel when you’re painting from a photo. You’re trying to do a 3d rendering from this 2d photo, and if you’re out in nature, you’re trying to do a 3d, but then there’s three d in front of you.”

Carol Hallock’s award-winning oil paintings capture familiar scenes, trees along a bayou, the changing of seasons, the imperfections and beauty of Louisiana landscapes, and the white egret that she always names Geraldine.

“I‘ve always kind of been closed off from emotion, not really knowing how I felt. And I think painting has helped me acknowledge what’s inside of me,” said Hallock.

If every stroke of the brush hits its mark, Hallock says she can complete a painting in less than an hour. And there’s always tomorrow with different light or perhaps a few more clouds. Another chance to capture the beauty and emotion of a kayak trip on the bayou.

More information can be found on Heart of Louisiana’s website.

Click here to report a typo. Please include the headline.

Click here to subscribe to our WAFB 9 News daily digest and breaking news alerts delivered straight to your email inbox.

Copyright 2025 WAFB. All rights reserved.

President Donald Trump and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry have discussed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow challenging U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy in next year’s Republican primary, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

The Republican governor’s promotion of a new challenger to Cassidy reflects unease within Trump’s base about the two-term senator. Cassidy voted to convict Trump in Trump’s 2021 impeachment trial over the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. And Cassidy, who is a medical doctor, expressed doubts about Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the nation’s health secretary before voting to confirm Kennedy.

Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate and have a favorable electoral map in the 2026 midterms to help them keep control. But Cassidy is among several GOP senators up for reelection next year who are facing challenging primaries over past moves to distance themselves from Trump.

For the senator, “the biggest hurdle is going to be the impeachment vote. That’s what he has to overcome. And I don’t think he has the mindset to say, ‘I made a mistake,’” said Eddie Rispone, the Republican nominee for Louisiana governor in 2019 and a Cassidy supporter. “And Louisiana is a big Trump state.”

Landry, a close Trump ally, spoke last month with the president about Letlow as a potential Senate candidate, according to two people with knowledge of the conversation. They were granted anonymity to share contents of a conversation they were not authorized to discuss publicly.

A spokesperson for Letlow declined to comment on a potential campaign for Senate or the discussion between Landry and Trump. Landry’s office declined to comment.

Landry, elected in 2023, has been advocating for Letlow to consider a run, according to the people who confirmed their April conversation about Letlow. A Senate seat would be a safe bet for a Republican given that Trump received 60% of the vote in carrying Louisiana last year.

Republican insiders describe Landry and Cassidy not as close, but as having a cordial working relationship despite a difference in their feelings of loyalty to Trump, which creates some distance between Cassidy and segments of the party base in the state.

“Senator Cassidy delivers conservative results for the people of Louisiana,” Cassidy spokesperson Ashley Bosch said in a statement. “He’s worked hard to support the President’s agenda and we’re confident voters will re-elect him next year.”

Letlow is a three-term Republican representative from northeast Louisiana. She won the seat in a special election in March 2021 after her husband, Luke, had been elected but died of complications from COVID-19.

Letlow sits on the influential House Appropriations Committee. Her district was a mostly rural swath of northeast Louisiana when she arrived in Congress. It has shifted as a result of a redistricting map ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024 and now also include parts of metropolitan Baton Rouge, where Cassidy lives.

Cassidy already faces one major challenger, Louisiana State Treasurer John Fleming, a former congressman.

Some Republican activists in the state condemned Cassidy for his 2021 vote to convict Trump, a vote Cassidy said afterward he was “at peace” casting.

The state Republican executive committee voted unanimously to censure Cassidy. The Republican committee in Bossier Parish, which includes the city of Shreveport in northwest Louisiana, adopted a censure measure describing Cassidy as “an object of extreme shame” and called for his resignation.

Trump revived his public contempt for Cassidy a year ago after the senator spoke out when the then-former president promised to pardon those convicted in connection with the Capitol riot; Trump did that after taking office in January.

In an April 2024 post on Truth Social, Trump called Cassidy “one of the worst Senators in the United States Senate” and a “disloyal lightweight.”

Louisiana’s new congressional primary election system also could be a wrinkle for Cassidy.

Until the new system was adopted this year, congressional candidates from all parties seeking the same office ran on the same ballot regardless of party affiliation. In these so-called jungle primaries, only a candidate who received 50% of the vote would win the office outright. If no one reached the threshold, the top two finishers would face each other in a runoff.

Next year, only voters who note Republican affiliation on their voter registration — and those who affiliate with no party — will be able to participate in the GOP Senate primary. The effect is seen as a potential challenge for Cassidy, who had benefited from the less-partisan nature of the old system.

“It does tighten it a little bit for him, because you do have the far-right Republicans — for them, it’s going to be hard to forgive him for that impeachment vote,” Rispone said.

Still, Cassidy has a clear fundraising advantage, with more than $7.4 million in his campaign account at the end of the first quarter. Cassidy has also begun laying the campaign groundwork in Louisiana and is expected to announce his candidacy formally in the coming weeks.

And in a sign things might not be as bad with Trump as they were, Cassidy received different sort of recognition from the president at an economic event at the White House this month.

“We have some great people, great senators, here,” Trump said. “Bill Cassidy, thank you, Bill.”

Copyright
© 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.