'People Say' examines the business of making art

 By Alison Fensterstock, The Times-Picayune 

Brian Boyles, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities' director of public relations and programs, had developed several successful panel talks and lectures since taking on management of the LHC's programming in 2006, including series of discussions on media in New Orleans, the city's mayors, and live interviews with brass bands. With People Say, which started in February, Boyles shifted the focus and the form of the traditional live artist interview.

Chris Granger / The Times-PicayuneGeorge Porter Jr., who has been on the music scene in New Orleans for decades, represents the voice of experience at the December People Say event.

For one, the talk is a conversation in the truest sense of the word. Although Boyles serves as moderator, each event features a pair of local artists who probably didn't know each other before sharing the stage. Spanning multiple genres - 2011's talks have featured filmmakers, musicians, visual artists, venue managers and exotic dancers - each talk includes one veteran and one up-and-comer, working in the same field but separated by decades.

The other, and key, component, fairly uncommon in discussions of art-making, is how the bills get paid. (Thus, the full title of the series: The People Say Project: Conversations on Culture and Money.)

The theme began to interest him, he said, when he returned to New Orleans in 2006 to hear the buzz-phrase "cultural economy" on everyone's lips. Those using it the most, it seemed, were coming from government, arts administration and tourism marketing. What was happening on the ground among the laborers in that economy, and how had it changed - or not - over the years?

"The original idea was to look at culture and money and ask if all the talk that we've heard about cultural economy and different business models for artists ... hasn't in a way been putting the horse before the cart," Boyles said.

In other words: There seemed to be an awful lot of politicking about the arts, and not a lot of talking to artists. The LEH wanted to change that.

"We started thinking about guests and a way to make it more original, and that's when we hit on the idea of intergenerational connections," Boyles said. "Because this is a city where traditions are passed forward from generation to generation, and it's also a city that's had a lot of different people and new energy injected into it in the last five years.

"So the idea was that bringing these people together might give a fuller picture of what artists face when they're trying to make a living."

Often, Boyles says, the cross-generational conversation reveals surprising things about what has changed and what's stayed the same in the business of creating culture in New Orleans over the decades.

Rapper Dee-1, who appears to be poised to break out nationally, will talk about breaking into the music business.

"We find that people have more in common than you might think," he said, "and also, the learning can go both ways."

Tonight, George Porter Jr. and rapper Dee-1 will talk about, among other things, taking New Orleans-honed music to a larger audience. Dee-1 appears to be on the cusp of a national breakout; Porter has been touring the world for more than 30 years.

The LEH's sponsorship of People Say ends in 2012, which Boyles believes is an opportunity for the series to grow outside of the academy setting. Tonight's event doubles as a holiday party and fundraiser for future People Say talks, with a buffet dinner and DJs spinning afterward. He hopes that this approach - a nightclub setting and relaxed, festive atmosphere - will be what the new People Say looks like, effectively making the context a part of the conversation.

The organizers considered choosing a permanent new home for the series, he said, but ultimately decided to let the theme of each talk reveal the appropriate venue. Bars, artists' studios, theaters and even retail spaces may play host to the series in 2012.

"There are historic spots and venues for music, and other organizations and festivals, that would be well served to have these kind of conversations in their programming," Boyles said.

"By taking it to other places, we're hoping to reach broader audiences, but we're also hoping to talk to artists in the settings that they work in. The idea is to put the conversation into different contexts and not limit it to a strict lecture setting. I really want to be able to take the conversation around the city."

PEOPLE SAY PROJECT

What: "Holiday Shakedown," featuring musicians George Porter Jr. and Dee-1, is the final installment in the 2011 series in which artists from different generations talk about the business of creating art and culture in New Orleans. A buffet dinner will be served, and DJs Maximillion and Yojimbo will spin after the discussion.

********

Alison Fensterstock can be reached at fensterstock@gmail.com. Read more music news at nola.com/music. Follow her at twitter.com/AlisonF_NOLA .

© 2011 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Museum celebrates 100 years

Museum celebrates a century of bringing art to the masses

 By Doug MacCash, The Times-Picayune 

Next weekend, the New Orleans Museum of Art is throwing itself a marathon 100th birthday party with concerts by Irvin Mayfield and Amanda Shaw, a roaring midnight DJ set by Mr. Quintron in the Great Hall, a second-line, yoga classes, movies and tours of some of the museum’s 35,000-piece permanent collection.

EnlargeThe Times-PicayuneELIOT KAMENITZ / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE The New Orleans Museum of Art photographed on Wednesday, December 7, 2011. It is celebrating it's 100th birthday.The New Orleans Museum of Art Through the Years gallery (15 photos)

That’s a far cry from the 1911 opening of the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art — as NOMA was known before 1971 — a well-attended, but seemingly staid celebration of the institution. The museum’s modest permanent collection consisted of nine unremarkable paintings and objects, supplemented by the loan of 400 artworks mostly from the homes of the Crescent City’s elite.

The 31-hour anniversary celebration that starts Friday at 10 a.m. and continues until Saturday at 5 p.m., gives the museum a chance to show off “NOMA 100: Gifts for the Second Century,” a special 110-piece exhibit of birthday presents given by benefactors in honor of the centennial. The show includes artworks by everyone from Kathe Kollwitz to Matthew Barney, plus an otherworldly black-light installation by Louisiana master Keith Sonnier.

On that blustery afternoon in 1911, visitors arrived at the just-completed Beaux-Arts building in City Park from the northwest end of Esplanade Avenue via a freshly shelled roadway, flanked with newly planted shrubs and saplings. A Daily Picayune writer described the structure, designed by Mississippi-born architect Samuel A. Marx, as “a magnificent building, with its marble terrace, great pillars, heavy cornice and frieze, … like a picture of some temple of Rome or Greece, conjured up from the past.”

NOMA’s Centennial Celebration

• What: A free, 31-hour event featuring art-making activities, exhibit tours, concerts, a late-night dance party and ‘NOMA 100: Gifts for the Second Century,’ an exhibit of 110 newly donated artworks.
• Where: The New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, City Park, 504.658.4100.
• When: Begins Friday at 10 a.m. and continues through Saturday at 5 p.m. Highlights follow:
• Friday, 6 and 10 p.m.: Comedic Improv Tour by ‘The New Movement.’
• Friday, 8:30 p.m.: Exhibit tour by NOMA’s contemporary art curator Miranda Lash.
• Friday, 9:30 p.m.: Irvin Mayfield performance and book signing.
• Saturday, midnight to 3 a.m.: Mr. Quintron DJ dance set.
• Saturday, 11 a.m.: Roots of Music second-line around NOMA leading to the front steps, where NOMA director Susan Taylor will deliver centennial remarks.
• Saturday, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.: Amanda Shaw concert.
• For a full schedule, visit noma.org.

The museum, as originally built, was considerably smaller, since it lacked the large expansions that were grafted on in 1971 and 1993. The huge stone vases that stand sentinel on each side of the museum entrance arrived too late to be in place for the 1911 opening ceremonies.

Of the estimated 3,000 New Orleanians who attended the opening, there was a notable absence. Isaac Delgado, the Jamaican-born sugar industry magnate and philanthropist who financed the new museum was reportedly too ill to attend.

According to accounts in Prescott Dunbar’s book “The New Orleans Museum of Art: The First Seventy-Five Years,” Delgado is not remembered as a great art lover per se. Instead, he used his fortune to help provide his adopted home with the amenities that he believed would make it a great 20th-century city, including Charity Hospital and Delgado Central Trades School, now known as Delgado Community College.

In a Feb. 26, 1910, letter, Delgado stated his intentions for a museum succinctly: “My desire is to give to the citizens of New Orleans a fireproof building where works of art may be collected through gifts or loans and where exhibitions can be held … I propose to spend on such a building the sum of $150,000.”

Adjusted for inflation, Delgado’s gift would be roughly $3.5 million today.

‘What they most needed’

Ironically, as Delgado’s palace of visual art was coming into being, the 72-year-old benefactor was practically blind, according to Dunbar’s book.

As gentlemen in derbies and women in wide-brimmed Sunday hats stood by, Mayor Martin Behrman took a place on a speaker’s platform erected on the new museum steps and thanked Delgado for a perfectly appropriate addition to the cultural attractions in the artistically inclined Queen City of the South.

ELIOT KAMENITZ / THE TIMES-PICAYUNESusan Taylor, who became NOMA's director in 2010, has as one of her goals to create events that bring the community into the Great Hall of the 100-year-old museum.

A Daily Picayune columnist put a finer point on the matter of appropriateness: “Isaac Delgado, if he had followed the beaten track pursued by others of our city’s munificent public benefactors, might have endowed hospitals or schools or funded libraries. All of these we have, and with far-seeing sagacity and intelligence he gave our people what they most needed.”

Inside the new museum, the balconies of the great hall were decked with palms and other foliage. Paintings with titles such as “Snow and Flood in Flanders,” “Morning on Bayou Boeuf,” and “Shrine of Venus” hung on long picture rods. Weary visitors could rest on pew-like wooden benches arranged before the closely spaced canvases.

At the climax of the opening ceremony, poet Rixford J. Lincoln read a six-stanza dedication to the new museum that included the lines: “Long will this art museum stand in pride, While throngs will daily pour into its door, The Muses to live and speak out from the paint, And spread her mystic light from dome to floor.”

Mention of a dome in the museum architecture seems to have been poetic license.

On Jan. 4, 1912, just weeks after the opening, Delgado died. The next month, the museum held its first exhibit of French Impressionism, including works by Manet, Renoir and Monet. In keeping with the custom of the time, the museum’s Great Sculpture Hall was home to plaster duplicates of famous statues from antiquity, so that art students and others could study classical ideals.

An evolving museum ‘spirit’

Speed ahead 100 years and the tone of the museum’s Great Hall has changed drastically. In June 2010, New Orleans flamboyant glam band Jean-Eric performed in the echoing space, with tattooed go-go dancers on pedestals where, long ago, classical sculptures once stood.

HIGHLIGHTS OF NOMA’S 100 YEARS

• 1911 The Isaac Delgado Museum of Art opens on Dec. 16 in City Park, paid for by its namesake, a sugar industry magnate and philanthropist.
• 1925 Ellsworth Woodward, the founder of Newcomb Pottery and a stalwart of the Arts and Crafts movement in New Orleans, begins a 14-year stint as acting director of the museum.
• 1931 Newspapers rally public support for the 20-year-old museum, avoiding closure due to cutbacks in city funding during the Great Depression.
• 1940 The traveling exhibition “Picasso: Forty Years of His Art,” including the anti-fascist masterpiece “Guernica,” is shown at the museum one year before America’s entry into World War II.
• 1955 The museum presents major exhibits of works by Louisiana folk artist Clementine Hunter and legendary Post-Impressionist Vincent Van Gogh.
• 1964 The museum appeals to the people of New Orleans to raise $190,000 for the purchase of Edgar Degas’ “Portrait of Estelle,” a touching oil sketch of the artists’ New Orleans cousin painted in 1870-71 on Esplanade Avenue, which is within walking distance of the museum.
• 1970 Pop master Andy Warhol curates an exhibit titled “Raid the Icebox” from artworks and objects selected from the museum’s storage vaults.
• 1971 Three architecturally featureless additions are added, tripling the museum’s space. Prompted by the modernist expansion, the museum is given a more internationally recognizable name: The New Orleans Museum of Art.
• 1977 The blockbuster traveling exhibit “Treasures of Tutankhamun” draws 900,000 visitors during its four-month run. The show of relics of the Egyptian king is an early triumph in the 38-year tenure of E. John Bullard, who began as director in 1973.
• 1985 The museum celebrates its 75th anniversary with the purchase of Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun’s roughly life-size 1788 portrait of Marie Antoinette for $500,000.
• 1993 The museum undergoes another major expansion, at a cost of $23 million, filling much of its circular traffic island in City Park.
• 2003 The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, studded with 40 artworks, opens in an elegantly landscaped wetland area to the northwest of NOMA. The garden includes pieces by Claes Oldenberg, George Rickey, Louise Bourgeois and others from the Besthoff collection.
• 2005 The flooding that follows Hurricane Katrina inundates the sculpture garden and surrounds NOMA, where staff members remain to protect the collection. Suffering $6 million in hurricane damage, the museum closes for seven months, resulting in 80 staff members being laid off.
• 2007 “Femme, Femme, Femme: Paintings of Women in French Society from Daumier to Picasso from the Museums of France,” an exhibit of art from French museums provided by France lures art lovers back to the storm-staggered museum. Subsequent shows by Louisiana’s most popular artist George Rodrigue in 2008 and Walt Disney Studios in 2009 further aided NOMA’s gradual recovery.
• 2011 NOMA conducts a 31-hour centennial birthday celebration from Friday at 10 a.m. to Saturday at 5 p.m.

In October 2010, conceptual artists Matt Vis and Tony Campbell smashed plates and wine glasses on the floor of the great hall in artistic protest of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

In June 2011 a celebrated 33-year-old street artist known as Swoon created a huge sculpture made, in part, from debris, and hung it from the ceiling of the Great Hall like a giant jellyfish with tentacles cascading to the columns below.

Susan Taylor, who has been NOMA’s director since 2010, said that one of her goals when she took the reigns of the museum, was to “activate” the large entry space. In 1911, she said, the museum-going experience was different. The predictable European museum plan may have validated educational goals of the time, but the spirit of museums has evolved.

“Activating the space is emblematic of activating the whole museum,” she said, “and engaging the museum more completely in the cultural life of the city. In any space, first impressions are important. The Great Hall is the point of departure.”

In the case of Swoon’s commanding sculpture, Taylor said, people walked through the door and were struck with “a sense of engagement and wonder.” Today, she said, a museum is ideally “a laboratory for cultural engagement.”

“The beginning of NOMA’s new century is marked with new approaches to education, opportunities for encounters with great works of art — both in the collection and in special exhibits — and the museum’s clear commitment to being open and accessible to the people of New Orleans,” Taylor said.

Now, a museum ideally is “a laboratory for cultural engagement,” she said.

Ready for renovation

To enhance the opportunities for interaction, in addition to traditional educational aids, NOMA visitors can look forward to more high-tech exhibit accessories that will allow them to “drill down” into topics more deeply than ever before.

Six years after Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flood that closed the museum for seven months, Taylor said that the NOMA administration is still finalizing FEMA claims. The several million dollars she expects the museum to receive will provide long-needed renovation of the heating and air conditioning system and other maintenance needs.

“Katrina forced the museum to operate at its leanest, most essential levels,” Taylor said, “and to rebuild in a regular, deliberate way. It’s forced everyone to think of priorities.”

Taylor credits her predecessor, E. John Bullard, who served as director for 38 years, with cementing NOMA’s position as one of the finest regional art museums in the county. The collections of African art, photography, Japanese art, fine art glass and decorative arts are among the best anywhere, she said.

In the near future NOMA’s permanent installation of African Art will be redesigned based on curator William Fagaly’s well-received recent exhibit “Ancestors of Congo Square,” she said. A new installation of NOMA’s trove of Spanish colonial painting and sculpture is planned, “reflecting New Orleans’ strong links to that history.” And, she added, “look for enhanced education spaces in the museum in the coming year.”

Doug MacCash can be reached at dmaccash@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3481. Follow him at twitter.com/DougMacCashTP.

© 2011 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

'Nine Lives' told to music

Musical adaptation of 'Nine Lives' shows off New Orleans characters and sounds

 By Laura McKnight, The Times-Picayune 



Trumpets screamed, tambourines rattled and singers harmonized about pain, joy, grits and greens at Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre last night as an all-star cast of local musicians presented a Broadway-style portrait of New Orleans.

Steven Forster / The Times-PicayuneGuitarist Paul Sanchez and trumpeter Shamarr Allen performed in the musical adaptation of the book "Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans" last night at Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre. Both performances of the show sold out.

The musical adaptation of the book "Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans" by Dan Baum debuted with two performances Wednesday night, both sellouts.

The show, intended to grow into a full musical, depicts the city through two of its most distinct features: real-life characters and musical prowess. The musical adaption by Colman deKay and Paul Sanchez entertained audiences with a portrait of the city created by stories of its residents, the tales delivered via a range of music, dance and theatrics. References to Carnival royalty, Huey P. Long, drugs, the New Orleans Saints, Katrina, even grits and banana bread, surfaced in show-tune form. And like most musicals, the performances included dancing, but in keeping with the city's spirit, onstage moves were freestyle as opposed to choreographed, with entertainers breaking into second-line steps.

Readers have praised Baum's book for its powerful and compassionate portrayal of the city. Baum arrived in New Orleans after the storm as a journalist for The New Yorker and developed a deep connection with the city, which prompted he and his wife to move here in January 2007 and write "Nine Lives." The nonfiction book depicts 40 years of life in the city, from 1965, the year Hurricane Betsy hit, to post-Katrina times in 2007, through the oral histories of nine New Orleans residents.

The book inspired Sanchez and deKay to create a soundtrack album, a two-disc set including 24 original songs. The album, released on Mystery Street Records, features more than 100 musicians and vocalists, mostly from New Orleans. The show's music was culled from the album, the more complex orchestrations arranged for the stage by New Orleans tuba and sousaphone player Matt Perrine, who served as musical director for the show. New Orleans singer Debbie Davis served as vocal director.

During last night's show, renowned New Orleans musicians like guitarist Sanchez, trumpeter Shamarr Allen and singer Tricia Boutte, among others, flaunted their talents while performing the stories of fellow New Orleanians featured in Baum's book. Sanchez sang of heroin junkies and Katrina deaths as coroner Frank Minyard, Allen issued strong orders as band director Wilbert Rawlins Jr. and Boutte rushed the sewing of her Mardi Gras Indian chief husband as Joyce Montana.

Members of the stage band, also a roll call of topnotch New Orleans musicians, joined the acting with trombonist Craig Klein and trumpeter Mark Braud filling minor roles.

Veteran actors Harry Shearer, known for his roles in "Spinal Tap" and "The Simpsons," and Bryan Batt of "Mad Men" fame drew audience laughs with their antics as proud Carnival king Billy Grace and his son-in-law, heir to the throne. Broadway actor and Tony Award winner Michael Cerveris showed his range by playing both John Guidos, a transsexual bar owner who becomes JoAnn Guidos during the show, as well as police officer Tim Bruneau.

Music ranged from string-heavy ballads and saucy jazz numbers to fierce hip-hop and angry rock. Mournful harmonies backed by somber trombone expressed Minyard's angst in helping drug addicts. Regal horns lauded Shearer and Batt's Carnival king scenes. Soulful female vocals and shaking tambourines marked the tales of Mardi Gras Indians. A sultry song backed by a muted trumpet, and later a funky disco number helped illustrate John Guidos' transformation into JoAnn. A pretty violin-centered song described a tumultuous time for Belinda Rawlins.

The show included a simple set with no props; projected photos of New Orleans homes, cop cars, bar signs and other imagery provided the backdrop.

The musical adaptation portrays the beautiful and dirty sides of the city. A rowdy song called "Run Against You and Win" showcases the city's dealings with drugs and politics. Tionne Johnson, who plays a young Belinda, sings of dreams to exchange her Lower 9th Ward life for the lives depicted on television, with picket-fenced homes in places where "the cops are on your side."

"Be sure to kiss your Mama before she goes to work till dawn," Johnson sings.

Pride and determination take center stage in Mardi Gras Indian-inspired songs like "Tootie" and "Bring the Mountain to Him."

Allen's lyrics in "We Are the Band" also help define the city: "The music lives."

The final song,"Rebuild/Renew (Now)," brought audience members to their feet in a standing - dancing? - ovation. Nearly every audience member was clapping and grooving by the time the cast and band took their bows.

"The response from the audience was so gratifying," deKay said after the second performance, adding that the crowd reaction gives him confidence that a full musical is viable. "It was so powerful and so affirming."

Steve Hochman interviews Dan Baum, Paul Sanchez and Colman deKay about the musical adaptation of "Nine Lives" at 2 p.m. Saturday at New Orleans Jazz Fest's Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage.

© 2011 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Former city councilman/convict acts it out

In New Orleans, everybody acts, sings, plays an instrument, writes poetry or tap dances. Well, maybe not tap dance.

In an act of newfound humility, honesty and/or contrition, a former New Orleans city councilman, who served more than two years in federal prison, told his story onstage in the form of a two-act play before consecutive full houses and an extended run.

Oliver Thomas, a black politician, who was popular with both white and black voters, was once considered to be next in line to become mayor of New Orleans. Instead, he was found guilty of accepting a $20,000 bribe from a parking lot owner. His high school friend, Anthony Bean, who runs an Uptown theater company that focuses on African-American works and teaches drama to young people, convinced Oliver to help write and perform in his own play. Many of the scenes seemed written from Thomas's daily prison journals.

Aside from describing his personal humiliation and losses, the play had even more to say about the future of our urban youth. The inmates Thomas met in prison expressed their dire hopelessness, developed in fatherless homes, lousy schools and dilapidated public housing.

Our prisons are filled with these aimless young black men who lack any means of survival besides selling drugs.

One character said the only section of the newspaper his friends read is Metro, not Sports, because that part talks about the game they play. My heart bleeds reading the Metro section, seeing the young and sometimes innocent-looking young men who are either victims or perpetrators of crime. What could the future possibly hold for them when a college graduate can't find a job?

In the program, I noted in Oliver Thomas' bio he is now director of Advocacy Covenant House and a mentor at Circle of Courage.

Salvaged wood makes earthy art

My college friend Ellen, who now lives in Houston, insisted I track down a local artist at the Po-Boy Preservation Festival.

There were probably a half-million people on Oak Street in the Carrollton neighborhood on Sunday afternoon with long lines waiting to order Bourbon BBQ shrimp, pulled pork, smoked portobello, garlic shrimp, shrimp remoulade and pork debris po-boys, among other variations. Judging from the size of the crowd, I don't think the po-boy is in any danger of extinction, at least not in New Orleans.

I noticed by 4 o'clock, the hot sausage was already sold out, so that must have been awfully tasty. For those who may not know, a po-boy is like a Subway sandwich, but not. Calories be damned! They're all "dressed," which means lots of sloppy toppings and drippy sauce.

Leidenheimer Baking Co. - "Good to the Last Crumb" - is famous for its po-boy bread, which it has made since 1896. According to Leidenheimer's Web site, the name po-boy originated during a streetcar conductors' strike in the 1920s when a sandwich shop near the French Market fed conductors for free, shouting "Here comes another po-boy," when a striking conductor entered the shop.

I finally located the Artists' Village across from Jacques-Imo's Cafe and found Barbara Roberds right away. I'd already bought a small item from her myself at the Arts Market. Ellen wanted a wooden street sign for a Christmas gift. Barbara makes stuff from old wood - door and window frames - and also photographs old buildings. I decided to go ahead and buy a light switchplate I'd previously admired that features the Saturn Bar (see Nov. 6 posting about hip bars), which suits my decor a little better than the Ramos Pinto dancing girls I've got on the living room wall now.

New Orleans' original street names are spelled out in blue lettered tile embedded in the sidewalk.

Everybody's looking for Simon

I looked at my blog stats last week and noticed more than 2500 people visiting my Web site were actually looking for Simon Hardeveld. That's not because I have written extensively about the eccentric French sign-maker, but because he proudly boasts no Web page,e-mail, fax, computer or other modern, technological device. The only online mention is, well, my blog.

Simon figures, if you want one of his signs, you should just come by the shop. Of course, you won't be able to find its address in the telephone book or any tourist brochure either.

Lucky for you, I know where he is and dropped by the other day to get his phone number so all you folks wanting to buy a unique sign can call him up. I can't promise he will answer the phone either. Of course, product photographs are not posted online, so you'd just have to trust his judgment about what to send.

They aren't terribly unique in New Orleans because you will see them everywhere you go, particularly, "Be Nice or Leave." I think that message must have really spoken to residents post-Katrina.
I can tell you that it is all fun and colorful and typical Simon.

His workshop is next to an antique store run by his wife on Jackson Avenue at Magazine filled with chandeliers and gilted furnishings. They are an unlikely union.

I told Simon's success story way back in 2007 - you can search for it. His style consists of primary colored stars, circles, flowers and barber shop stripes. The philosophical phrases are totally his. I just bought another sign while I was there: "DIEU VOIT TOUT." Doesn't that say it all? 

It says, "Clean up your act," "Watch out," "I'll get mine after you get yours," "Don't steal," or - if you are more positive, "Good things come to he who waits." After Dieu Voit Tout, what else can you say?

In any case, Simon and his assistant are always madly painting signs,trying to keep up with demand, though there seem to be many that go unsold - perhaps awaiting the perfect buyer. "Shalom Y'all" appeals to the masses and "Who Dat Cat" could turn on many a feline fancier. There's always "Laissez le bon temps" when you have nothing more original to say, but "Blessed and highly flavored by God" might have a more finite customer base. Zulu coconuts are a collector's dream and easier to come by in his shop than at the Mardi Gras parade.

Simon is somewhat political with a tendency to use art to make public statements about hurricanes and oil spills. He told me this time that to counter the general craziness over burning the Koran, he painted a sign of the Who Dat Nation and set it afire. He tried calling the news stations, but the reporters couldn't make out a word he was saying in his thick French accent, so they completely missed the analogy.

He's redecorated the place, putting in a floral archway and what looks like a Tiki bar in addition to the sign museum out back. It's always fun to walk around and you inevitably find something you can't live without. Also, it's just a block away from Trashy Diva.

Anyhow, here's his phone number if you must give him a call: 504-524-8201.

New Orleans artist celebrates Gulf sea life

Giant crab hanging on my living room wall

Three years ago, when I was still new to town, I decided I some artwork was needed to pull my eclectic household together and create a focus. 

I remembered an artist I'd met at the Bywater Art Market who painted huge crabs and crayfish and tried to find him on the Internet. I recalled that he was commuting back and forth from Mobile. I soon located his paintings exhibited in a gallery near City Park and accidentally bought two! 

I reconnected with Martin Welch recently and learned more about his background when I wrote a story about the Palmer Park Arts Market. He's now living in New Orleans, selling paintings all over the country. 

“There are so many people with a connection to New Orleans and they want to remember it through my paintings,” he mused.

Welch was recently honored at a Windsor Court Hotel reception I attended. Giant, brilliantly colored canvases encircled the hotel’s stately rooms. “That crab looks like it’s crawling right off the canvas!” remarked Susan Danielson, a University of New Orleans administrator attending the showing. “That’s how the shrimp moves in the water – it’s so full of energy!"

Welch has received multiple prizes at two International Shrimp Festivals and was chosen one of the 10 best artists by the New Orleans Museum of Art during its 2008 “Love in the Garden” series. Four of his works - a shrimp, an oyster, a fish and a dragonfly - were selected by “Treme” set designers to decorate the Bernette family’s kitchen.

Welch’s current work is daring and assertive, but that was not always the case. Though he painted at an early age, winning a fifth grade prize, his parents discouraged his budding ambition. 

“They really had no idea to send me to art or design school. They didn’t know what was possible,” Welch said. Growing up in the Mississippi Delta, the family had no access to art museums, he said.

After studying chemistry at the University of Mississippi and Delta State, he joined the U.S. Navy. Completing military service, he returned home to Greenville, Miss., and ran a jewelry business for 13 years.

Welch finally took a risk, following the untimely death of a friend.

“Even if I had to sack groceries, I was going to do what I wanted to do,” he decided.

Welch enrolled at Spring Hill College, a small Jesuit college in Mobile, Ala., where he believed he might find a supportive environment to nurture his creativity. He scrimped to support himself and ran a junk store, which he heated with $40 of kerosene. In 2000, he graduated magna cum laude and the Art Department President’s scholar.

Welch’s first paintings were introspective – a style that observers described as “dark.” My paintings were like a journey that I was on too,” he said.

Growing up in Mississippi, he had gone pole fishing, so began to use bass, brim and other freshwater fish as his subjects. That’s when he discovered his bliss. “When you get free, the flood waters open up.” Influenced in Mobile by the Gulf, he painted snapper, flounder and Royal Reds – shrimp harvested in the dark, cold waters 2,400-ft. deep, he said. Fishing led to crabs, he said.

“I didn’t worry about competition,” he said. “I just started my own distinct style.” His paintings combine Japanese brushstroke Sumi-e painting with Cubism, he said. I paint the way I feel – usually happy and bright – using a palette knife and big brushes, he said.

“The red is so commanding, you just have to look at it,” said Nancy Eaves, a jewelry designer and fellow Arts Market exhibitor. “That’s part of the energy.”

After Katrina, Welch and his partner Tim Buckless drove to New Orleans from Mobile three weekends a month, exhibiting in art show after show. Now they own a house a couple of blocks from the Arts Market at Palmer Park where Welch regularly displays his work.

Welch continues to paint almost daily, which engages him both physically and mentally. “It’s like playing the piano,” he said. “All muscle tension goes away.” His most recent artistic experiment is Assemblage – canvas on canvas and painting inside a painting. For Welch, his art just keeps evolving.