Country Roads August "Deep South Design" Issue

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Tammany Taste

Aug. 1 - Sept. 30, 2020

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Contents

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Features

Events

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28

GUSSY ON UP

Stay fresh for face-masked festivals, digital galas, and outdoor excursions.

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VO LU M E 37 // I SS U E 0 8

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REFLECTIONS

by James Fox-Smith

NEWS & NOTEWORTHIES

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Publisher

MADE IN VIDALIA Revitalizing American textile manufacturing, right on the Mississippi

by Christina Leo

SOUTHERN MADE MODERN New Orleans furniture company Doorman crafts high quality pieces with a story.

by Jordan LaHaye

James Fox-Smith

Associate Publisher

Ashley Fox-Smith

Managing Editor

Jordan LaHaye

Arts & Entertainment Editor

Christina Leo

Creative Director

Kourtney Zimmerman

ELEVATED HEADSPACE HALO MIMI utilizes an age-old craft to create couture-quality hats.

Contributors:

Ed Cullen, Charlotte Jones, Emily Kask, Christie Matherne Hall, Elizabeth Chubbuck Weinstein

by Jordan LaHaye

On the Cover

Cover Artist

Jim Blanchard

THE CAMPBELL MANSION Art by Jim Blanchard

In our Deep South Design issue, over and over again we see examples of old things being made new, old things being used to make new things, and an overall coalescence between the past and the future, taking place in the brilliant present. Jim Campbell, profiled in this month's "Perspectives" column on page 54, is a master of such time warps, recreating the most iconic architectural achievements of our region in perfect, excrutiating detail. The result of deep dive research and classical technique, our cover for this month is a proud example of his work. The circa 1859 Campbell Mansion, designed and built by New York architect Lewis E. Reynolds, was seized by federal troops during the Civil War, then transformed over the years into the luxurious residence of Judge Henry Spofford, then the Poydras Home, then the Mansion Apartments. It was demolished in 1965 to make way for a parking lot, but lives on in perfect detail in Campbell's rendering.

Cuisine

Culture

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42

24 HOURS IN MINDEN Eating my way through a tiny town with a big heart

TEXTILE & COSTUME MUSEUM

by Jordan LaHaye

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LSU’s fashion museum's new home

by Elizabeth Chubbuck Weinstein

THE LOST MULE MARKETS OF BARONNE

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NOLA was once bustling with hundreds of these mighty steeds.

by Charlotte Jones

INGENIUS DESIGN Function meets form in pursuits large and small.

by Ed Cullen

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Escapes

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SAILING FOR EVERYONE

In 2020, New Orleans becomes a more

inclusive place on the water.

by Christie Matherne Hall

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PERSPECTIVES Jim Blanchard: At the crossroads of oldschool technique and modern research, history rebuilds itself.

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Neal Auction UPCOMING 2020 AUCTIONS

Fall Estates Auction September 12 & 13

Louisiana Purchase AuctionTM November 21 & 22

1. Marie Hull (1890-1980), “Resurgence,” o/c, 28 x 24 in. 2. William Hemmerling (1943-2009), “New Orleans,” m.m./sheet, 103 x 86 1/4 in. 3. Ida Kohlmeyer (1912-1997), “Symbols 82-B,” 1981, m.m./c, 37 1/2 x 24 in. 4. Helen Turner (1858-1958), “Ann Spencer,” o/c, 40 x 30 1/4 in. 5. William Henry Buck (1840-1888), “Bayou Landscape with Fisherman,” o/c, 11 1/8 x 19 1/2 in. 6. Robert Joseph Warrens (b. 1933), “Space Station Apartment,” m.m./wood, h. 107 in. 7. Walter Anderson (1903-1965), “Shoots of the Bamboo Vine,” wc, 11 x 8 1/2 in.

8. Gen Paul (1895-1975), “La Lecture,” 1927, o/c, 29 x 36 1/4 in. 9.Elemore Morgan (1931-2008), “Rice Field Vista,” a/masonite, 18 x 31 in. 10. American Renaissance Carved Rosewood Bedroom Suite, mid-19th c., stenciled “A. [Alexander] Roux,” incl. chest; nightstand; bed; and armoire, h. 107 in. 11. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), “Love 312 (Gold),” screenprint, 26 x 19 3/4 in. 12. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), “Love 311 (Blue),” screenprint, 30 1/2 x 21 3/4 in. 13. Louisiana Carved and Inlaid Hardwood Campeche Chair, early 19th c., h. 37 1/4 in.

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Reflections FROM THE PUBLISHER

It is nine o-clock on a Tuesday night.

I’ve just climbed down from a ladder.

I’m covered with paint and the middle finger on my right hand has a blister the size of a quarter on it. My left thumb is throbbing because I’ve hit it with a hammer. The lights I’ve been trying to fix for an hour still aren’t working, and my wife is shouting at me. This August issue of Country Roads goes to press tomorrow and despite being one hundred words deep I’m still not sure what this “Reflections” column is going to be about. The completion of my latest project, a bedroom renovation that began as a father-son bonding exercise supposed to be completed over the Memorial Day weekend, seems to hover both close enough to touch and perpetually just out of reach. Once again I am caught in the self-inflicted trap of the do-it-yourself project. Charles and I should just have gone hiking.

Something I’ve noticed about the coronavirus pandemic: our ability to ignore the many shortcomings and deferred maintenance issues around our old house has decreased as the amount of time we spend here has grown. For someone with an inflated sense of

his abilities as a (pick one) carpenter/ plumber/electrician/arborist/farmer/ mechanic; a barnful of cheap tools; and a chronic inability to estimate how long a project will take, this is a dangerous combination. With the increased time at home, the variety and complexity of handyman projects into which I have flung myself has grown. First it was a vegetable garden. Then a refortified chicken house. Then the resurrection of a long-dead 4-wheeler. Now—and this really is the gift that keeps on giving—a down-to-the-studs renovation of our fifteen-year-old son Charles’ room that has been going on so long I think Sisyphus mightn’t have had it so bad with his rock after all. Admittedly Charles’s room was awful—the poorly constructed remnant of a nineteenseventies-era renovation done by a former resident with a Roy Rogers fixation.

With its Western-themed woodwork and dinky hardware, and now bearing the scars of fifteen years’ inhabitation by a baby-turned-toddler-turned-small-boyturned-large, it was an eyesore badly in need of an overhaul. But it wasn’t falling off like the back porch, or rotted through like the floor of our daughter’s room, so

it probably shouldn’t have been at the top of the ‘to-do’ list. On the first day, Charles and I took to it with hammers and pry-bars, tearing out the old paneling, closets, and molding, evicting multiple mouse colonies and discovering the source of various persistent smells along the way. With this satisfying work done the real challenges began. Among things we learned is how hard it is to sheetrock a room with four doors but not a single right angle. We learned that one thing you can not learn from YouTube videos is how to successfully cut crown molding into non-ninety-degree inside corners. And we learned that if your house has electrical wiring that dates from the Great Depression you’d best leave it alone, or for God’s sake call a real electrician. The other thing we— and indeed the rest of the family—have learned is that, when you tear out a room

that despite its many flaws contained almost all the storage space in your house, you not only consign its occupant to sleeping on the couch for two months, but you also relocate all of his belongings, plus everything you as a family have stuffed into those closets during the past twenty-five years, to teetering piles throughout the rest of the house.

Although my wife has been a good sport, the cracks are beginning to show. This week she has started referring to herself as a “carpenter’s widow.”

It’ll be done one day, I suppose. And when it is I can’t deny the satisfaction we’ll feel at having built something decent-looking with our own two (or four) hands. But to prevent my gloating from going too far there is this: During the midst of this project our daughter put her foot through the rotten floorboards of her room—an emergency that compelled us to hire actual experts to come in and deal with it. A local contractor sent out a couple of guys who not only fixed the rotten floorboards but also replaced the falling-off back porch so well that it is now the sturdiest piece of the whole house. It took them about a day and half. Will I consider this before tackling the bathroom? Only time will tell.

James Fox-Smith, publisher —james@countryroadsmag.com

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RESCHEDULED

Featuring Chef Jeremy Langlois & Friends Staged on the spectacular grounds of Houmas House Historic Inn & Gardens at the height of fall and featuring a menu designed to showcase the quality and range of Louisiana seafood, this Country Roads Supper Club event will be hosted by Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser.

Featuring • A Progressive Seafood Tasting Fair; guests will explore the gardens visiting seafood tasting stations presented by recognized Louisiana chefs.

• 3-Course Seated Dinner prepared by Houmas House Executive Chef Jeremy Langlois with paired wines and cocktails.

• Programming designed to showcase the bounty of fresh Louisiana seafood, and the creativity and resilience of those who bring it to us.

Thanks to our sponsors

Tickets on sale at // A U G 2 0

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Noteworthy

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N E W S , T I M E LY F A C T S , A N D O T H E R

CURIOSITIES

LO O K C LO S E R

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The First of Many

A NEW LSU MURAL HONORS THE UNIVERSITY'S FIRST BLACK PROFESSOR

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or many, the year 1971 doesn’t seem too long ago, but for the history of Louisiana State University, it marked a pivotal moment that changed the makeup of the school forever. It marked the year it hired its first Black professor, the Alexandriaborn and Urbana-Champlain-educated architect Julian T. White. This summer, the College of Art & Design teamed up with the Baton Rouge-based Walls Project and the LSU Foundation to commission a mural in White’s honor, a three-panel goliath celebrating his

thirty-three years in education and acknowledging the mark he's made since his passing in 2011.

Painted by Lafayette muralist Robert Dafford, whose near-five-hundred works can be found across the United States, Canada, France, Belgium, and England, the Julian T. White mural hangs sixty feet above the college’s atrium and depicts White leading a procession of students from the university’s iconic bell tower through the varied architecture and live oaks of LSU’s campus (also among them are Boyd Professor and Philip W. West Professor of Analytical

& Environmental Chemistry, Isiah Warner). In the tradition of Benozzo Gozzoli’s paneled mural the “Procession of the Magi” in Florence’s Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, which inspired Dafford, the artist’s medium works to exalt White’s legacy in a larger-than-life approach appropriate for someone who opened so many doors for students and professors of the future.

One such student was Ken Tipton, Jr., the leader of Baton Rouge’s Tipton Associates architecture firm, who was also once an adjunct professor working under White.

“Julian White was a talented architect and an exceptionally gifted teacher,” he said. “He met prejudice and hardship and with grace and passion. He was a mentor to many and modeled what it meant to be a professional for generations of students. For many of us, Julian White was the definitive face of Architecture at LSU. He changed the world one student at a time—architects and architecture in this State are indebted to his influence. I, for one, am forever grateful.”

—Christina Leo

Preserving the Past for a Better Future THE LOUISIANA LANDMARKS SOCIETY HONORS SEVENTEEN ADMIRABLE PROJECTS IN PRESERVATION

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1905 Thomas fostering resurgences in Sully home, neighborhoods across the city. restored in And reusing old buildings— absolute fidelity well there’s nothing better.” to its former glory using Because the traditional Sully’s original blueprints; awards ceremony was James Freret’s asymmetrical cancelled in early March due two-story corner porch to the COVID-19 pandemic, resurrected from one of the Society has spent the past his watercolors; the sole several months developing survivor South-brick Creole alternative ways to honor its 1626 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, one of the seventeen recipients of this year's award, was built in 1913 and has been cottage of a circa 1835 row winners and to share their vacant for decades until its 2019 restoration. Photos courtesy of Louisiana Landmarks Society. repurposed into The Jewel of work with the public. In July, their outstanding achievements in In addition to the talent required the South; the Historic New they released a virtual tour of the achieve such remarkable winning projects via a three-episode Orleans’ Collection’s reclaiming of historic restoration, renovation, and to transformations, the teams who documentary series, available online the Seignouret Brulatour House; a new design.

“Our committee was a very vocal oversaw these projects demonstrated alongside a self-guided driving tour, rare saved example of Walter Dorwin group,” said awards committee deep commitments to preservation which will include a map and digital Teague’s Moderne style 1949 Texaco Sandra Stokes.

“Very through meticulous research, catalogue from which one can read Service Station; and no less than chair three schoolhouses—neighborhood opinionated and passionate about sometimes painstaking artistry, and the inspiring stories of each winning landmarks—saved and reborn to preservation, about the restoration of of course—significant investments. project.

“These awards really showcase highlight architectural details in neighborhoods. And they’ve selected “People are looking for things to Aztec revival, Spanish Renaissance, such a spectrum of winners, ranging the diversity and talent of our local do,” said Stokes. “Hopefully this and Victorian eclectic styles: New from individual residences—a double developers and architects,” said multi-faceted, multi-disciplined Orleans has always been fertile shotgun single-family home—to the Stokes. “When they do restorations approach will not only honor these ground for ushering the treasures of restoration of schools to commercial like this, they are demonstrating a projects, but will bring even more buildings. It’s all across town, from real commitment to the future of people to explore the history and its past into the future.

For its 2020 Awards for Excellence the French Quarter to the Bywater New Orleans. Because it’s not just the communities here in the New in Historic Preservation, the to the Central City area, projects on about preserving old things. We Orleans area.”

Louisiana Landmarks Society is smaller scales and massive scales and really promote quality of life, creating —Jordan LaHaye honoring seventeen such projects for everything in between.” residential areas and opportunities, Louisianalandmarks.org 8

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"Natchez Poppy Guy" Strikes Again

ARMED WITH 20 LBS OF ZINNIA SEEDS, FLORAL FANATIC RUNS COLORFULLY AMOK

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atchez has a Poppy Guy and his name is Gregory Brooking. If you’ve ever taken a walk down through Natchez-Under-the-Hill during spring, you can hardly have failed to notice his work: tens of thousands of Flanders poppies carpeting the steep slope beneath Silver Street, making this particular stretch of Mississippi riverbank one of the most beautiful places in America each April and May. “Yes, I am the Natchez poppy guy,” admitted Brooking, a Silver Street resident who loves using his LSU botany degree to commit random acts of floral largesse.

For more than a decade Brooking has planted the swaths of poppies that emerge along Silver Street each spring, “but you have to plant them in October … then weed ‘em all winter,” he explained. “You can have a lovely patch if you work your ass off!” This year, not content to wait until April to start blowing people’s minds, Brooking has struck again. In March he planted twenty pounds of zinnia seeds across another stretch of open ground beneath the Photo by Gail Guido Natchez Bluffs.

The result: a vast, free, public cutting garden that has to be seen to be believed.

“Twenty pounds … that’s about 1.7 million seeds I guess,” noted Brooking, who is manager of Duncan Park Golf Course. “And this is zinnias—the best cut flower in the world … it’ll last two weeks in a vase!” His palette: a three-acre stretch of open ground created by the $24 million retaining wall built by the federal government to stop sections of the Natchez bluffs from falling into the river. When the Feds returned a couple of

years ago to chop down all the vegetation that had grown up against the wall, the operation created a layer of mulch.

With his botany degree, Brooking saw an opportunity. “The first summer I went and sprayed the trees. Then I went back and sprayed the weeds. I kept that area vegetation-free while the wood deteriorated.” Last March, while most of us were sitting at home having Zoom meetings, Brooking was under the bluffs planting his 1.7 million seeds.

Four months later the fruits of his labors speak (or sing) for themselves: an explosion of summer color spreading comfort and joy to all who need it. All Brooking wants is for people to enjoy

them. “It’s free flowers … go get some!” he exclaimed, noting that with so much seed in the ground the blooms should keep coming through the first freeze.

If you go, take some scissors to cut the stems properly, so the plants can keep flowering. Pull a few weeds while you’re at it and you’ll be helping him out. “I just enjoy beautifying the city,” Brooking exclaimed. “The larger the area the happier I am.”

—James Fox-Smith // A U G 2 0

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MAP OUT

Your Staycation

with BREC Baton Rouge Zoo Baton Rouge Gallery Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center Blueway Trails/ Boat Launches:

Highland + Greenwood

Cohn Arboretum Conservation Trails:

Blackwater + Frenchtown + Kendalwood Manchac + Forest + Hooper + Comite

Dog Parks:

Forest + Greenwood + Zachary

Extreme Sports Park Farr Park Equestrian Center & RV Campground Golf Courses:

Dumas + Santa Maria + Beaver Creek JS Clark + Webb + City Park

Highland Road Park Observatory Magnolia Mound Mountain Bike Trails: Hooper + Comite

Tennis Centers:

City-Brooks + Independence Greenwood + Forest + Highland

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Events

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THE

HEAT OF THE DAY CAN’T KEEP

A R T, G A M E S , M U S E U M S , A N D

THE

FESTIVALS

SUN’S-A-BLAZIN’

COOL, LATE-SUMMER VIBES ARE

HERE

TO

S T A Y.

A W A Y.

W

For reservations, go online to reginaskitchen.com BOOK YOUR BRUNCH CLASS NOW!

As re-openings and social distancing measures continue to fluctuate due to COVID-19, don’t forget to check out our online Events page at countryroadsmag. com to stay updated on the latest changes and additions to Louisiana and Mississippi’s ever-rotating schedules.

UNTIL AUG

2

nd

FESTIVAL SEVEN DAYS OF SATCH Online

French Quarter Festivals, Inc. (FQFI), producers of French Quarter Festival and Satchmo SummerFest, proudly announce Seven Days of Satch, presented

by Chevron. The multiplatform, virtual celebration is a collaboration between FQFI, New Orleans National Jazz Historical Park, WWOZ, WWL-TV, and New Orleans Jazz Museum. Seven Days of Satch will run through the end of Sunday, August 2. Fans can look forward to thematic programming on WWOZ, Louis Armstrong-inspired cooking demos on WWL-TV, and a full weekend of original performances and Armstrong scholars discussing the Satch, broadcast on Facebook Live. The virtual event pays tribute to twentieth anniversary of Satchmo SummerFest, an annual festival dedicated to the life, legacy, and music of New Orleans’ beloved native son, Louis Armstrong.

The Seven Days of Satch lineup includes eight acts from beloved New Orleans artists: James Andrews, John Boutté, Wendell Brunious, Topsy Chapman and

Solid Harmony, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns, Herlin Riley, Treme Brass Band, and Tuba Skinny. Musical performances sponsored by the New Orleans National Jazz Historical Park will be filmed onsite at the New Orleans Jazz Museum and shared on Facebook Live Saturday, August 1–Sunday, August 2.

Louis Armstrong-inspired cooking demos will air on the WWL-TV Morning Show July 27-30. For more information, check out satchmosummerfest.org. k

UNTIL AUG

15th

LITERARY LIFE EBRPL SUMMER READING PROGRAM Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The East Baton Rouge Parish Library’s 2020 Summer Reading Program, Imagine Your Story! runs through Saturday, August 15. But it’s summer reading, re-imagined as it transitions to a new online program. The traditional summer reading program, which relied on paper logs, regular visits to the library, and attendance at library programs, was impacted by the ongoing disruption due to COVID-19, and the library has pivoted to offer something that could work from a

distance. The Reading Challenges for all ages include: • Beanstack Summer Reading Challenges: It’s easy! Just read and complete activities to earn badges. Each challenge (except Red Stick @Home) has both a reading/logging element, as well as an activity factor. The rules, requirements, badges, and incentives vary based on the age group. Sign up at your local Library location, or online at ebrpl.beanstack.org.

There’s even an app! There are three funfilled programs for children based on their ages and reading levels: Dragon Cubs, for ages 0-5; Heroes in Training, for ages 5-8; and Storybook Adventurers, for ages 8-11.

• Page Turner Adventures: Adventure awaits you! The Library invites you to enjoy fun virtual programs by Page Turner Adventurers each week. Get access to shows, crafts, games, and activities for kids by checking the online calendar at ebrpl.com for drop dates for each, and visit the Children’s Facebook group page EBRP Library Kids Programming for special links to each program. Links also will be available inside your Summer Reading Beanstack account.

• Red Stick @Home Challenge: This special Beanstack challenge is for the

Your Next Event

at a HISTORIC LANDMARK IN JACKSON, LA

Let us host you and your next event at the

Milbank Historic Home

&

Old Centenary Inn. (225) 634-5901 www.milbankbandb.com • (225) 634-5050 www.oldcentenaryinn.com // A U G 2 0

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Events

Beginning Aug 1st

whole family, and includes thirty-three activity badges designed to have patrons explore our community, including its cultural assets, attractions, and the work of local organizations.

For more information about the Library and any of its free resources, call (225) 231-3750, or visit the library website at ebrpl.com. k

UNTIL AUG

15th

NATURE NATCHEZ CELEBRATES THE BLOOMS Natchez, Mississippi

No other United States city can boast the extraordinary display of crepe myrtles blooming like Natchez, Mississippi can.

So, this summer, three self-guided free tours stand as the basis for experiencing Natchez during its 2020 Crepe Myrtle Blooming Season.

• Crepe Myrtle Sip & See Stroll: This downtown walking tour (including the Go-Cup district) features the largest, most magical concentration of crepe myrtles in the city. Enjoy sipping and strolling with the afternoon breeze in this

bluff city on the Missisippi.

• Bloom Drive: This tour takes in the magnificent blooms at top gardens and sites beyond the downtown area.

• Historic Natchez City Cemetery: Established in 1822, this historical cemetery is simply beautiful. Drive or walk and see more than 490 crepe myrtles amidst the mature landscape with an overlook of the city. Maps and updates are also available at the Facebook event page: Natchez Celebrates the Blooms, and some area businesses. Free. Book your stay and obtain Natchez Celebrates the Blooms maps and visitor information on the event’s Facebook page or at visitnatchez. org/events. k

UNTIL AUG

22nd

ART SHOW DENHAM SPRINGS FINE ART ASSOCIATION AUGUST SHOWCASE Denham Springs, Louisiana

The Arts Council of Livingston Parish will host artwork from members of the Denham Springs Fine Art Association during the month of August, ending on August 22. To view this exhibit, please

Summer in Natchez is the equivalent to spring in D.C.—only this time, the beautiful crepe myrtle rules the day. Photo by G. Douglas Adams.

SCOTT, LA • 888-620-TREE (8733) CHURCH POINT, LA • 337-684-5431 WWW.BOBSTREE.COM 12

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contact the Arts Council office to make an appointment, which will be offered on Thursdays and Saturdays for groups of four or less. Masks must be worn at all times inside the gallery. Wednesday– Friday from 10 am–12 pm; Saturday from 10 am–2 pm. Free and open to the public.

Schedule at (225) 664-1168 or info@ artslivingston.org. artslivingston.org. k

UNTIL AUG

30th

FINE ARTS ENTWINED: RITUAL WRAPPING AND BINDING IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTHERN ART New Orleans, Louisiana

Across history, various cultures— including Haitian Voudou, Appalachian broom-making, Calabrian silk production, Peruvian rope coiling, and Congo Nkisi—have built aesthetic and symbolic traditions around the ritual practice of wrapping and binding. In the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s Entwined exhibition, contemporary artists engage with this tradition in various media and approaches. Through wrapping, painting, weaving, coiling, drawing, or knotting, each artists binds their own unique and thoroughly contemporary vision to this ancient, universal, and very human practice.

The exhibit will feature works by: Friendswood Brooms, Jeffrey Cook, Sonya Yong James, Susan Jamison, Sharon Kopriva, Kristin Meyers, Susan Plum, Ashley Pridmore, Elizabeth Shannon, Ed Williford, and Sarah Zapata. On exhibit until August 30. ogdenmuseum.org. k

UNTIL AUG

30th

FINE ARTS CONSPICUOUS: SATIRICAL WORKS BY CAROLINE DURIEUX Baton Rouge, Louisiana

What gestures, habits, and patterns unite people to money? Early twentieth century Louisiana artist Caroline Durieux believed it to be two things: consumption and leisure.

In Conspicuous: Satirical Works by Caroline Durieux, now on display at the LSU Museum of Art, Durieux captures the sometimes absurdist patterns of American and Mexican bourgeoisie in sketches, often drawn directly on the lithographic stone. The artist is best known for her research in electron printmaking and radioactive inks during her time as a professor at Louisiana State University, and the LSU Museum of Art possesses nearly three hundred of her works. Catch Conspicuous on display until August 30. lsumoa.org. k

UNTIL AUG ART SHOW NIGHT LIGHT

31st

Lafayette, Louisiana

Lafayette artist Rachel Perry will display her newest exhibition, Night Light, at the Gallery at Cité des Arts. Depicting light accurately on a flat, opaque canvas is no easy feat; it requires an almost scientific level of observation and reproduction.

In these paintings, Perry has made her own rules for how light travels, specifically at nighttime and the hours approaching it. The colors, shades, and subjects she deems most interesting have taken the focus in this work, and certain realistic details have been altered or even discarded to better show what she sees as beautiful in the nocturnal skies. Masks are required for entry to the Gallery and Cliff’s Bar at Cité des Arts, and social distancing and capacity limits will be strictly enforced. 10 am–5 pm Tuesday– Friday. citedesarts.org. k

UNTIL SEP

1st

HISTORY FROM BERWICK BAY TO ÉTOUFFÉE: SHRIMPING IN LOUISIANA Patterson, Louisiana

During the 1930s and 1940s, Morgan City dubbed itself the official “Shrimp Capital of the World.” In a new exhibition at the Wedell-Williams Aviation & Cypress Sawmill Museum, titled From Berwick Bay to Étouffée: Shrimping in Louisiana, this boom era is explored in artifacts and images from the collection of F.C. “Butch” Felterman Jr., a native of Patterson and former shrimp boat owner and captain. The exhibition will open with a reception on August 23 from 5:30 pm–7:30 pm. Hors d’oeuvres and libations will be served. Free and open to the public. louisianastatemuseum.org. k

UNTIL SEP

27th

FINE ARTS VAN GOGH, MONET, DEGAS, AND THEIR TIMES Jackson, Mississippi

The seventeenth presentation in the Annie Laurie Swaim Hearin Memorial Exhibition Series, and offering seventyfour works by nineteenth- and twentiethcentury masters, Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts showcases French Impressionist paintings, along with masterpieces from every important school of French art—from Romanticism through to the School of Paris, all at the Mississippi Museum of Art. Taken together, these works exemplify the Mellons’ personal vision and highly original collecting strategies, which provide a context for // A U G 2 0

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Events

AUG 1st

DAINTY DELIGHTS SIDEWALK AND GARDEN SOIREE

Beginning Aug 1

st

understanding this unique collection of French art. The exhibition includes works by Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Henri Rousseau, and Vincent van Gogh. $15 per person; $13 for seniors and groups of ten-plus; $10 for college students with ID; Free for members, children age five and younger, and for K-12 students on Tuesdays and Thursdays thanks to Feild Co-operative Association, Inc. and BlueCross BlueShield of Mississippi. msmuseumart.org. k

AUG 1st

FAMILY FUN FIRST SATURDAY COMMUNITY DAY Saint Martinville, Louisiana

Due to Covid-19, the historic site’s museum remains closed until further notice. However, the grounds are still open to visitors. In an effort to strengthen community ties and raise awareness of the treasure which is Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site, on the first Saturday of each month residents of St. Martinville (with proof of residence) are welcome

Natchez, Mississippi

to enjoy the grounds and site without incurring the standard entrance fee.

Have a picnic, go for a walk, ride bikes, or just relax and enjoy the days of summer—the opportunities are endless. Call 337-394-3754 for more information. k

AUG 1st

OUT AND ABOUT BATON ROUGE ARTS MARKET Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The Baton Rouge Arts Market is returning downtown for August.

Shop with over seventy artists from Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Florida who will present original works of art in a variety of mediums including, pottery, jewelry, woodwork, textiles, photographs, glass, paintings, sculpture, hand-made soaps, and so much more. Don’t leave the kids behind; a children’s activity center is always set up between 9 am and noon.

Held alongside the weekly Red Stick Farmers Market from 8 am–noon between Main and Laurel streets. Free.

(225) 344-8558. For more updates, visit artsbr.org/batonrougeartsmarket. k

Take in the live music while sipping a glass of wine or lemonade, and sample delicious sweet and salty treats at this Sidewalk and Garden Soiree in the heart of Mississippi Delta country country at the Magnolia Cottage B&B. Take a leisurely walk in the rose gardens and back courtyard while hearing the history of the circa 1831 cottage, and exploring the remains of the old dairy barn and its hidden staircase. Please dress cool with flat shoes, and wear your favorite sun hat (the best hat will even win a door prize!). Social distancing guidelines will be observed. 6:30 pm– 7:30 pm. $40 per ticket at eventbrite. com. facebook.com. k

AUG 1st

FINE ARTS FIRST SATURDAY GALLERY OPENINGS New Orleans, Louisiana

Join the hordes of art-lovers and artmakers along Julia Street this month for a thrilling slate of new art exhibits. On the first Saturday of every month, this stretch of the Warehouse district comes alive for a self-guided art walk, trailing through the

area galleries’ newest exhibitions and their opening receptions. 6 pm–9 pm.

Learn more at neworleans.com/plan/ streets/julia-street. k

AUG 1st

MOVIE NIGHT AUGUST FILMS AT THE MANSHIP Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Don’t lose the romance of actually going out to the theatre. Leave your WiFi behind and head to downtown Baton Rouge. Each month, the Manship Theatre offers a slate of new-release documentaries. Here’s what’s in store for August: • August 7: The Muppets Take Manhattan: Kermit the Frog and his friends go to New York City to get their musical on Broadway only to find it’s a more difficult task than they anticipated. 7 pm.

• August 14: The Neverending Story: A magical journey about the power of a young boy’s imagination to save a dying fantasy land, The NeverEnding Story remains a much-loved children’s adventure. 7 pm.

• August 19: The Fight: This documentary shows an inside look at the legal battles that lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union are facing during the Trump administration. 7:30 pm.

Current Exhibitions

CONSPICUOUS

SATIRICAL WORKS BY CAROLINE DURIEUX on view until August 30

LIVING WITH ART

SELECTIONS FROM BATON ROUGE COLLECTIONS on view until September 27

ART IN LOUISIANA VIEWS INTO THE COLLECTION ongoing For more information about exhibitions and programming, please visit lsumoa.org We extend appreciation to the generous lenders to Living with Art: Selections from Baton Rouge Collections: Karen and Jerry Ceppos, Janie and Chet Coles, Becky and Warren Gottsegen, Beverly and Steven Heymsfield, Salomia and Ben Jeffers, Mary Terrell Joseph, Cary Saurage, among other private collectors. Thank you to the following sponsors of this exhibition: Dr. Kay Martin, in Honor of Mr. L. Cary Saurage II; Friends of the LSU Museum of Art; Taylor Porter; Mrs. Jan and Mr. Sanford A. Arst; Mrs. Beth and Dr. Butler Fuller; In Honor of Mr. L. Cary Saurage II: Mrs. Laurie and Mr. Hank Saurage; Mr. C. Wayne Meyers; Mrs. Donna M. Saurage; Mrs. Catherine and Mr. Matt Saurage; and The Helene Kantrow Blitzer and Sidney M. Blitzer Family Fund. Support for all exhibitions is provided by the Annual Exhibition Fund donors. LSU Museum of Art is supported in part by a grant from the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, funded by the East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President and Metro Council.

Additional support is provided by generous donors to the Annual Exhibition Fund, and our donors and members.

Funding for Louisiana Culture Care Fund grants has been provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and administered by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH) as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act economic stabilization plan. Support provided by Art Bridges.

IMAGES: (detail above) Caroline Wogan Durieux (American, 1896–1989), Park in Rio, 1942, lithograph on paper, Gift of the Artist, LSUMOA 68.9.22; (detail middle) Donald DeLue (American, 1897–1988), Icarus, 1934, cast 1987, ed. of 12, gilt and patinated bronze, Courtesy of the Cary Saurage Collection; (detail bottom) John Tarrell Scott (b. New Orleans, LA 1940 d. Houston, TX 2007), Ibeji #2, 1998, mixed media on paper, ed. 9/150, From the collection of Derek Gordon and Rodolfo Ramirez, LSUMOA 2008.11

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A U G 2 0 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

RE DISCOVER

The Mississippi Museum of Art has reopened its doors under social distancing guidelines, and will exhibit its collection of French works (including the one above) until September. Image: Claude Monet, “Camille at the Window, Argenteuil”, 1873, oil on canvas. Photo courtesy of The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. See page 13.

• August 21: Labyrinth: In this 1986 cult classic, sixteen-year-old Sarah is given thirteen hours to solve a labyrinth and rescue her baby brother Toby when her wish for him to be taken away is granted by the Goblin King Jareth. 7 pm.

• August 22, 23, 25: Tesla: Brilliant, visionary Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) fights an uphill battle to bring his revolutionary electrical system to fruition, then faces thornier challenges with his new system for worldwide wireless energy. The film tracks Tesla’s uneasy interactions with his fellow inventor Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan) and his patron George Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan). Another thread traces Tesla’s sidewinding courtship of financial titan J.P. Morgan (Donnie Keshawarz), whose daughter Anne (Eve Hewson) takes a more than casual interest in the inventor.

Anne analyzes and presents the story as it unfolds, offering a distinctly modern voice to this scientific period drama which, like its subject, defies convention. 7:30 pm on August 22 and 25; 6 pm on the August 23.

AUG 1st - AUG 29th

Tickets are $9.50 for all films and can be purchased by calling the Manship Theatre Ticket Desk at (225) 344-0334. manshiptheatre.org/events/film. k

ART WALKS WHITE LINEN LIGHT

FRESH FINDS TECHE AREA FARMERS MARKETS New Iberia, Louisiana

Experience the Bayou Teche’s harvest of locally grown produce and homemade products by area farmers, artists, and crafters every Tuesday and Saturday. Find regionally inspired items such as, fresh baked goods, honey, jellies, candies, and more. 2:30–6 pm on Tuesdays; 7 am–11 am on Saturdays. (337) 369-2330. k

AUG 1st - AUG 29th

FRESH FINDS EUNICE FARMERS MARKET Eunice, Louisiana

Open year-round, the Eunice Farmers Market offers customers seasonal garden vegetables, fruits, jellies, sweet dough pies, honey, breads, and other locally made delicacies. Plus a smattering of arts and crafts items made by local artisans. 1 pm Wednesdays and 8 am Saturdays at the corner of Second and Park streets. (337) 457-6503. k

There may not be as many bead-lined streets or second line celebrations right now, but the culture of Baton Rouge has never been stronger — because the heart of Louisiana lies within its people. From blossoming blues artists to food with flavor and flair all its own, come experience a bit of true Louisiana.

Start planning your trip at visitbatonrouge.com

AUG 1st - AUG 29th New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans’ famed White Linen VBR20-03r Country Roads HP Print Ad (Aug issue)_PRELIM2.indd 1

7/17/20 1:46 PM

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Events

Beginning Aug 1st -- Aug 2nd

Light cannot go on as usual due to COVID-19 community safety restrictions, so the Arts District has decided to hold daytime gallery openings in its stead every Saturday in August to allow for maximum social distancing and art appreciation—a new event called White Linen Light. White Linen Light will be a self-guided art walk on and around Julia Street, with rolling gallery openings across the Arts District.

Be sure to take this opportunity to continue the New Orleans tradition of donning your white linen for a daytime stroll throughout the Arts District Galleries. Don’t forget to bring your white linen face masks! The district will also be hosting two, two-week art auctions in which each gallery will highlight an artwork in their current exhibitions and offer it at a discounted starting bid price. Take this opportunity to visit the galleries, view the auction works and entire exhibitions in-person and start or grow your collection. In order to keep staff and fellow art appreciators as safe as possible, please be sure to bring a face mask covering for all gallery visits.

All patrons are continually advised to

take part in social distancing, stand six feet apart in all gallery spaces, and abide by the respective gallery maximum occupancies. 10 am–5 pm.

Free. artsdistrictneworleans.com/events/ white-linen-light. k

AUG 1st - AUG 31st

GREAT OUTDOORS AUGUST AT STATE PARKS Statewide, Louisiana

Each month the good folks at Louisiana State Parks send us a listing of information for all the programs taking place at park properties during the month to come. The August calendar contains upwards of seventy-five programs, ranging from dutch oven-cooking demonstrations to guided birdwatching hikes, to primitive woodworking, canoe tours, and livinghistory sessions. So don’t spend this time of year indoors; visit the wide open spaces cared for by the State Parks system. Here is a small sampling of adventures on offer. • August 1, Forgotten Lives, Audubon State Historic Site, St. Francisville: Park Rangers will be on hand to give tours of the slave cabins and discuss family life along with life on the plantation. This

Louisiana State Parks are still around to help guide us through the historical sites in our own backyard.

This month, the Audubon State Historic Site offers “Forgotten Lives,� a tour dedicated to the reality of slavery (including visits to restored slave cabins, seen above) and plantation family life.

program is geared towards an adult and

Walk, Audubon State Historic Site,

young adult audience. The program may

St. Francisville: A guide will conduct a

be cancelled due to inclement weather.

walking tour of the grounds and discuss

Limit to nine people to group and masks

the plants, birds, animals and insects that

are strongly suggested. 1 pm and 2 pm.

can be seen along the way. Each walk is

(225) 635-3739.

limited to nine people per group, and

• August 15, Nature Trail Guided

facemasks are strongly suggested. 1 pm

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KPMG Manda Fine Meats Performance Contractors, Inc. Robinson Brothers Ford & Lincoln Southern Cold Storage Lee Michaels Fine Jewelry & Distinctive Gifts Express Employment Professionals

A virtual event will be held should the live event need to be cancelled due to health concerns or government recommendations due to COVID.

A U G 2 0 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

and 2 pm. (225) 635-3739.

• August 29, A Visit to Locust Grove Cemetery, Audubon State Historic Site, St. Francisville: The site will be open during this time only and a Ranger will be on duty to answer questions and give a short introduction to the Historic cemetery and all its inhabitants to all visitors. Please remember the site has no facilities. Talks are limited to groups sized nine or less and masks are required. 2 pm–4 pm. (225) 635-3739.

AUG 2ND

Visit crt.state.la.us/louisiana-stateparks for a full list. k

AUG 2nd

MUSEUM DAY FIRST FREE SUNDAY AT CAPITOL PARK MUSEUM Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Explore Louisiana’s diverse and colorful history at Baton Rouge’s Capitol Park Museum for free on the first Sunday of each month, with special hours from 1 pm–4:30 pm. Learn more at louisianastatemuseum.org k

MUSEUM DAY LASM FIRST SUNDAY

AUG 1st - AUG 31st ART WALKS BAYOU BRAVURA

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Baton Rouge’s Manship Theatre is still doling out some throwback greats, including a showing of the 80s classic, The Neverending Story, on August 14. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. See page 14.

New Orleans, Louisiana

Opening August 1 during New Orleans’ newly branded White Linen Light self-guided art walk, where art-lovers can still don their favorite white digs while safely socially distancing, Gallery 600 Julia’s newest exhibition, Bayou Bravura, is all about the paintings of Northshore artist Carol Hallock, whose loose realism and atmospheric handling characterizes her subject: the Louisiana bayou. 10 am–5 pm to allow for staggered attendance. The artist will be in attendance from 3 pm–5 pm. Masks required. gallery600julia.com. k

AUG 1st - AUG 31st

ARTS INDOORS OGDEN AFTER HOURS AT HOME Online

The art galleries at the Ogden Museum ring with music on Thursdays each month, when the popular Ogden After Hours evening concert series brings Southern musicians to entertain and Southern music scholars to elucidate.

Now, during the COVID-19 crisis, the museum will host these musical

gatherings online with Hear the South, featuring Southern musicians and DJs performing from the comfort of their own homes. And every fourth Thursday of the month, our esteemed host, Brandon Lattimore, will take you on a nostalgic journey and play musical selections from the Ogden After Hours archive. Live sessions will be available on Zoom and Ogden Museum’s Facebook. Stay updated on future streaming events on facebook.com/ ogdenmuseum. k

Every first Sunday of the month, guests can enjoy free admission to all art galleries, family activities, and reduced admission to unlimited planetarium shows at LASM. Stop by with your family, or introduce the museum to your friends as one of Baton Rouge’s most beloved attractions. 1 pm–4 pm. 100 River Road South. (225) 344-5272. Stay updated at lasm.org. k

AUG 2nd

LIVE MUSIC THE 5 O’CLOCK SHADOWS Franklin, Louisiana

Bringing decades of musical experience, all from different 1950s and 1960s bands

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Webster Parish CVC | 318-377-4240 | 110 Sibley Road Minden, LA // A U G 2 0

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Events

Friday Night Cookie Jar Tournament is 7 pm–midnight, from the LA Express Boat Dock in Jarreau. For the Tuesday Night Tournament, contact: Billy Bagette at (225) 718-5395; for the Cookie Jar Tournament: Storm Randall at (225) 937-0489. k

Beginning Aug 2nd -- Aug 7th

and instruments, the seven St. Mary musicians who make up The 5 O’Clock Shadows bring a special deftness to the business of rockn’ and rollin’. With a piano, an organ, bass, drums, guitar and vocals, and a three-horn section, the Shadows make an impression anywhere they land along their busy regional performance schedule. See them every first Sunday of the month at Franklin’s Legion on the Bayou club from 2 pm–5 pm. $12. the5oclockshadows.com. k

AUG 2nd

MUSEUM DAY VIRTUAL FREE FIRST SUNDAYS AT LSU MOA Online

On the first Sunday of each month, the LSU Museum of Art welcomes all to enjoy its exhibitions free of charge, promising special family activities, live music, and more. Now, during the COVID-19 crisis, virtual guests from all over the world can check out these special events online, as well as viewing past First Sunday talks with curators and art historians on the museum’s Youtube channel. lsumoa.org. k

AUG 3rd

GOOD EATS UNITED WAY RED BEANS N’ RICE COOKOFF & TAKE-OUT Slidell, Louisiana

The East Tammany United Way’s sixteenth annual cook-off offers all-youcan-eat red beans and rice (this time in take-out form due to COVID-19 restrictions), plus dessert, with prizes for the winning cooking teams. The event benefits St. Tammany Suicide Prevention & Crisis Response and the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. $10 admission for red beans and rice take-out. 11 am–1 pm. louisiananorthshore.com. k

AUG 4th - AUG 28th GREAT OUTDOORS FALSE RIVER FISHING TOURNAMENTS New Roads, Louisiana

False River’s Friday Night Cookie Jar and Tuesday Night Fishing tournaments take place every Tuesday and Friday evening until the final “Classic” tournaments in September. Tuesday Night Tournaments run from 6 pm–9 pm and launch from the Morrison Parkway Boat Dock. The

AUG 5th

EDUCATION HEMP: DOES IT HELP? IS IT HYPE? CAN IT HURT? VIRTUAL SYMPOSIUM Online

If you are one of the many people confused about the health benefits of cannabidiol (CBD) products, make plans to attend this free virtual community education event. Bill Gurley, PhD, Principal Scientist in the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi, will lead a lecture titled “Hemp: Does it Help? Is it Hype? Can it Hurt?,” an event organized by the Botanical Dietary Supplements Research Center at LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center. The CBD regulatory environment is changing rapidly. In 2018, federal lawmakers reclassified hemp as a legal agricultural product, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued proposed rules to govern hemp production, but those rules have not been finalized. Dr. Gurley

said significant regulatory changes lie ahead. His talk will cover the rules governing growing and marketing CBD products, the safety of these products, and truth-in-labeling. 6 pm–7:30 pm.

Registrants will be emailed the link and instructions on how to join the meeting.

Registration is available at www.pbrc.edu/ BotanicalEvent. k

AUG 5th - AUG 26th FRESH FINDS GLC FARMERS MARKET Loreauville, Louisiana

Every Wednesday, grab the fixings for dinner from your local farmers set up at GLC Meat Market on Loreauville Rd. in New Iberia, selling produce, plants, honey, homemade pies, and more. Not to mention, grass-fed beef, pork, and lamb will be available at the market at this time. 2 pm–6 pm. (337) 577-9160. k

AUG 5th - AUG 26th

ARTS INDOORS “CONNECT” WITH THE WALTER ANDERSON MUSEUM Online

The Walter Anderson Museum of Art is hardly letting a pandemic drain all the color from its service to art-lovers everywhere. Every Wednesday during this period of self-isolation, tune in to the

We see extraordinary courage. We see a culture of resilience.

We’ll make it through the tough times, we always do.

And Blue Cross will always be here to support you. bcbsla.com 01MK7330 04/20

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A U G 2 0 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

The Arts Council of Livingston Parish will host artwork from members of the Denham Springs Fine Art Association during the month of August, showcasing local artists at their finest. Image: Pat Delk, “Happy Thanksgiving”, oil on canvas. See page 12.

museum’s Facebook page for a half-hour Facebook Live show, “Connect,” WAMA’s arts and culture program connecting you to interesting people and ideas from across the map, including interviews with artists discussing their work. Part of the Our ART+ initiative, “Connect” and the museum’s myriad online resources and exhibitions help make art experiences accessible digitally, and connect the collection to a variety of fields of study including art history, science, social studies, and language arts. Each module is targeted to state standards, student creativity, and overall well-being. For more information, visit facebook.com and walterandersonmuseum.org/artplus. k

AUG 5th - AUG 26th

GOOD EATS NEW ORLEANS WINE & FOOD EXPERIENCE SUMMER WINE DINNER SERIES New Orleans, Louisiana

Due to the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience needing to cancel its usual festival this year in the wake of COVID-19, the organization is hosting several special summer wine dinners on dates through September. Participating restaurants include: Broussard’s Restaurant & Courtyard, Palace Café, GW Fins, Briquette, La Petite Grocery, Tommy’s Cuisine, the Rib Room, and Café Reconcile, with additional restaurants to be announced. The August dinner dates include: • Wednesday, August 5: Palace Café featuring Wines of Champagne and Burgundy (Reservations: 504-523-1661) • Tuesday, August 11: GW Fins featuring Cakebread Cellars

(Reservations: 504-581-3467) • Wednesday, August 19: Briquette featuring Ruffino Italian Wines (Reservations: 504-302-7496) • Wednesday, August 19: La Petite Grocery featuring Duckhorn Vineyards (Reservations: 504-891-3377) • Wednesday, August 26: Tommy’s Cuisine featuring Belle Glos and Quilt Wines (Reservations: 504-581-1103) Dinners will be served adhering to all safety protocols. Start times and prices vary by restaurant. Reservations made directly with each restaurant by phone. nowfe.com. k

AUG 6th - AUG 27th

FAMILY FUN BEER GARDEN MOVIE NIGHTS Arnaudville, Louisiana

Each Thursday evening during summer, Bayou Teche Brewing sets up a big screen in the brewery’s Beer Garden Taproom and shows movies from 7 pm. Brewery beer garden and taproom are open Thursdays—Sundays from noon, with the Cajun Saucer wood fired pizza oven serving from 5 pm–9 pm Thursdays, noon–9 pm Fridays and Saturdays, and noon–5 pm Sundays. We’ll raise a glass to that! 1106 Bushville Hwy. Visit bayoutechebrewing.com or call (337) 754-5122. k

5713 Superior Drive, Suite B-1 Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70816

AUG 7th

HISTORY PURPLE HEART DAY & POW-MIA CEREMONY New Iberia, Louisiana

This month, take a break in New Iberia’s Bouligny Plaza for a celebration honoring // A U G 2 0

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Events

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RIDE ORGANIZERS ARE ADHERING TO ALL STATE ORDERS AND LOCAL PRECATIONS RELATED TO COVID-19.

WE ARE TAKING ALL NECESSARY STEPS TO ENSURE THE SAFETY AND WELL-BEING OF ALL PARTIPANTS AND VOLUNTEERS INVOLVED. Thursday, September 17 12PM Online Registration Closes Friday, September 18 6PM-10PM Welcome Party & Package Pickup (LAST chance to register) Saturday, September 19 7AM Package Pickup Broadway St. 7AM-8AM Riders will line up 8AM Ride Begins 1PM SAG Stops Close 11AM-2:30PM Post-Ride Lunch TBD Post-Ride Poolside

The Natchez Young Professionals and Natchez Adams-County Chamber of Commerce will host the 1st Annual YP Natchez Bicycle Classic. It’s been 20 years since the last Natchez Bicycle Classic Race and our Young Professionals ar thrilled to announce its return are with a ride featuring the option of either a paved or gravel surface.

Nothing can beat the beautiful scenery of the Natchez Trace and paired with the town’s famous food and music, its sure to be a fantastic weekend!

For more information & registration www.natchezbicycleclassic.com

Sunday, September 20 8AM-10AM Recovery Ride Led by Natchez Bicycle Club TBD Recovery Brunch

www.visitnatchez.org Follow us on Facebook Natchez Young Professionals

the soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, complete with a flag ceremony and the harmony of patriotic music. 6 pm–8 pm. Call (337) 344-9397 or visit iberiatravel.com for more info. k

PG-13, and non-political. Arrive early for the best seating and the chance to play. Check in at 6 pm with the weekly OMG Coordinator to get your spot in the spotlight. Stay updated at facebook.com/ events/807123076424948. k

AUG 7th - AUG 9th

AUG 8th

Online

Slidell, Louisiana

This year’s gala for Theatre Baton Rouge will be a celebration of contemporary musical theatre, with a mix of solos, duets, and group numbers highlighting this century’s biggest Broadway hits.

The troup will also have a very special guest, Mayor Sharon Weston Broome, who will be attending to help the theatre announce the very exciting plans for their 75th Season. $40. theatrebr. org/2020auctiongala.html. k

Join the City of Slidell for the twentysixth Annual Arts Evening in Olde Towne Slidell. This annual event is one of the largest and most celebrated cultural festivals on the Northshore, an entertaining evening filled with art, food, live music, dancing, fine dining, and antique and boutique shopping.

More than one hundred artists and art organizations will display their works at locations throughout Olde Towne, with live music and entertainment throughout.

Whether it’s classic rock, R&B, jazz, variety, rock ’n’ roll or acoustic, there’s something for every musical taste.

In addition to visual and performing artists, patrons will enjoy fine and casual dining at participating Arts Evening restaurants and opportunities to shop for antiques, furnishings, and more in Olde Towne’s boutiques. Artwork by this year’s Arts Evening cover artist will be on display at the Slidell Municipal Auditorium. Note that several streets in Olde Towne Slidell will be closed to traffic during Arts Evening, from 3 pm–9:15 pm. Streets affected include areas of First Street, Erlanger Avenue, Second Street, Bouscaren Street, Cousin Street, Carey Street, and Robert Street.

Access to the U.S. Post Office will not be obstructed. In order to provide easy access to participating Arts Evening locations, the city’s shuttle and street car will run throughout Olde Towne from 4 pm–10 pm. Event runs from 4 pm–9 pm.

Free. For the complete list of artists and entertainers featured throughout Olde Towne, visit myslidell.com. k

THEATRE THEATRE BATON ROUGE’S FIFTH ANNUAL GALA

AUG 7th - AUG 9th

GREAT OUTDOORS GULF COAST SPORTSMEN AND OUTDOOR EXPO Slidell, Louisiana

LIVE OAK LANDSCAPES

With prime fishing weather just about past and hunting season right around the corner, it seems the perfect time for Louisiana sportsmen (and women!) to gather up for an old shopping spree.

The inaugural Gulf Coast Sportsmen and Outdoor Expo will feature vendors from all across the Gulf states, offering the latest in all things hunting, fishing, camping, and sports. It’s a trade show for the adventurous, the skilled, and the smelly, and it will be held at the Northshore Harbor Center in Slidell from noon–8 pm Friday, 10 am–8 pm Saturday, and 10 am–5 pm Sunday. $17 for a weekend pass; $10 per day. gulfcoastsportsmen.com. k

AUG 7th - AUG 28th

LIVE MUSIC ORIGINAL MUSIC GATHERING AT LA DIVINA Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Create Your Own Oasis!

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A U G 2 0 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Looking for a spot in the spotlight? Or maybe you’d like to support local singer-songwriters while enjoying select wines, ice cold beer, delicious dining, and gelato. Now’s your chance! Fridays at La Divina Italian Café will be home to Original Music Gathering, a showcase of original singer-songwriters, as well as comedy skits, poetry, various instruments, acting monologues, and more. All performances must be original,

ART WALK ART EVENING AT OLDE TOWNE SLIDELL

AUG 8th

FAMILY FUN CHILDREN’S FUNDAYS AT BIEDENHARN MUSEUM & GARDENS Monroe, Louisiana

Children’s Fundays at the Biedenharn Museum & Gardens will once again take place each month. The museum will provide crafts and fun for ages 3–16, so bring the kids and come enjoy the gardens. Tickets can be purchased in the

Museum Store on the morning of the event.

10 am–noon. $5 per child; accompanying adults enter free. bmuseum.org. k

Lunchtime Lagniappe is an ongoing series of brown bag talks that last approximately thirty minutes plus a Q&A. This month, Cassie Pruyn, author of Bayou St. John: A Brief History, will trace the evolution of New Orleans’s Bayou St. John from prehistory through the present day. In this swiftly-moving talk, Pruyn will cover the bayou’s role as crucial “back door route” for French colonial settlers, its life as a bustling commercial waterway, its stint as an unauthorized houseboat haven, its WPA-era “beautification,” and much more.

Noon. Virtually hosted on the Capitol Park Museum’s Facebook page: facebook.com/ LaStateMuseum. k

New Orleans for a free, online Gallier Gathering this month with guest speaker Justin Nystrom, the Peter J. Cangelosi/ BEGGARS Distinguished Professor in the History Department at Loyola University New Orleans and author of New Orleans After the Civil War: Race, Politics, and a New Birth of Freedom (Johns Hopkins, 2010) and Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture (University of Georgia Press, 2018). This talk explores the life and times of one of New Orleans’ larger-than figures of the twentieth century, “Big Jim” James Comiskey.

Whether he was boxing or playing baseball, promoting fights, selling both illegal and legal whisky, or active in the political arena, James Comiskey never did anything small. His outsized life in many ways symbolizes a New Orleans that has long since disappeared but also one that would have been quite familiar to our grandparents’ generation. 6 pm–7:30 pm.

Free. To register, visit hgghh.org/events/ aug-gallier-gathering. k

AUG 12th

AUG 14th - AUG 16th

AUG 12th

EDUCATION VIRTUAL LUNCHTIME LAGNIAPPE: BAYOU ST. JOHN THROUGH THE CENTURIES Online

The New Orleans Food & Wine Festival is looking a bit different this year ... but no less delicious. See page 19 for details on where to book your perfect dinner date.

HISTORY WHISKEY, BOXING, AND POLITICS: THE LOST NEW ORLEANS OF BIG JIM COMISKEY New Orleans, Louisiana

Join the Gallier Historic House in

THEATRE YOUNG ACTORS PROGRAM VIRTUAL FALL FLING Online

Theatre Baton Rouge launched its Young Actors Program with Fiddler on the

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Roof, Jr., and while it seems like just yesterday, this year it celebrates ten amazing years of producing outstanding programming for the Baton Rouge community by young performers.

While the theatre isn’t able to honor this milestone in the way it originally planned, it still wants to celebrate and present its community with a retrospective of the last ten years. This event will include some performances from members of our Young Actors Program, as well as interviews with program staff and alumni, all to celebrate a decade of art-making.

Tickets are $25.75. theatrebr.org/ YAPfallfling.html. k

arts-related activities, including adult and youth art workshops (for a small charge), an Arts Market, Conversations with the Artist programs, a treasure hunt, a Petite Gallerie display, and more. Check out the schedule below:

AUG 14th - AUG 23rd

HISTORY NATIONAL DAY OF THE ACADIANS

ART SHOW TREASURES OF POINTE COUPEE New Roads, Louisiana

To the Julien Poydras Museum comes this annual art extravaganza. Artists have been busy creating work inspired

by Pointe Coupee Parish, and the results will take over the museum for viewers to peruse over two weekends. The show spans two weekends with additional

First Weekend • Friday, August 14: 6 pm–9 pm • Saturday, August 15: 10 am–5 pm • Sunday, August 16: 10 am–2 pm Second Weekend • Friday, August 21: 10 am–5 pm • Saturday, August 22: 10 am–5 pm • Sunday, August 23: 10 am–2 pm artscouncilofpointecoupee.org. k

AUG 15th

We’re tapping our toes already. The Arts Council of Pointe Coupee’s Performing Arts Series returns this August with Taylor Frey and the Roots Run Deep Band. Photo courtesy of Taylor Frey and the Roots Run Deep Band.

more info, call (337) 394-2258 or visit acadianmemorial.org. k

Saint Martinville, Louisiana

National Day of the Acadians will be celebrated August 15 at the Acadian Memorial Museum to honor the anniversary of the arrival of the early French refugees who carved out a unique lifestyle for themselves in the South Louisiana soil. All free and open to the public. 3 pm–5 pm. For

AUG 16th - AUG 22nd

LIVE MUSIC ARTS COUNCIL OF POINTE COUPEE PERFORMING ARTS SERIES: TAYLOR FREY AND THE KRICKETS New Roads, Louisiana

The Arts Council of Pointe Coupee brings

high-energy regional musicians who have been favorites at the French Quarter Festival and Jazz Fest, as well as closer to home. This August, check out: • August 16, Taylor Frey and the Roots Run Deep Band: Pointe Coupee native Taylor Elizabeth Frey is a singer, songwriter, film maker, and agricultural enthusiast. Born and raised in Morganza, Frey’s fondest memories happened on the back roads where her family’s farm, Four

Explore LSU Rural Life Museum WE ARE NOW OPEN FOR YOU TO STAYCATION AND ENJOY THE OUTDOORS! Open Daily: 8:00 am until 5:00 pm LOCATED AT BURDEN MUSEUM AND GARDENS OPEN DAILY 8:00–5:00 • I-10 AT ESSEN LANE, BATON ROUGE, LA FOR MORE INFO CALL (225) 765-2437 OR VISIT WWW.RURALLIFE.LSU.EDU 22

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Elizabethan Gallery “More than just a frame shop.”

ONE DAY FRAMING AVAILABLE

Join us for our annual Associated Women in the Arts Show “Blue Skies and Happy Memories” Open House Thursday, August 13th 11am-8pm Show hangs until Saturday, September 26th Refreshments will be served.

“Morning by the lake” Oil by Carole Sexton

Sunset on Sevenoaks Oil by Janice Evan Paris, Place de Furstenberg Oil by Mariana Kalacheva

680 Jefferson Highway, Baton Rouge, LA 70806 225-924-6437

No need for chain mail and shuckers—these oysters are being prepared just for you this month at the Baton Rouge Oyster Festival. See page 25.

Oaks, still stands. She released her first music video for “Too Much Water, Not Enough Rain” in June 2019, a song which tells the story of the Mississippi River flooding in 1973 and 2011. Taylor and her band of Pointe Coupee musicians are excited to share their love of music with a local audience.

• August 22, The Krickets: A trio of female vocalists from Panama City, Florida, The Krickets are an Americana group whose music Paste Magazine calls “a truly stunning, one-of-a-kind sound.”

With a specialty in swamp harmony, the group’s genre-bending songwriting has allowed them to play for diverse audiences from listening rooms to official performances at SXSW. The title track of their 2018 album, Redbird , was named Alternative Country Song of the Year at the 2019 Independent Music Awards. $29.25; $10.45 for students. artscouncilofpointecoupee.org. k

AUG 21st

FRESH FINDS VILLE PLATTE FARMERS MARKET Ville Platte, Louisiana

Head downtown on the third Friday of every month for Ville Platte’s Farmer’s Market, hosted by Revitalize Downtown Ville Platte, the Evangeline Chamber

of Commerce, and Evangeline Parish Tourism. Local vendors from around the state will be set up with arts and crafts, pop up shops, food, drinks, music, and fresh fresh produce around the Louisiana Swamp Pop Museum. Lawn chairs encouraged as the community gathers to enjoy an afternoon downtown. 3 pm–6:30 pm. Call (337) 363-1878 for more information. k

AUG

V I R T U A L

Art unWINEd Let's paint the house rosé! Check out BREC’s new adult-only art classes designed to encourage and inspire creativity through a step by step class by professional artist Anita Lejeune.

22nd

Aww,

Shucks!

FUNDRAISERS THE ULTIMATE TAILGATE PARTY Covington, Louisiana

Your biggest dilemma for this event will be “What color do I paint my face?!”

The Ultimate Tailgate Party promises a blowout for Tiger fans, Saints fans, and the large cross-section of those who root for both, themed around a Sports Tailgating Experience featuring a fourcategory barbecue competition, live music from Four Unplugged, both live and silent auctions, and a large variety of food and drink. 7 pm–11 pm at the Covington Trailhead. $75. Proceeds go to benefit the West St. Tammany Exchange Club as they raise money toward the prevention of child abuse. ultimatetailgateparty.org. k

FRIDAY, AUGUST 21 6 – 8:30 PM | $ 3 0

August is Louisiana’s month of the oyster – so let’s celebrate that delicious, salty, pearl making mystery of the bayou! After this class, painters will have completed a 16 x 20 acrylic oyster on canvas.

S U P P LY P ICK-U P : THU R SDAY, AU G 20 | 3 - 6 p m

BREC Administrative Building TO REGISTER:

brec.org/brecart

All art supplies included. Must be 21+ to join the fun!

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Events

Beginning Aug 22nd -- Aug 30th AUG 22nd

ART LESSONS LAFAYETTE ART ASSOCIATION MINI WORKSHOP: WORKING WITH OIL MONOTYPES Lafayette, Louisiana

Oil monotypes are paintings that have been printed on paper. Often referred to as “the painterly print,” they’re the most painterly method among printmaking.

This month, join instructor Bonnie Camos as she takes you step-by-step through this artistic process using bold, loose, and very expressive applications of oil paint in the same method used by Rembrandt, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, and Henri Matisse.

All materials and tools will be provided for your use during workshop. 10 am–3 pm, with a break for lunch. $55 for LAA members, $65 for non-members. To register, email both spalmer1@cox-internet.com and info@lafayetteart.org. afayetteart.org. k

AUG 22nd

LIVE MUSIC SWAMP POP MUSIC FEST & JAMBALAYA COOKOFF Gonzales, Louisiana

Na Na Sha, Don Rich, The Mojoes,

and Mike Broussard & The Night Train are on the bill for this Saturday night celebration of the uniquely Louisiana sonic style that combines New Orleansstyle R&B, country & western, and Cajun music, with some rock-and-roll flair. This event raises money for cystic fibrosis research. This year, it’s happening at the Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales. 3 pm–11 pm. Doors open at 2 pm. facebook.com. k

AUG 23rd

LIVE MUSIC BANDITO FESTIVAL Baton Rouge, Louisiana

South-of-the-border spice up against the long-tended umami of BBQ? No, you’re not in Texas, you’re at the Bandito Festival, where Baton Rouge aims to prove they’ve got as much right to celebrate the crossroads of salsa and smoke as anyone. BBQ, tacos, and an all-star altcountry line-up, including Elsah, Dalton Wayne & the Warmadillos, Elizabeth Cook, Drivin’ N Cryin’, Reverend Horton Heat, Steve Earl, and The Dukes, make for an appetizing evening. Noon–11 pm in Galvez Plaza. Free. Grab some VIP

What is swamp pop, anyway? Well, there’s no teacher like experience, which is exactly why you need to skip on over to Gonzales on August 22 for a uniquely Louisiana extravaganza (oh, and for some jambalaya, too).

tickets at eventbrite.com. k

AUG 24th - AUG 28th

PEACE AND QUIET SAINT JOSEPH ABBEY ART WORKS ART RETREAT

medium to its next Artist Retreat for four days of peaceful, quiet painting on the grounds of Saint Joseph Abbey. The retreat will include a private room and bath, plus meals in the newly renovated Retreat Center just steps from the studio

Saint Benedict, Louisiana

building. This retreat is for independent

This August, Saint Joseph Abbey Art Works is inviting painters of any

artistic development, and no formal painting instruction will be given. Artists

Cypr ess Table Sale 10% To 50% Off All In S tock Tables.

s e e o u r w e b s i t e fo r w h a t ’ s i n s to ck. s ta t e w i d e d e l i v e ry ava i l a b l e .

cypress furniture

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will set up their own studio space in the Art Works building and begin independent work. Easels and tables are provided. Artists should bring their own painting supplies.

Enjoy meeting and sharing art and ideas with other artist while developing your own imagery. The abbey is following all CDC guidelines and has made changes to the configurations in the common area to ensure that guests are safe and comfortable while on retreat. To register, visit saintjosephabbey.com/artist-retreat. k

AUG

online, and you can tune into the Arts Market New Orleans’ Facebook page for special video content from local artists to small, handmade businesses. Even if you can’t purchase the artwork featured, any like or share can do a world of good. 10 am–4 pm. See a schedule of videos and featured artists at facebook.com. k

AUG 30th

GOOD EATS BATON ROUGE OYSTER FESTIVAL

28th

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

SUMMER FUN COLUMBIA STREET BLOCK PARTY Covington, Louisiana

This long-running last-Friday-of-themonth event closes the 200 to 500 blocks of Columbia Street to anything with an engine, providing lots of opportunities for fun on foot instead. The classic car people and the shop owners will be handing out goodies accordingly, plus live music at local venues. 6:30 pm–9 pm. Free. covla.com. k

AUG 29th

ARTS & CRAFTS ARTS MARKET NEW ORLEANS’ #VIRTUALARTSMARKET Online

Quarantine crafts not exactly turning out

National Day of the Acadians will be celebrated August 15 at the Acadian Memorial Museum, honoring the anniversary of the arrival of the early French refugees on South Louisiana soil. Image: Henry Beau, “The Deportation of Acadians.” See page 22.

to be masterpieces? Maybe it’s time to call in the professionals. On the last Saturday of the month, the Arts Council of New Orleans presents the continuation of its #virtualartsmarket, a collection of online

resources—searchable by the nominal hashtag—to connect you to New Orleans artists’ and artisans’ work, whether via Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. The Arts Council will be posting artist features

Head to Galvez Plaza in downtown Baton Rouge this August for the third annual Baton Rouge Oyster Festival.

Bushels of briny bivalves will be on hand—if you’re in a sporty mood, get ready for the shucking, cooking, and eating competitions. Music from the likes of Toadies, Cracker, My Posse in Effect, Werewolf, Your Mom, and School of Rock will abound. And what’s an oyster without a good beer? Bars and food open up at noon and festivities will be rockin’ ‘til 11 pm. VIP tickets available. Join the shuckin’ party to support Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana in their efforts to restore & protect a sustainable coastal Louisiana. batonrougeoysterfestival.com. k

#VisitorsCenter

#LastWildernessTours

#DineIberville

#PlaquemineLockStateHistoricSite

Life is a journey

LEARN MORE AT VISITIBERVILLE.COM // A U G 2 0

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V I S I T S T. F R A N C I S V I L L The Magnolia—A local institution reopens, going back to its roots When Life Gives You Lemons … (make organic lemon slush smoothies) Since the coronavirus closed the Magnolia Café’s doors back in March, it’s been a lot quieter in the parking lot that the restaurant shares with Birdman Coffee & Books at the corner of Commerce and Ferdinand Streets. And while many St. Francisville restaurants including The Saint, Restaurant 1796 at The Myrtles, Que Pasa, Café Petra, The Francis and El Mejor soldiered on through the spring shutdown, finding creative ways to feed the faithful, the space created by the extended closure created a significant ripple effect in a town where “lunch at The Mag” has been a local ritual and traditional component of daytrip itineraries for almost forty Birds of a Feather: Magnolia Café founder & owner Robin Marshall (right) with sister, Lynn Wood, founder of Birdman Coffee & Books, right across the parking lot. years. But in Magnolia owner/ founder Robin Marshall’s world, ‘eighties (as a health food store in a can expect to see changes not only to “quiet” doesn’t equate to a lack of industry. In the unprecedented town where no-one had ever heard of a the décor, but to the menu, the drinks shutdown Robin saw an opportunity to bean sprout), Robin and a few longtime options and the schedule, too. embark upon an overhaul that would employees used the closure to embark have been impossible with the restaurant on a ‘spring cleaning’ that somehow “We’re going back to our roots a in regular operation. Exhibiting the evolved into a ground-up renovation. bit and giving more of a nod to the kind of hands-on determination that Now, with The Mag scheduled to past,” explained Robin, popping up ushered the Mag into being in the early reopen this month, returning patrons from beneath a table in the renovated

main dining room, where walls stripped back to reveal original ship-lap boards gleam above a newly refinished floor.

“We’ve got a renewed focus on doing some of the health food things we were doing in the beginning—like organic carrot juice and fresh-picked alfalfa sprouts. We’re working on improving the pizza dough, and offering fresh-made fruit-based drinks like an organic lemon slush smoothie.” Don’t panic; all the Mag’s favorite sandwiches, soups, and salads will be back, as will those beloved homemade oatmeal-raisin cookies. Good thing: judging by the steady trickle of passers-by who slowed down to peer in the windows as we spoke, after almost six months of closure there’s lots of pent-up demand. One visitor, upon hearing that the Mag was due to reopen in a week or two, squealed with delight, “I have missed this place SO MUCH!” Expect the restaurant to be open for lunch by mid-August. Takeout, too. (225) 635-6528.

Sunday, November 15, 2020 at the Myrtles, St. Francisville, LA

Celebrated Chefs • Creative Dishes • Craft Cocktails Fine Wines • Lawn Games

Tickets on sale now at

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L E - YO U ’ L L L OV E I T H E R E

Goods, Antiques & Happenings: 11914 Ferdinand St. • (225) 635-4199

Shop our one-of-a-kind items or just sit a spell for coofee and a round of checkers.

Restaurant & Bar

5720 Commerce Street (225) 635-6502

S aintly fare

www.StFrancisvilleInn.com

// A U G 2 0

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Design

A U G U ST 2 0 2 0 28

THE

RESTORATION OF AMERICAN-MADE

FURNTITURE WITH A

S T O R Y // 3 3

TEXTILES

// 3 0

FROM THE

REINCARNATIONS RUINS OF KATRINA, CONTEMPORARY

MODERN-DAY MILLINERY W

FA N C Y PA N T S

Made in Vidalia

Vidalia Mills is the only mill in the world which consumes one hundred percent sustainably certified cotton, produced using resources—water, labor, and cotton—from the immediately surrounding area. Photo to the left and top courtesy of Vidalia Mills.

Bottom phtoto by Trisha Downing.

VIDALIA MILLS LEADS THE WAY IN SUSTAINABLE AMERICAN TEXTILE PRODUCTION

By Christina Leo

C

hina, Bangladesh, Vietnam—all places most familiar to us Americans from the labels on our clothes, our tools, our home decor.

These nations have long dominated the international manufacturing industries, exporting products halfway across the world to us—and though the price tags on these products tend to be lower, the environmental and socioeconomic costs have grown, especially in recent years, to be astronomical. Producing enough material at a fast enough rate to make packing and shipping clothing across thousands of miles profitable, it turns out, largely depends on poor quality of life for overseas workers and wasteful 28

energy expenditure. This says nothing of the effects of the lost local industry in communities across our own country.

But things don’t have to be that way.

What if the future did, in fact, look a little brighter? And what if part of the solution lay, of all places, in a refurbished Fruit of the Loom factory in Vidalia, Louisiana?

Vidalia Mills, the cotton textile manufacturer located just across the border from Natchez, Mississippi, has recently made a more visible name for itself during the present COVID-19 pandemic, when it converted much of its production to face masks for civilians and health care workers. Founded in 2014, the mill specializes in performance

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yarns and premium textiles— particularly top-quality selvedge denim jeans—with a focus on sustainable, home-grown production that still competes with overseas countries’ lower labor costs. Under the leadership of Managing Director Daniel Feibus and Senior Advisor Robert Antoshak, the mill has provided more than one hundred new jobs to the Vidalia area, along with industry prestige, and draws clients from high-end denim brands like Imogene + Willie and Raleigh Denim.

Even the selvedge looms themselves come with more than a bit of a reputation, many of them Draper X3s salvaged from North Carolina’s now-shuttered Cone Denim White

Oak facility. Rare finds, the looms are responsible for the fine quality threads and jeans produced in Vidalia, and, according to Antoshak, made a touring group of designers tear up a bit upon first sighting them.

The little town of Vidalia also has some history of its own. Perhaps you’re familiar with its founder, the colonial Spanish nobleman Don José Vidal. Or perhaps you’ve heard something of “The Great Sandbar Fight” of 1827, which involved none other than famed—if contemporaneously less admired— Louisiana resident Jim Bowie, who was seriously injured when he stepped into the duel between Alexandria natives Samuel L. Wells III and Dr. Thomas

H. Maddox’s supporters (Bowie was a supporter of Wells). The town’s most recent claim to fame is its status as the home of Louisiana’s first hydroelectric power plant and the largest prefabricated power plant in the world, the Sidney A. Murray, J. Hydroelectric Station, established in 1990. In recent decades, however, the town, like so many small enclaves in rural America, has lost much of its identity as a center of industry.

Much like the formerly industrialized suburbs of Detroit, Pittsburgh, or Cleveland, rural cities across the U.S. have seen drastic population decline in the wake of job loss, with centers of manufacturing moving into larger cities, or else overseas, where products can be produced more cheaply at the expense of workers. This is exactly what Feibus hopes to change.

“It isn’t even this noble goal of altruism, necessarily,” said Feibus. “We just genuinely have a terrific work force in Vidalia. We see talent dying in general across the South and rural America, and I think that over the last thirty years there’s been a blind tradeoff there.”

The mill itself is a standout in American manufacturing, the only mill in the world which consumes one hundred percent sustainably certified cotton. It also partners with BASF CropScience’s e3 cotton, a program, which traces cotton from the seed to the farmer to the gin, all the way through to the merchant, mills, and retailers who sell the final product, whether it be t-shirts, masks, or denim jeans.

“A cotton mill in India will use significantly more water, around 2.5 times the traditional American process,” said Feibus. “In areas like that, where there’s already a surface fresh water shortage, globalization has taken over the industry so that people have to source water from father and farther away, leaving a lot of developing countries with a lot of environmental and social bills to pay.”

In Vidalia, cotton can be produced not only using the natural resources of the area—from the water of a hydroelectric dam to the employees to the cotton—but with unprecedented quality control.

For Antoshak, a philosophy major and a consultant for the fiber, textile, and apparel industry website, just-style. com, good business means that the ethics of quality and aesthetic are just as important as the finished product.

“It’s about understanding slow fashion versus fast fashion,” he said. “Older generations like mine are so used to

overstuffing our closest with tons of cheap things we don’t need and creating waste, but I’ve noticed that younger generations are taking into account where their clothes come from and what they’re made out of. Buying fewer, highquality, classic items that last for years is much more efficient, and we like to showcase that every step of the way, even in the brands’ final packaging of the jeans.”

Jennifer Crumpler, director of the e3 sustainable cotton program, knows that the more we progress into an age of awareness and technological advancement, the more important it is that we share the stories of the people who produce our goods, and ensure the ethics and quality of what we consume.

“No one is telling these farmers’ stories or connecting these players in the grand scheme,” she said. “I can’t think of anyone more sustainably-minded than a farmer. They work the land. They constantly have to do more with less.

They’re so humble about what they do, so I’m excited to have this platform and advocate for them.”

Many people in the garment industry, she said, might have never set foot in a real cotton field before. That’s why she’s organized trips to bring brands and designers to places like Concordia Parish, to see the farms at work, help break down stereotypes, and bridge the gap between knowledge and experience.

“For us at e3, we work with our growers and their information,” she said.

“Our three main goals are to be socially equitable, economically viable, and environmentally responsible. We watch the data and see how we can continue to be better, and to tell the story better to others who don’t know it.”

For Jennifer, even the cotton plant itself has an aesthetic mission.

“If you look at it closely, it tells its life story from beginning to end,” she said.

“You can see the finger lengths of growth between branches, see where it may not have gotten a lot of rain one week, and plenty of rain in another.”

Like the narrative jointed in the stem of the cotton plant, or the recycling of one mill to produce another, or the revitalization of a town once prided on working hand-in-hand with rivers, the rural spaces of America may, in the end, be the new starters on the world of manufacturing’s more beautiful, ethical, and equitable playing field.

vidaliamills.com

Vidalia Mills, once a Fruit of the Loom plant, now uses rare Draper X3 selvedge looms, which were salvaged from North Carolina’s now-shuttered Cone Denim White Oak facility to produce high quality American-made denim for comapnies such as Imogene+Willie and Raleigh Denim. The comapny has brought over one hundred jobs, as well as industry prestige, to the little town of Vidalia. Photos courtesy of Vidalia Mills. // A U G 2 0

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Doorman’s signature “Amelia” Round Wooden Dining Table, pictured at Sherry Shirah Designs. Photo by Jacqueline Marque.

I F T H E W O O D C O U L D TA L K

Doors of the Past

CONTEMPORARY FURNITURE INSPIRED BY REINCARNATION IN THE CRESCENT CITY

F

rom the rooftop of Doorman’s furniture workshop on the Westbank, there’s a great view of Old Man River. After 2005, when those waters so infamously broke through the levees to fill and ravage this Crescent City, the building––like so many others––was abandoned. So many structures, built both in and by the spirit of this strange and wondrous city, were bent, crumbled, drowned.

And then left behind as the people who had inhabited them started over on 30

By Jordan LaHaye higher, firmer ground.

On one particular of the many shotgun homes so fated, a door survived and eventually made its way into the creative, if inexperienced, hands of a young Alex Geriner in 2008. The resilient old cypress door, salvaged from the ruin, received a new life as Geriner’s headboard. A friend of his was drawn to the combination of style and story and asked if he would make her one too. Subsequently, Geriner decided to try his luck with the then-newfangled marketplace of

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Etsy.com. He salvaged more doors, built more beds, and within a week of posting them online, had shipped two to California.

“The whole country at that point knew about Katrina and what had happened here,” said Geriner. “It was kind of this powerful, yet spiritual, thing where you’re taking a crisis and a lot of tragedy, and taking the pieces from that tragedy and giving them new life.”

The Etsy shop eventually evolved into a larger endeavor, launching

officially as Doorman Designs in 2013 (and rebranding as simply “Doorman” in 2019). Today, with a team of eight full-time employees, the boutique operation functions as one of New Orleans’ only furniture companies where all of the pieces are designed and manufactured in-shop.

Producing everything from beds to tables to credenzas in a uniquely contemporary interpretation of styles nevertheless quintessentially New Orleans, Doorman centers its identity around this city as its original source of

material and inspiration.

“We’re living in a three-hundredyear-old city,” said Geriner. “It’s hard not to be inspired. You can’t just overlook the house you’re living in, the stores you go into. There’s just tons of history, tons of layers.”

In addition to the mysticism surrounding New Orleans’ refurbished wood, Geriner deeply appreciated the opportunity to build high quality furniture sustainably. “Personally,” he said, “I’ve always held the belief that we are here for a finite amount of time, and this planet just doesn’t belong to us. We’re sort of renting the space while we are here, and we need to be really respectful and polite of it.

When I started building this furniture, I definitely recognized the magnitude of reducing your carbon footprint by using something that has already been in use.”

However, today—fifteen years after Hurricane Katrina—quality old wood is a rarer, more sought-after commodity. While Geriner and his team still make it a priority to use it when they can, the business has grown to require more resources than what they can source from salvage.

“The materials we work with are now often new woods, mostly sourced from around the Southeast,” said Geriner. “But sustainability is still at the forefront of all we do.” Since their

move to this new workshop in 2019, Geriner has been slowly shifting all of production to be powered by solar panels, predicting that they will be about 7590-percent solar powered by August.

An online-only company, Doorman has never had a retail space and currently claims to have sent work to every continent except for Antarctica. Still, “New Orleans is our hometown market, our biggest market.

They’ve really come out over the years to support us,” said Geriner.

Noting the increased shift to digital commerce, especially lately, Geriner admits to the benefit of perfect timing. “When I started doing this by myself in 2009, the idea of buying a piece of furniture s i g ht-u n s e e n online was an uphill challenge.

Doorman is one of New Orleans’ only furniture companies in which all of the products are made totally in-house and by hand. The eight-person team includes welding fabricator Tristan Aubrey (top) and founder Alex Geriner (bottom). Photos courtesy of Doorman.

People didn’t want to spend a lot of money on something they could only see in photographs. Nowadays, most of our transactions are made over a smartphone.”

However, Doorman does embrace in-person engagement, offering tours of their workshop to customers and the general public. On my visit to the echoing warehouse, smelling of fresh sawdust and mountained by stacks of wood planks, an extendable version of the company’s signature “Amelia” table in walnut stood halffinished at the doorway— stunningly rich and large on its two Doorman’s “Earhart” familiar, though still Modern Swivel Barstools are all made with Bargeboard, a salvaged statement, tapered New Orleans-specific wood that can be pedestals. In the far traced back to Americans’ post-Louisiana Purchase journeys down the Mississippi River to corner, lead carpenter the Crescent City, which they took on “barges” or Jesse Varichak was rafts. Courtesy of Doorman.

cutting out rough-edged circles of wood, which would later be layered, carved, and smoothed into that same elegant pedestal shape—reminiscent of the way water radiates in concentric rings where you drop a penny in it— for an iteration of the original Amelia Round Dining Table.

One of the company’s newest pieces, the Audubon Pedestal Table, similar to the Amelia, but—as Geriner describes it—with a “more coastal, retro 1970s vibe, Scandinavia-meets-California chic” look, stood ready to be shipped to Washington D.C. The metalworking section of the shop was darker, the machines loud and the fires hot. The iconic iron panels of New Orleans’ balconies and front porches were miniaturized and fragmented, stacked in piles throughout the room—to be applied to “Eleanor Console Sideboards”

and “Piety Iron Console Tables.” As with the wood, Geriner used to use exclusively antique ironwork—“but now, we mostly use reproductions.

When we first started building these pieces, you could find those old ones.

These days, you’re lucky if you can find them unbroken, if you can find them at all.”

There is still one set of Doorman furniture that is exclusively made from reclaimed wood, though, said Geriner.

The Earhart Modern Swivel Bar Stools, with their three metal mid-centuryesque legs, are topped with a wooden seat: “Barge board,” said Geriner. “This stuff doesn’t exist anywhere except for in New Orleans.” Showing me some raw planks of it, stacked up against the wall, he pointed out the rustic, battered sections of the wood, holes throughout. The barebones for many of New Orleans’ oldest homes, this // A U G 2 0

31

Doors continued . . .

Doorman’s “Josephine” Bed, pictured at the Henry Howard Hotel in New Orleans. Photo by Kathleen Fitzgerald.

wood saw duty as part of a barge— or rather, raft—carrying Americans down the Mississippi to New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase. “Think Huckleberry Finn,” said Geriner.

“Really crude. A family would ride on it with everything they had: their

livestock, maybe some grain, corn.

Whatever they needed to get them from Philadelphia or New York to New Orleans.” Then, once they arrived, they’d take their noble steeds apart and build their houses with them.

“I tell my customers who buy

[

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these—this fourteen-inch piece of wood … it’s been a tree,” said Geriner.

“It’s been a boat. It’s been a house. And now it’s your barstool. It’s the power of reincarnation, over and over again.”

Over the past ten years, Geriner has also kept a close eye on the

changes in interior trends, and has worked to adapt his work to reflect them—“though we aren’t selling our creative souls down the river.” With the instance of reclaimed wood, he explained, “if you think back five or ten years ago, Restoration Hardware was putting out some really rustic stuff, that shabby farmhouse look. It’s changed. People don’t want banged up rustic tables. They want things with some rustic qualities, but overall more streamlined, more sophisticated, more clean. But still with a bit of personality. Like our barstools— the wood tells the story. It’s just a modern sort of tripod legged stool, accompanied by this really storied piece of wood.”

And the story comes full circle, said Geriner, who describes the privilege of working so close to the river as “a bit like a pilgrimage.” It is, after all, the very road that brought so much of New Orleans’ foundations, its wood, here. And, of course, it is the very same force that brought so much of it to the ground, and the same that watched it—aided it, even—in rising back up, in reincarnating, once again.

Doormandesigns.com

E L E VAT E D H E A D S P A C E

Halo Mimi

BATON ROUGE MILLINER MIMI HOLADAY EVOKES CONTEMPORARY COUTURE IN AN ANTIQUE CRAFT

By Jordan LaHaye

I

n Mimi Holaday’s Baton Rouge home studio, the old and the new coalesce in luxurious sprays of feathers, smooth curves of steamed felt, and a row of head-ishshaped blocks lined upon a shelf. The art of millinery—distinguished from hatmaking as the crafting of headpieces made of finer materials than the common cap—is an old art, historically equipping the upper classes of virtually every civilization, from the ancient Egyptians to today’s British royals, with the loudest, most expressive of fashionable statements.

In a fashion landscape where hats have ceased to be so mainstream, Holaday’s boutique hat-making business, HALO MIMI, takes an accessory that is these

days almost a statement in itself, and adds in the luxury of contemporary character. Atop premium materials and hand-molded shapes, Holaday indulges in the long-held tradition of ornamentation, incorporating everything from plumes and leather and studs to guitar picks and dragonflies and playing cards.

In her living room, four rows of shelves display some of her more recent favorites: a white felt boater with a light blue ribbon; a distressed periwinkle straw; a tuxedo-approved women’s tophat with a tiny white feather flaring outward; a clear topless wide brim halo, pressed wildflowers floating inside. She pulls out a Milano straw sunhat she’s been working on, which is adorned in voodoo-

“Vive” style bright white heavy fur felt with vintage horse hair tassel pin and pheasant feather, modeled by Shonteira Allen, makeup by Marissa Mizell. Photo by Jason Kruppa. All photos courtesy of Mimi Holaday.

“Audrey” style premium felt, wide brim fedora with patent leather underbrim and vintage silk satin ribbon, modeled by Katlin Turner, makeup by Marissa Mizell. Photo by Jason Kruppa.

doll-esque stitches and discolorations— “just some of my magic tricks.” Hanging from a string above her kitchen table is an in-progress version of one of her most recognizably eccentric pieces—a black lace birdcage Holaday is building for New Orleans artist Ashley Longshore.

“I get these crazy ideas, and want to challenge myself,” said Holaday, pulling out another such novelty—her porcupine headdress: a Maleficentreminiscent tiara with two horn-like diamonds rising from the forehead, bedecked in porcupine quills—sinister, bohemian, and chic all at once. “I definitely welcome any design challenge, but these are my showpieces. In day-today fashion, you don’t need something so avante garde to grab people’s attention. I

always try to keep it interesting, like— wow, your hat is so cool—but I tend to keep it monochromatic, clean in design.

I like to be creative, but in small subtle ways.”

She draws a certain strand of creativity simply from the individuality of her clients themselves. Specializing in custom pieces, Holaday’s skills as a stylist elevate her pieces into what can only be described as “perfect fits.” Guiding each client through the process of selecting materials, shapes, and styles, she makes suggestions based on the person’s gender, face shape, lifestyle, haircut, height, and overall aura. “I can kind of fit everyone’s look, build up their existing character” she said. “Sometimes customers have something really specific in mind. But // A U G 2 0

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HALO MIMI continued . . .

Fashion veteran and Slidell native Mimi Holaday launched her specialty hat business, HALO MIMI, in 2017 after winning New Orleans Fashion Week’s Top Design Competition.

Photo by Christina Leo.

Holaday pictured in one of her novelty vinyl record hats (it’s a Whitney Houston album!). Makeup

by Alexis Cascio.

Photo by Jason Kruppa.

sometimes I’ll just do something I think will be cool, and most of the time people love being surprised.”

Holaday’s fashion instincts are deeply entrenched. Growing up under the hot couture wings of her mother Susan Holaday, who modeled for New Orleans milliner Yvonne Lafleur, hats have always been part of her overall mode of expression through fashion.

Though

she grew up in the Slidell, with every intention of attending LSU’s design program, Hurricane Katrina landed her in Virginia, where she later acquired a degree in Business at Virginia Commonwealth University. With

Left: Distressed velour with pheasant feather wrap and porcupine quills. Right: Plaid-inspired distressing on powder blue glazed straw with frayed edges.

34

A U G 2 0 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

aspirations to become a fashion designer, she worked her way across the industry, working as a stylist for stores like INTERMIX and Saks Fifth Avenue. “But then I just got burnt out on the retail thing, and knew that wasn’t going to be the end of the road for me,” she said.

She moved to California, and over the next three years acquired specialized degrees at the Los Angeles Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in both Fashion Design and International Manufacturing and Product Development, a nine-month postgraduate program that sent her to study in France, Italy, and China. Over the next few years she worked for design companies the likes of Wiley Wilson, RVN, and Design Printsiples—“But I kind of realized that wouldn’t be the end of the road for me either,” she said. “I wanted to be doing something with more creative freedom.”

Her official gateway into the specialization of millinery opened as recently as 2015, when she was traveling in London and decided to buy a premium-quality hat at Harrods. “I didn’t have access to products like that in the U.S.,” she said. “And I didn’t understand why. I wore that hat every day for like eight months. I was crazy about that hat.” Upon returning to California, Holaday dug into the world of millinery, and in May of that year she took a three-day hat-making class at Fullerton College.

Then a decade out from Katrina, she was starting to miss her hometown.

She had heard about the New Orleans Fashion Week Top Design C ompet it ion, and felt it was

a calling to launch everything she’d been preparing for thus far. “I knew it would be an opportunity to get on stage and show what I was capable of,” she said.

She moved back to Louisiana and started building her collection, with the original intention of selling both the hats and the corresponding looks, which—today— still live in her closet. Pulling out a crazy beautiful feather boa vest and draping it over my shoulders, she says, “I wanted to emulate this bohemian nomadic mysterious woman, but also using all of these elements of turn-of-the century classic.”

The collection took her a year and a half to build, but in March of 2017 she entered, winning both Top Design and the Yelp People’s Choice Award. With her tendency toward couture quality, though, she quickly realized that the scale of mass production wasn’t for her and decided to focus on specialty hats exclusively. “Intricate, delicate work is my forté,” she said, adding that even today, her commitment to specialty quality keeps her manufacturing small scale and closely-held. She officially launched HALO MIMI in September 2017. Since then, Halo Mimi has participated in New York Fashion Week three times, has been represented in showrooms in Los Angeles and New York and featured in major publications including INDUSTRY, People, Cosmopolitan Mexico, Elle Bulgaria, and has been worn by the likes of Billy Porter, Gigi Hadid, and Ryan Jamaal Swain, and Wyclef.

In the back room across from her studio, Holaday sits on the floor to show me her raw materials—a basket holding dozens of unshaped hats in handwoven Panama and Milano straw, in rabbit, in beaver, velour, in every color of the rainbow (silver and alabaster are her most popular). This is where the process begins. “You can see how quickly it could get overwhelming for a client,” she said.

“The options are endless.”

Reaching around, she pulls out one of her finished hats, a gray beauty that rests surprisingly heavily in my hands.

“This is coypu,” she said. “Nutria.” A premium felt that she’s only started offering since March, Holaday’s coypu is sourced from Louisiana and is comparable, she said, to beaver, which is top of the line. “I’d like to eventually only have coypu because it is an eco-friendly product, but right now I’m only able to source it in small

amounts in limited colors at certain times. But we’re working up to that.”

Where possible, Holaday says that she works to source her materials as ethically as possible. Though she hopes to one day do away with rabbit completely, for now she sources her rabbit felts from a vendor in the Czech Republic who raises them for meat and shaves, not skins. And though she gets most of her feathers from stores in New York City, “I did recently find a husband and wife who go pheasant hunting in Louisiana, and they’ve agreed to give me some birds,” she said. “I love pheasant, and they’re eating them, and I know exactly where it is coming from. If I can source something from a place I’m more confident about, that will be my first choice.”

Once the materials are selected, the shape planned—Holaday engages in the two-hundred-year-old tradition of hat blocking. On a shelf in her studio sits her collection: dozens of blocks from a traditional hat block craftsman in Poland, another several that are antiques recovered from a factory in France. She points out a handful of black, plastic looking ones—”Those were done by a 3D printer by this guy in Brooklyn, who is taking this old trade and helping artisans like myself—milliners—to

achieve the effect of the old, using technology and material that is new.”

And then, she’s also got her own.

“After my three-day hatmaking class, I took a separate course learning how to make the blocks,” she said. “I don’t make them out of wood, but out of Styrofoam or polystyrene. Hatmaking is part skill, part tools. So if you’ve got the skills to make your own tools, you’ve got the world in your hands. It gives me the ability to achieve any shape I want to create.”

With a block and a plan, steam and practiced hands, she’ll mold and meld and the material into a bowler, a tophat, a fedora, or something altogether new. Then she’ll study it, let her imagination run wild, the client at the forefront. She’ll embroider, burn, stitch.

Add tassles, snakeskin, feathers. Or maybe. . . just a ribbon. Sometimes, after all, the hat speaks for itself. h Halomimi.com

Left: Men’s cognac panama straw fedora; Right: Silver heavy fur felt with velvet band and tulle detail.

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Cuisine

A U G U ST 2 0 2 0

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BLACKBERRY JALOPENO JAM

&

SONIC-STYLE

SUSHI

IN

THE

BIG-HEARTED

FEEL-GOOD FOOD TOUR

CITY OF MINDEN

Historic Downtown Minden features seventy-one historic properties dating from as early as the 1850s. Walkable, with markers detailing each home’s story, the district highlights architectural styles ranging from Greek Revival to early Georgian. Photo courtesy of Webster CVB.

W E E K E N D S AWAY

Food for the Soul

EATING MY WAY THROUGH MINDEN, A PLACE OF NEW BEGINNINGS

By Jordan LaHaye

“W

e’re the w e i r d church in this town,” Serena Gray told me, pushing through the front doors of what was once the Northwest Louisiana Technical College.

The campus, abandoned in 2013 when the college relocated, now houses the Christian Church at Minden (CCAM), a “nontraditional, multi-cultural, and multi-denominational church.” Gray’s mother-in-law Ginger, one of the senior pastors, explained: “Whatever the other churches in town were doing, we wanted to do the opposite—to be a place for the people who fell through the cracks, who weren’t being served in some way.”

In Minden, there are churches on just about every corner—some almost two hundred years old—and, as Gray, who is the Executive Director at the Webster Parish Convention and 36

Visitors’ Commission, put it: “Saturday afternoons, there’s almost no foot traffic downtown. But on Sundays! Everybody’s just gotten out of church, and [before COVID-19] every single sit-down restaurant was full of people, all in their Sunday best.” Christianity is big here.

Still, church isn’t exactly where I imagined I’d end up on my two-day tour of Minden. Neither was it, I think, part of Gray’s plan to show me her city.

But earlier that afternoon, sitting in her passenger seat and eating Sonic-style sushi (more on that later), I noted that during my time in Minden I’d observed a remarkable spirit of service virtually everywhere I looked, and how often the term “our church” had casually come up in conversations regarding the town’s activities. She nodded, finished chewing on her egg roll, then asked: “You want to see it?”

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Lunch at Geaux Fresh I had come here, actually, for the food.

Now—as Gray will tell you—Minden isn’t exactly an epicurean’s paradise. In the words of Chef Jodie Martin: “In Minden, we’ve got fried chicken, some good barbecue, and Mexican.” But Martin, who opened Geaux Fresh in 2017, fills in the gaps, providing highquality, health-focused meals with a radical commitment to fresh ingredients.

I’d heard it was worth the drive.

Poring over a menu of burger bowls (“Amazing—it’s just a burger patty on a salad, but call it a burger bowl and everyone thinks it’s just the greatest thing!”), wraps, colorful salads and sandwiches, and a “Cheaters Anonymous” burger menu with tempting add-ons like caramelized onions, turkey bacon, gouda cheese, pesto, and even an Italian sausage

W

link—I found myself enamored with the words: house-made blackberry jalapeño jam. The Black Bayou it was, featuring pepperjack and mozzarella cheese with—upon Martin’s recommendation—pig and avocado added. Between two slices of pressed sourdough, buttery avocado slices pushed against the tangy sweet jam, finishing with the satisfying crunch and just-enough greasiness of thick slab bacon.

“I like to say we’re fresh fast food,” said Martin of her approach. “We give you a better version of what you were going to eat anyway. Want a burger and fries? Sure. I won’t claim that they’re low calorie, but it will be real, high-grade meat, fresh formed, grilled to order.

And those French fries are baked, with nothing on them but a little kosher salt.”

She doesn’t own a fryer, saying that’s better left to the fried chicken pros. Her talent for taking a traditional meal and manipulating it into something better for you came from working in—you guessed it—a church. “The pastors I worked for, they were really health conscious, and I’d have to create menus for them. So: chicken alfredo, I’d make it dairy free, using a vegan cheese. If it was a bakery dish, I’d flip from white refined sugar and flour, blend my own oats to make oat flour, and toss in coconut sugar instead.”

The story of Geaux Fresh begins when Martin was twenty-five years old, sitting in a church service on a Sunday night. A guest minister was there, and he asked the congregation to think of the message taught in 1 Kings:17 and 2 Kings:4, two stories in which a widow is told to use everything she has to serve someone else, and is rewarded with more than she could possibly need. “’What do you have in your house?’ he asked.

And I said, ‘Lord, I don’t even have a house,” remembered Martin, who, at the time, had just finished recovering from addiction and was living in her parents’ home, trying to start anew.

“I had a cookbook of my parents’, and I liked the pictures of cheesecakes in it,” she said. “So I started making cheesecakes.” The endeavor eventually turned into a solid twenty-year side gig, which also edged her into the world of hospitality, particularly with her church. “I was just cooking constantly—

At Jodie Martin’s Geaux Fresh in Downtown Minden, she offers fresh, creative takes on classic casual dining. Pictured below left: the Black Bayou with avocado corn side salad. On the bottom right: Taco Pizza. Photos by Jordan LaHaye.

cooking, preparing, studying,” and gently dreaming of one day opening a bakery in that building on Main Street, which she’d been eyeing since she was a child.

“In 2014, I had sold my Merle Norman franchise, had been out of work for two years, and had just been kind of down,” she said. “I felt like the Lord was saying, ‘It’s time for you to go back to work.’” She revisited that meditation—“What have you got in your house?” “I said, Lord, I’ve got two things now. I’ve got my voice— but no one is paying me to preach. And I can cook.”

Six weeks later, she launched a familystyle meal prep business, which quickly grew too large to maintain in the home.

Still keeping her eye on the building

then, Geaux Fresh has become a hot spot in town, providing to-go orders, in-house dining, catering, and meal prep—which I heard at least three of the Mindenites I met mention “needing to go pick up.”

As I finished the last kernels of my avocado corn side salad, my server, a dark haired young woman about my age, called to me across the room, “You’re still doing okay Jordan?” I smiled at her, nodded, and she laughed.

“My name’s Jordan, too. Easy to remember. Isn’t the food just the best?”

Jordan, I learned later, is the director of Generation House, a transitional living facility in Minden for women coming out of faith-based addiction recovery programs all over the country.

“I’VE GOT TWO THINGS NOW. I’VE GOT MY VOICE—BUT NO ONE IS PAYING ME TO PREACH. AND I CAN COOK.” —JODIE MARTIN on Main, she started to make plans to transform her dad’s warehouse into a kitchen. “I told my husband, if the Lord doesn’t show me that this place is for me by July 1, we’ll move forward with Dad’s place,” she said. “On July 1, I had forgotten that I had said that, and we drove by after service. The people who owned it were moving out.”

By December 2016, she had renovated the space—which in its own history had served as a café, a diner, a pie shop, a children’s center, a convenience store, and a church. She had pulled up the carpet, painted the walls green and white, and covered the stairs in a leopard-print carpet—Martin’s “favorite color”. Since

Over the years, Martin has partnered with the organization, offering jobs to the women who come here to start over.

Gray, who is on the Generation House board, explained: “The program not only provides shelter and basic necessities for these women, but also introduces them to being an adult, finding a job, saving their money, taking care of themselves, learning to prioritize their goals and pursue them intentionally,” she said. “There is a lot of shame around not knowing things like how to open a checking account or get a drivers’ license. We eliminate that shame and fear of starting your life by pairing them with couples in

the community, who are assigned to host them on Sundays after church for a meal, spend time with them, take them to appointments, and just be there.”

Martin, who said that she has always had it in her heart to work with women coming out of bad situations, has partnered with Generation House since its opening in 2019, hiring the women it serves to come work in the restaurant while they get back on their feet. “When Generation House opened up, I said, ‘Those are the girls I want. I want those girls,’” said Martin. “I wanted to give them a safe place to work. The restaurant industry is not really a healthy atmosphere—there’s so much substance

abuse happening behind the kitchen.

These women are endeavoring to restart life, and they need a safe place to do that.”

When asked about the future for her business, Martin emphasized that she just wants to be able to hire more recovering women, to foster more new beginnings. “I always say, ‘Good food is what we do, but people are the reason why we do it.’” She paused, eyes welling with tears. “I love my staff. Love them. I love them. They’re wonderful girls. They just need to see who they were made to be. It’s an honor.

“And we do do good food.”

Pastor Paul Gray started Generation House in 2019 as a trasitional living facility for women hoping to restart their lives after completing a faith-based addiction recovery program. Women are guided by community members in practical matters and faith matters alike. Photo by Jordan LaHaye. // A U G 2 0

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Food for the Soul continued . . .

The Broken Bean, a local cofee shop and bistro, is run entirely by women who are currently enrolled in, or have completed, Louisiana’s Adult and Teen Challenge, a faith-based residential program for mothers struggling with additction. Photo courtesy of the Webster Parish CVB.

Afternoon Coffee at The Broken Bean Later that afternoon, I took a stroll down to the local coffee shop, a charming red clapboard cottage in the historic district called The Broken Bean. An unofficial sister in ambition to Martin’s Geaux Fresh, The Broken Bean is staffed entirely by students and staff from Minden’s Adult and Teen Challenge Family Center, a faith-based residential program for pregnant women and mothers struggling with addiction. The precursor to a program like Generation House, which serves women who have already completed their recovery program, the Adult and Teen Challenge provides—over the course of eighteen months—guidance, support, and healing throughout the recovery process.

During their time in the program, and then also after graduation, these women have the option to work at The Broken Bean as a means of earning income and developing work experience.

Inside, bistro tables cluster on the front porch, which leads into a cozy living room complete with a welcome sign and a fireplace. On the walls are dozens of crosses and signs proclaiming quasi-sentimental, but heartwarming nonetheless, messages like “Do what you love,” and “You are His masterpiece.”

It all leads to the massive coffee bar in the back, clustered with jars full of tea bags, a pedestal offering pastries, and a tip jar—all outlined by a chalkboard menu offering frappes, lattes, iced teas, soups, and sandwiches.

Iced vanilla latté in hand, I settled in what I later learned is called the “miracle room,” where the walls are covered by women’s faces, arranged in dual frames—befores and afters, accompanied by a testimonial. “My name is Alyssa.” “My name is Marie.”

“My name is Andy.” Each paragraph holds stories of abuse, abandonment, shattering loss, and addiction. And by the end—just a handful of sentences later— each ended in a new beginning—new jobs, reunions with families, new faith.

From the “living room,” I could hear two women talking. It was the end of the day—I had arrived just before closing.

From what I could tell, one of them had just started working there. There were giggles, there were whispers, Bible verses quoted. T. Then I heard the younger woman tell the older woman, “You’ll get there, to where you’re trying to be. None of us came in here as good as you see us now. And we’ll be with you every step of the way.”

Barbecue Brisket at the Simply Southern Cottage With Gray’s help, I found myself comfortably accommodated for the night by Sara McDaniel, who I had been told was a remarkably successful blogger featured in lifestyle publications across the South, including Better Homes & Gardens, Cottage Style, Lola Magazine, Southern Lady, and more.

Having been graciously welcomed into her home earlier that day, I had briefly gotten the chance to explore some of her greatly celebrated “Simply Southern Cottage,” a 1926 home in Minden’s Historic District that she had restored and renovated into a modern epitome of Southern charm and style, attracting a massive Instagram following along the way. Awash in natural light and Sherwin 38

Williams’ “Snowbound,” tasteful and fascinating details stand out: elegant light fixtures, old shutters used as wall decor, an antique hutch—all of it accented in the breathing character of salvaged wood and centered by a fireplace-librarychandelier tableau at the end of her sitting room.

Upon my return that evening— barbecue brisket plate and Abita Strawberry at the ready (had to try some of that quintessential Minden barbecue—Smokin’ J’s, highly recommended), I curled onto the plush white couch in my little guest apartment upstairs and opened my laptop.

So, what’s her story?

Pulling up McDaniel’s blog, I learned

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that this house was more than a fun project, more than a claim to fame. In a post she wrote in October, I discovered yet another story of a woman restored, her life reclaimed, in Minden.

McDaniel had discovered her cottage at a time when she was resisting an inner (divine?) urge to move away from her life in Texas and closer to her family.

She was just coming out of a divorce, mourning the loss of the life she had always envisioned for herself. Then one day, she was home for Christmas, driving through the historic district, and she saw it—at the time, obscured by red tip photinias and crumbling. She wrote, “Yet I knew in that twinkling in time, this was supposed to be my house and Minden was supposed to be my home.”

Drawn to the biblical story of Joshua

and the battle of Jericho, McDaniel spent the next several months praying that the owners—who no longer lived there— would agree to sell it to her, literally marching (with permission) around it, “bathing it in prayer.”

When she finally got the go-ahead, “I closed on the broken-down cottage, left in shambles and ruins, much like my life,” and “somewhere along the way, I began to realize … the restoration of my house paralleled the restoration and reclamation of my life. My walls of resentment, anger, and bitterness were torn down. A new me and a new life were being carefully crafted and fashioned.

While remnants of the old life remained, they were altered and polished, yet the flaws remained, adding in character and wisdom.”

Sara McDaniel’s Simply Southern Cottage. Photo courtesy of Sara McDaniel.

Pre-Paddling Fuel at Hamburger Happiness Some of Minden’s lesser known crown jewels are its plentiful waterways— centuries-old lakes and bayous lacing old cypress forests and the wild water kingdoms they foster.

One of Gray’s biggest goals for tourism in Webster Parish—especially in the festival-less, crowd-less era of COVID-19—is to get people on the water. In partnership with the local Bayou Chapter of the Ozark Society paddle group (BCOS), she recently completed the parish’s first official paddle trail at Lake Bistineau State Park, and is working on a second along Bayou Dorcheat.

Though the state park was closed during my visit, Gray wanted to be sure to give me the “full Minden experience,” and organized a short morning paddle for us on Lake Bistineau, accompanied by McDaniel and Tammy Lee Jernigan, a representative from BCOS. Before we got on the water, though, we fueled up with a home-style breakfast at the perfectly gritty, small-town diner: Hamburger Happiness. A plate of eggs, sausage, and biscuits ain’t nothing complicated, but it can be—and is—so easily done wrong. This plate, though, had all of the savory sincerity of well-used frying pans and hand-cracked eggs that

any such establishment ought to aspire to.

In between conversations about the virtues of Southern Maid Donuts, the three women shared stories of past paddling antics, and discussed future plans for the CVB and BCOS to collaborate.

“People in Minden don’t realize that this is all here,” said Gray. “I post pictures of the cypress trees, and people will ask me where I am—assuming I’m somewhere down south. They don’t know that this is in their actual backyard.”

Later, on the water, Gray pointed out several lakefront properties—jokingly saying that that one is her dream home for Webster Parish’s future welcome center.

One day she hopes to center the office’s activities on the water, and to attract a kayak and canoe rental service to do business in the area for locals and visitors alike.

In the meantime, though, her collaboration with Jernigan and BCOS has been essential to these early efforts of promoting water recreation. “Whenever we need boats for people visiting or for locals who want to go out, Tammy or other members of the group will loan out their private boats free of charge, and usually deliver them too,” said Gray.

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A lap-style Spicy Green Roll at Minden’s Sonic-esque Sushi shop, Yummy Sushi. Photo by Jordan LaHaye.

The group has also organized several community paddle events, including a recent one on Bayou Dorcheat at night.

McDaniel had attended and described the remarkable way a bunch of strangers had gathered together on a weekend

We practice social distancing and require masks to make your shopping enjoyable and safe.

with the sole purpose of getting out on the water. “By the end, having paddled together in the pitch black as a group, we had all gotten to know each other so well,” she said. “It was really cool.”

Passenger Seat Reflections at Yummy Sushi A surprising spot that Gray assured me was not to be missed was Yummy Sushi, an abandoned Sonic which had been taken over by a sushi chef. Gray admitted that she had been skeptical when they first opened up, but that it had quickly become one of her favorite places to eat in Minden—and a concept that, these days, seems a bit ahead of the curve.

So with each a “Spicy Green Roll” balanced on our laps, we chatted— discussing in deeper depth her experience moving from Lafayette to North Louisiana and her goals for encouraging more people to visit. We talked about the challenges of promoting tourism in a small town, especially these days, and how important creativity and community collaboration are to the efforts. At some point, our conversation rolled back around to Generation House. I asked Gray how she had gotten involved with the program.

“Well,” she said. “My father-inlaw started it.” The senior pastor (and founder) of the Christian Church of Minden, Paul Gray discovered a need to support women, even after they come out of recovery programs, when a close

family member underwent her own journey to recovery. “She came back from her program, and had a functioning family there to support her and get her started again,” said Gray. “But she had a friend who had gone through it all with her. We found out later that the friend— lacking other resources—had simply returned to the same environment that had put her on this destructive path in the first place, just down the hall from her longtime abuser.”

This deeply impacted Pastor Paul, who immediately felt compelled to do something. “We told him,” said Gray, “no, no, no. This is a big job. A big responsibility. We don’t need to start anything on this scale. But of course he persisted, and our entire church came behind him. And we—well, God— made it happen.”

Just then, our server, a heavily earringed young man, masked, jogging around from car to car, came by to check on us, and he asked Gray why she hadn’t gotten her usual (the Mexican Roll).

I asked how she knew him, and she said, “From church.”

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Any visit to Webster Parish should include a day on one of its many impressive waterways. Photo by Jordan LaHaye.

// A U G 2 0

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Food for the Soul continued . . .

The Christian Church of Minden

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Led by the pastors—Gray’s in-laws— “at 9:30 am, first thing in the morning, of the CCAM, I peeked into the half- Jodie Martin is sitting right there, dozen classrooms-turned-gathering leading a study group on the power, and spaces. Furnished with charming the practice, of prayer.” mismatched couches, tables, and even Coming full circle, this city of a fake fireplace (much of which, Gray generous, faith-filled, action-oriented noted, came from the local antique trail), hearts had impressed me, one of rather and emblazoned with wall art boasting faltering faith of late. Using what’s in the affirmations of “You Belong Here,” and house—food, community, creativity, “Friends Gather Here,” the rooms felt nature—Minden’s best (so many of like tiny living rooms—each designed them women!) have crafted a place for various age groups. In the teen where the vulnerable can feel supported, activity room, for example, there were can be lifted up, and can start again. It’s black lights, pool tables, and a station for a place of hope and promise, this little video games—a set up nicer than most North Louisiana town, and one I hope arcades these days. At the end of the to visit again soon. h long hallway was the auditorium, which is where the church held their Sunday mygeauxfresh.com services. facebook.com/generationhouse In the back, though, in the college’s facebook.com/brokenbeanminden old machine shop is a massive space louisianateenchallenge.com filled almost to the ceiling with pallets simplysoutherncottage.com of Gatorade, chips, crackers, bread, facebook.com/yummysushiminden hairspray—“whatever they [the Food theccam.org Bank of Northwest Louisiana] brings joeleblancfoodpantry.com us, and whatever people donate.” On visitwebster.net the back wall, a row of freezers keeps the meat cold, and a giant walk-in cooler holds all of the other perishables, including fresh vegetables picked from the community garden just outside. Called the Joe Leblanc Food Pantry, this ministry of CCAM’s feeds Minden’s hungry on a massive scale, distributing an average of 89,000 pounds of food per month. Since the rise of COVID-19 in March, the number of families served by the food pantry has risen from six hundred to almost eight hundred.

I commented on the sheer scale of CCAM’s ministries, struck by the remarkable amount of good seeming to be coming from this place.

Pastor Paul nodded, but stopped me, saying—“It’s the whole community, though.

We never anticipated for all this to grow like it did, but when one person starts something, so many more people show up.”

And the good multiplies and multiplies, spreading throughout their little city.

On our way out, Gray pulled me through a door The Christian Church of Minden, a nondemoninational church founded on and pointed at one chair principles of service and a goal to serve members of the community not necesof many, situated in a circle. sarily served in existing congregations, is a major part of feeding its community its community garden and the Joe LeBlanc Food Pantry. Photos by “Every Sunday,” she said, through Jordan LaHaye.

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Culture

A U G U ST 2 0 2 0 42 A 47

NEW HOME

DESIGN

IN

FOR

LSU’S TEXTILE

&

COSTUME

MUSEUM

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MUSEUMS, MULES & MACS

NEW ORLEANS’

NOBLEST STEED

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D A I LY L I F E W

COLLECTIONS

Tailor Made

LSU’S TEXTILE AND COSTUME MUSEUM CONTINUES TO INSPIRE FROM ITS NEW OFFICIAL HOME Story by Elizabeth Chubbuck Weinstein

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useums, like garments, are fashioned for a purpose.

Museums have a seamless public appearance, with everything from the exhibition cases to the seating neatly pinned and tucked in place. This is by design. Yet, when turned inside-out, a fuller narrative is revealed. There may be traces where a seam came undone, a sleeve adjusted, or a hemline let down.

Patterns differ; the process of becoming is the same. Usually a dedicated person and a few like-minded individuals share a vision and then patiently sew the pieces together.

This is how Baton Rouge’s LSU Textile & Costume Museum came

Illustration by Steven Stipleman of a 1966 James Galanos cocktail dress, pictured on the bottom right of the next page. The dress, donated by Baton Rouge fashion icon May Baynard to the Textile and Costume Museum, is a signature feature of the Museum’s collection. The Museum has used Stipleman’s rendering as its logo since 1995.

Pictured at the top left of the next page are some of the collection’s featured artifacts including: Donna Douglas’s 1970 Hollywood Special Occasion Dress, “Bucksin” Bill Black’s costume worn on WAFB TV’s The Bucksin Bill Show, and the 1936 LSU Boxing Robe presented to Larry Landry.

Images courtesy of Pamela Rabelais-Vinci.

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be. One of the few university museums of its kind in the region, the collection is global in scope and contains more than 12,000 items demonstrating the history of textile and costume design. A few months ago, the Museum moved into a first-floor space within LSU’s Human Ecology Building at Tower and South Campus drives. With a larger, renovated gallery and street level access, the Museum and its rotating displays have been ready to welcome the public since March, when unfortunately, their grand opening was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. I was happy to be given the opportunity recently to join Pamela Rabalais-Vinci, the Museum’s director and driving force behind the Friends of LSU’s Textile & Costume Museum, on a private tour of the collection’s latest home, whose new opening date this fall is still pending.

Immediately upon entering the

foyer, I was struck by the sheer grace of a sleek black cocktail dress, its long sleeves encrusted from cuff to elbow with handsewn crystals and colorful beads. Rabalais-Vinci informed me that it is a 1966 creation by James Galanos, a California fashion designer known for his elegant craftsmanship and use of luxurious materials. Galanos enjoyed an elite clientele that included Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Nancy Reagan.

“This [particular] dress,” Rabalais-Vinci said, “is special to the collection.” The dress is one of many designer fashions donated by the late May Baynard, a Baton Rouge patron well-known for her stylish attire. Baynard was instrumental not only in organizing the Museum’s support group but she also sponsored their first fundraising gala in 1995. The dress later was rendered by Steven Stipleman, a former illustrator for Women’s Wear Daily. RabalaisVinci stated, “The dress, along with the rendering, inspired the Museum’s branding.” An image of the drawing has been used as the Museum’s logo since 1995.

In the Museum’s gallery, more treasures awaited. Entering the intimate exhibition room, I viewed selections representative of different aspects of the Museum’s diverse holdings, ranging from Byzantine-era textile fragments and a 19th-century Turkish wedding robe to an Antebellum bodice. Designer fashions by the likes of Yves St. Laurent and Valentino also were on display. RabalaisVinci pointed out a 1971 beige wool suit from Chanel’s final collection. The jacket’s gold-tone buttons were fastened, with the signature chain-link weight at the lower interior edge.

Representations of our shared local, state, and regional history form another important aspect of the collection. “We have something from every gubernatorial tenure beginning with Governor Edwin Edwards in the 1970s,” said Rabalais-

Vinci.

Supriya Jindal donated both of her lovely inaugural gowns; and I, personally, got a kick out of Governor and Mrs. “Mike” Foster’s matching His and Hers leather motorcycle-riding outfits. Hers was on display. Among the many items donated by local and Louisiana celebrities, I ogled over C.C. Lockwood’s circa 1990s Teva sandals worn while photographing Louisiana wetlands, “Buckskin” Bill Black’s fringed shirt, and a sequin-covered blue Hollywood-style dress worn in the 1970s

by Donna Douglas, best known as Elly May Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies. Of course, any LSU collection worth its salt includes plenty of Tigers memorabilia.

During my visit, for example, I observed George Roddy Hatcher’s 1923 LSU letter sweater for football, basketball, and track and the 1936 LSU boxing robe presented to Larry Landry.

When asked how the collection got started, RabalaisVinci told me the first items were acquired in the 1930s. Most came from faculty who traveled over the summer and then brought the items back for use when teaching Home Economics courses. Established

in 1915, LSU’s Department of Home Economics originally offered a curriculum that included studies in clothing, cooking, sanitation, household decoration, and home management— expanding in 1920 to include millinery, canning, gardening, and even dairying. “Can you imagine being required to learn how to milk a cow today?” joked Rabalais-Vinci.

“All women students at LSU, except those in the Law School, were required to take one year of Home Economics in those early years.”

Throughout the twentieth century, when American women were barred from so many of the opportunities of their male cohorts, Home Economics was a critical p a t h w a y into higher education.

According to an online exhibition, From

T H E

C O L L E C T I B L E

L I F E

Mignon Faget August 1, 2020 - January 3, 2021

845 N. Jefferson Avenue Port Allen , Lousiana 70767 225. 336.2422, ext. 200 www.WestBatonRougeMuseum.org

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Tailor Made continued . . .

study authentic garments of the past for both inspiration or duplication.

Casey Stannard, Professor of Apparel Design, joined us during my visit. Her mantra for students is: “Fashion is always evolutionary, not revolutionary.”

Stannard explained that students are often surprised to discover that their proposed design concepts are not new.

She stated: “It’s been done before…

It’s a learning opportunity to show [for instance] how couture is really built. It looks like a confection made of air but really it has steel bones underneath.”

Students use the collection to study the composition and construction of historic textiles and garments, and then apply what they have learned. In addition to a sewing lab, they have a Digital Design Technology Hub, complete with textile printers and a state-of-the-art 3D, 4D Size Stream body scanner capable of taking upwards of one hundred measurements in less than six seconds to create a computer-generated avatar.

In a recent project for the Museum, LSU Professor of Apparel and Design Casey Stannard took a digital photograph of the emrboidery on a 1920s coat (pictured at bottom right) and reprinted it onto cotton sateen, which she used as a stunning ruffle feature on this original design of hers.

mission of empowerment begun during its years as part of a Home Economics program. Textile and apparel are one of the most significant sectors of the manufacturing industry and rank among the top markets in the world by export value. According to Fashion United, the global apparel market is valued at $3 trillion, employing 58 million people and accounting for 2% of the world’s gross domestic product.

Degree students in apparel design and merchandising learn to conceptualize and realize products while gaining entrepreneurial skills in business strategy, consumer behavior, and management.

Also offered are degrees in textile science, which involves studying the development of new fibers and their use in society. Among the Department’s bestknown grads are Project Runway All Stars winner Anthony Ryan Auld and New Orleans bridal designer Suzanne Perron. As Rabalais-Vinci proudly stated, “We are training industry leaders.”

“FROM THAT CLOSET ON THE SHELF, I’LL NEVER FORGET PULLING OUT ITEMS LABELED ‘QUEEN VICTORIA’S TOWELING’ AND ‘MUSSOLINI’S JUTE’!”

—PAMELA RABALAIS-VINCI

Domesticity to Modernity: What Was Home Economics?, put forth by Cornell University, which housed one of the earliest such programs: “New scholarship in American women’s history suggests that Home Economics was a progressive field that brought science to the farm home and women into higher education and leadership positions in public education, academia, government, and industry.” According to LSU records, so many women were enrolled by the 1950s that the University constructed a new Home Economics building in 1960. The name was changed to the School of Human Ecology in 1989, with an updated curriculum of more concentrated specializations including: textiles, apparel design, and merchandising. Although a doctoral program was added in 1992, subsequent academic restructuring over time led to the School of Human Ecology being removed completely by 2015.

A graduate in Home Economics herself, Rabalais-Vinci arrived back at LSU to pursue graduate studies just as the Department’s collection was 44

beginning to gain attention. The first formal letter requesting acquisitions was sent out in 1980 by Dr. Rinn Cloud.

Rabalais-Vinci, who arrived three years later, was assigned to document what had become the Department’s Historic Textile and Costume Collection holdings. She recalled that in those days, everything fit in a closet, and laughed saying, “From that closet on the shelf, I’ll never forget pulling out items labeled ‘Queen Victoria’s toweling’ and ‘Mussolini’s jute’!” Rabalais-Vinci and Professor Jenna Tedrick Kuttruff received a grant in 1992 from the Louisiana’s Board of Regents to renovate a classroom into a small exhibition space and collection storage area, and thus the Historic Collection became the Textile & Costume Museum. That same year, Rabalais-Vinci founded The Friends of the LSU Textile & Costume Museum with the goal of someday having a a very large and accessible exhibition gallery.

Today, the Museum is an important educational resource, allowing students and researchers the opportunity to

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When used in the motion capture mode, a 4D avatar is formed, permitting the study of incremental changes that occur in the body and apparel during movement.

Stannard showed me a recent project in which she took a digital photograph of the embroidered design—couching— on a 1920s coat, manipulated the image, and then printed the design onto cotton sateen. The resultant print was then sewn to form ruffles adorning a dress she had designed. Rabalais-Vinci compared Stannard’s contemporary creation, made using high-tech equipment, with a sacque— infant garment—handsewn by a Home Economics student in the 1930s, pointing out how education, indeed daily life, has changed.

Yet, LSU’s Department of Textiles, Apparel Design, and Merchandising still maintains the spirit of creativity and

Now located within the former Human Ecology Building, the LSU Textile & Costume Museum has come full-circle, tailor-made to support not only academia and students, but also all who seek to expand their knowledge on the history of textiles and apparel—or to simply enjoy fancy stitches. h

LSU’s Textile & Costume Museum will officially open in their new space this Fall with Traje: Maya Textile Artistry. This celebration of their recent acquisition of over 195 pieces of handcrafted ancient and modern Maya textiles and garments will be accompanied by a juried student show of wearable art inspired by Mayan culture.

HISTORY

Bring Forth the Fiery, Untamed Steeds THE LOST MULE MARKET DISTRICT OF NEW ORLEANS

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By Charlotte Jones shine light on the city’s geography of horse and mule stables. As early as 1822, the Circus Street Livery Stables operated on today’s South Rampart and Common Street in what was then the Faubourg St. Mary, today’s Central Business District. Two blocks down were the Eclipse Stables at Union and Phillippa. Today’s O’Keefe Street boasted auctions of 150 horses and mules. In “Mule teams and the levee, New Orleans, Louisiana,” published between 1900-1910 by Detroit Publishing Co. Library of Congress. subsequent d e c a d e s , competitors would also set up shop in this conven iently centralized vicinity, forming something of a cluster by 1860, when it extended to Gravier Street with W.K. Spearing Stables. Around the corner, Maxwell & Leonard’s Stable on Baronne Street became the largest advertised equine dealer in Louisiana.

Equines, like

wharves.

Breeders experimented with jackstock and horses to develop mules preferable for purchase. Categorized by size, smaller cotton mules, ranging from eight hundred to one thousand pounds, likely became the preferred beast for most urban drayage needs.

Vendors, truck farmers, and merchants needed an animal to transport their goods for sale and deliveries, but one that wasn’t expensive to own and keep.

Sugar mules hauled cane, streetcars and heavier materials. Draft mules, the largest of the three, plowed Louisiana’s thick soil and worked in forestry, lugging cypress or pine from the state’s ample woodlands.

By 1875, the decades-old agglomeration of stables in the heart of New Orleans developed into a bona fide industry district, known generally as the “mule market.” George Engelhardt observed in 1904, “in the greater cities everywhere, concerns akin assemble together. Thus the grocery and provision lines, the import coffee trade, the iron works, the printing and publishing houses, the horse and mule markets have each their own special locality somewhere in or about this particular quarter of trade.” Indeed, it centered along the 300 to 500 blocks of Baronne Street between Common and Lafayette streets, the city’s “population centroid,” that theoretical point around which residents are evenly distributed,

ountless photos of New Orleans’ bygone days reminisce of men flaunting daring mustaches and women pulling up hems to dodge gutter filth—coaches and wagons clogging the streets. They give pause to otherwise hectic moments, full of hustle and bustle, hawking and chimes. For every dozen

a sort of blue-collar beast of Louisiana’s cotton and sugar industries, and a silent side player in the Queen City of the South, as it stewarded trade between global markets and the vast Mississippi River Valley.

Where did these draft animals come from? Louisiana farmers and planters did not typically breed draft

or so pedestrians, there’s an equine.

Horses, considered the noblest steed, pulled coaches and cabs for the gentry, raced at the Fairgrounds, and performed heroic feats alongside firefighters. Mules, the long-eared horse-donkey hybrid— often perceived as dumb, lazy, and famously stubborn—worked the dirty jobs, pulling massive wagons, towing boats along canals, and lugging large cypress logs out of the swamp. Despite stereotypes, mules dominated Southern roads and farms, including urban streets, for nearly a century as the preferred draft animal over horses or oxen. Farmers and planters concluded that humble mules could out-muscle a horse and tolerate the Louisiana heat better, while in New Orleans, merchants and retailers made deliveries, collected laundry, and sold produce from mule-drawn wagons.

Eclipsing horses in numbers and dutifully employed, the mule became

animals; instead, they THE MULE BECAME A SORT OF BLUE-COLLAR BEAST purchased equine raised OF LOUISIANA’S COTTON AND SUGAR INDUSTRIES, in the interior South—in AND A SILENT SIDE PLAYER IN THE QUEEN CITY OF Tennessee, Missouri, and Kentucky—or to the west THE SOUTH, AS IT STEWARDED TRADE BETWEEN in Texas. Auctioneers GLOBAL MARKETS AND THE VAST MISSISSIPPI RIVER and dealers purchased VALLEY. substantial ‘heads’ of horses and mules from the Bluegrass Basin region and drove men, went to war during 1861-1865, as geographer and Tulane University them overland, shipped on water or leaving the streets of New Orleans with Professor Richard Campanella points rail to markets in Louisiana. Though fewer beasts of burden during the chaos out. Where there were people, port plenty of New Orleanians owned their of the Civil War. Yet afterwards, mules activity, and industry, there was a equine and stabled them near home, would ascend in the South, becoming demand for mules, be it for pulling most were company-owned, kept in its predominant draft animal for over streetcars, garbage wagons, cotton large purpose-built stables, and simply half a century. As cotton and sugar floats, or construction bricks. For stable rented out. To supply the incessant prices rose, so did the need for mules. and livery proprietors, collocating by demand for cheap draft power, As additional acres were cleared or other commercial districts also meant entrepreneurs opened large barns and drained for new crops, so expanded further convenience to potential clients. liveries in New Orleans in patterns the mules’ distribution. As more So long as downtown land values did of spatial convenience, unfettered by commodities needed to get to market, not rise too high or neighbors complain so increased the number of mules on about the nuisances, market forces ordinances or zoning codes.

Early newspaper advertisements country roads, city streets, and port drove the mule market to be situated in // A U G 2 0

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Steeds continued . . . .. the urban core.

The mule district had a distinctive streetscape—you knew when you were there. Businesses changed names constantly, but operations remained constant. Barns are not the most aesthetically pleasing forms of architecture; function dominates the form. The barns in the district were spacious to accommodate the constant movement of equines and were generally uniform with large bays and center halls for ventilation, while topped with a hayloft. Another common ‘footprint’ of large liveries included a perpendicular driveway known as a “hitch alley” where potential buyers could test the beast of burden for heartiness, speed, and workability.

Stables had multiple overlapping commercial modes: to board equines, to rent out for day use, or to sell. Brays echoed down Baronne before dawn, when the beasts bellowed for food.

Work began shortly after. While the equines worked, stable workers replenished water, mucked stalls, shod hooves, swatted at flies, and repaired buggies. Auctioneers and customers brokered deals, talked down prices and relegated tall tales of heroic feats amongst mishaps.

Who worked the quadrupeds?

Given that drayage was an archetypal blue-collar job, men of all backgrounds and races worked in the industry. Census records indicate that in 1880, 28.2% of draymen were African Americans, and 30.5% listed as “foreign.” Stablemen would jest at a newcomer’s intrigue at the prospect of working with a ‘green’ mule (slang for an untrained mule, not literally sporting a green coat).

The horse and mule market were lucrative trades that entailed subindustries and trades. Wheelwrights acted as mechanics to fix wagons; farriers shod hooves and treated ailments; tanners designed proper fitting harnesses and saddles. Then there were the wagon-builders, the carriage vendors, the plough dealers, the rope salesmen, and so forth.

During the late nineteenth century peak of the mule markets, these trades typically dotted the Faubourg St. Mary between Baronne Street and the cotton wharves along the Mississippi River ten blocks away. Cotton funneled in and out of the city, and factors and financiers convened in the aptly named Cotton District that centered around Carondelet and Gravier, near the mule markets. Though offices comprised the district rather than gins, buyers needed cotton “samples” to grade the lint and put a price on a bale. These samples 46

were hauled in wagons nicknamed ‘cotton floats.’ With a little flair and elaborate decor, cotton floats eventually transitioned to Carnival parade floats.

A photo by George François Mugnier, taken during the heyday of the mule market district, simply named Cotton Sample, shows two men sitting on top of a large heap of cotton that nearly reaches a French Quarter gallery with a two-mule team, waiting patiently to move.

With the new century came new technological era that sputtered,

into a commercial and entertainment thoroughfare. Perrin set his sights on the mule market, viewing its unsightly stables as “practically unimproved property.” With Perrin’s hefty cash flow, the cumbersome stable owners of 500 Baronne eagerly sold for a “fanciful” $100,000 in 1905, and the city eagerly anticipated for the other liveries to follow suit.

Simultaneously, the city legislated a series of measures to push the mule markets out. The first ordinance prohibited “the driving of mules

Chica, a working mule in New Orleans, retraces the steps of other equines in the lost horse and mule market districts of Baronne Street, May 1, 2019. Photo by Charlotte Jones.

backfired, careened—and changed everything. Though mules worked well into the mid-20th century, the internal combustible engine would forever change transit and agriculture.

As automobiles became more common on the road, the city’s livery industries faced new challenges.

Baronne was going through a transformation. What had previously been known as the Faubourg St. Mary increasingly became a standard modern American downtown commercial district. Real estate mogul Emilien Perrin noticed the potential of Baronne Street and quickly achieved fame for developing the De Soto Hotel (now Le Pavillon Hotel), and transforming Baronne

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through public streets unhaltered” after a mule, and subsequently two men on horseback, strayed and bolted through a neighboring business on Baronne.

Mule drives were already banned from Canal Street after a green mule previously ran through D.H. Holmes department store. In 1905 the city cowkicked again with more ordinances to push the mule market away from the urban core. The Brandao Ordinance aimed to prohibit stables on residential streets and had a retroactive clause, meaning that decades-established stables that served neighborhoods out of the periphery of the district would also have to relocate or close shop.

Large firms and the longtime horse baron of Baronne Street, William

Leonard—then 70 years old—bitterly fought the proposal. One owner told the Times-Picayune that the city “simply want[s] to dictate to us where we should carry on our business, and this is something that we are not going to stand for.”

What the defenders of the district were up against, of course, were not simply obstinate officials but rather a changing world that would eventually render their industry nearly obsolete.

Livery proprietors on Baronne Street finally found a compromise in 1906, when several firms partnered with the New Orleans Terminal Company.

The rail company established a horse and mule market behind the stockyards in Arabi and a new series of barns at the intersection of Bienville Street and Carrollton Avenue in Mid-City. The TimesPicayune boasted that the new structures, “were patterned after the great stables in Kansas City, but many improvements were devised . . . The result is that, while they are not as extensive as those in Kansas City, the stables are the finest in the world.” Not as extensive, but still impressive—three of the large barns could quarter up to fifteen hundred mules.

“Time immemorial Baronne Street has been the center of the mule trade,” a Times-Picayune reporter wistfully reminisced on the pending decline of the district and the trade.

Baronne Street became a new beacon of progress, boasting car dealerships rather than liveries. By 1915, there were no more stables on Baronne.

With origins in the 1820s and a peak in the late 1800s, New Orleans’ mule market helped supply Louisiana with, as the Times-Picayune noted, “patient and obstinate animals plodding through the streets, conveying heavy loads from place to place and assisting in the commercial progress of the city.” Relics of the mule markets are sparse today. Typically, these locations are now parking lots or highrises.

In the 21st century, mules are the only animals used to pull sight-seeing carriages in New Orleans. A new generation of drivers dote on the animals; they are now seen more as companions than machines, and the city, alongside the LASPCA, regulates the carriage industry with nearly sixty municipal codes. No longer hauling tons of sugarcane or cotton bales, the animals use only a fraction of the efforts their predecessors did. The stables of Baronne may be gone, but the mule’s legacy plods on. h

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W

e go about the mundaneness of our virus world, praying for the success of the scientists designing the vaccination that will allow us to move on to the next threat to our existence.

One afternoon as I taught myself to lay sod, I thought, “If there were ever a time when we needed to design ourselves out of a fix, this is it.” Words to that effect. I had sweat running into my eyes as I labored to move a giant cube of stacked St. Augustine sod from its pallet in the driveway to its destination in the backyard.

This foray into yard design began before last Christmas when my wife and I decided to remodel the kitchen. In came a contractor and a design person to create the kitchen that had been evolving in my wife’s brain for twenty years.

My role was that of enthusiastic supporter. My wife had earned this new kitchen with years of turning out wonderful meals that not only tasted good but looked good. We don’t usually apply the word design to what an inspired cook does, but my wife’s meals are designed as much as any other piece of art.

I watched from a corner of the old kitchen as a paid designer listened to my wife’s wishes before attempting a series of plans. I knew the result would be elegant but simple because that is the way my wife thinks. My contribution would be washing dishes in the bathroom as the kitchen was gutted and reborn, a

complicated, inelegant arrangement if ever there was one.

Sodding the backyard, I was in my element as gardener and lover of hard work with simple tools—shovel, fourtine hoe, cultivating hoe, and regular hoe; also, wheelbarrow, steel rake and, praise the Lord, a neighbor’s electric tiller.

After workmen removed an old deck that took up most of the back yard, our son used a small earth-moving machine to dig a swale for drainage. I used the hand tools to shape the ridges and work the surface of the soil to receive the sod.

As I worked, passages in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs streamed across memory like one of those green digital bank message signs that tell you time, temperature, and how much interest your money could earn if you just wheeled on in.

Coming up with things we didn’t know we wanted—Macintosh computers, iPods, iPhones, iPads—Jobs’ designs were hard work applied to simple machines. He drove marketing people, designers, and engineers crazy with his demands.

The headline on Apple’s first marketing brochure might have been the epitaph for Jobs and his weary workers: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

I don’t know if it was Jobs’ idea, but it occurred to someone at Apple to charge the batteries of devices at the factory. Pop open the box, these babies were ready to go. Walking away from the store with the MacBook Air I’m using to write this

essay, I carried the writing machine by a gold rope handle attached to a white bag with Apple letters embossed on the side.

The bag called to other shoppers, “Oh, yeah, he just bought a MacBook Air. That’s right. He’s cool.”

The design for my backyard was simple, dictated by a small space enclosed by tall fences. My first attempt at laying sod went well. The second afternoon of work I saw what looked like a row of shark’s teeth of sod waiting for the next row. I was so taken with the look that I left it to work on another row. In the end, I liked the design, but the function thing asserted itself. I had to fill in the spaces with the next row of sod to finish the job.

For two days, I played with dirt and sod, shaping the look I wanted. Gone were thoughts of coronavirus, a wrecked economy, and people refusing to wear masks as though doctors and nurses want to spend the rest of their lives caring for these ninnies.

When I clean my bathroom, which I do myself every one-hundred-year pandemic virus, it is not enough that I know floor, lav, toilet, tub, and tile are as clean as I can make them. Some bathroom cleaning chemical genius designed a smell and bottled it. Every time I walk past the hall bathroom, that smell reminds me that the bathroom is clean and that I am a worthwhile person.

In our simplest pursuits, we should design a mark that says, like primitive people trekking the trackless wastes, we were here. We did the best we could.

Moved on. h

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IF YOU

COULD

BE ANYONE, BE YOU. AND BE

A

S A I L O R , T O O . //

ALL ABOARD

W

CHANGING WINDS

Sailing for Everyone

AN ANCIENT RITE, MADE ACCESSIBLE TO ALL

Story by Christie Matherne Hall • Photos by Emily Kask

After restoring a fifty-foot ketch-rigged sailboat and transporting it via towboat escort on a six-day journey across the Intracoastal Waterway, David Lewis was ready to launch his inclusivity-conscious sailing charter company, All Aboard NOLA last spring. With the rise of COVID-19 though, the company waited until the summer to begin operations, and is now offering private excursions.

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“A

s a civilization, we’ve basically d o n e . . . everything we’ve ever done, by sailing,” said David Lewis, founder of the Pontchartrain’s newest sailing charter company, All Aboard NOLA. With a mission to provide a sailing experience and–– eventually––sailing instruction to everyone, Lewis hopes to reach people who might have never been in the right room to receive a sailing invitation. He thinks sailing should be in everyone’s bucket—not just people who run in certain circles or have the money to buy a boat, or kids who go to certain schools, or people of certain races or genders, or heterosexuals. If someone hasn’t ever been invited to sail, for whatever reason, through All Aboard NOLA, he wants to invite them.

After twelve months of restoring the Mai Tai Two, his fifty-foot ketchrigged sailboat, Lewis’s dream really started taking shape in January of this year, with more renovations always underway. But first, the Mai Tai Two had an important voyage to make, from Patterson, Louisiana—where she had been languishing for nearly a quarter century—to her new home on Lake Pontchartrain, via the Intracoastal Waterway.

Restoring an old sailboat, however beautiful and fulfilling, is an enormous effort. Lewis is a former gunner’s mate of the U.S. Navy, so he is what he calls a “boat person.” But the past year has taught him that no one can restore a fifty-foot, dual-masted sailboat on their own. Sanding baked-on varnish from the impossibly tall masts, repairing a squirrel-eaten sail the size of a living room, and siphoning wayward oil from a coolant tank required the help of anyone and everyone Lewis could find, experienced or not, willing to lend a hand–-including his fiance Laura Sanders and crewmate Mark Lucas.

To make the voyage from Patterson, Lewis would once again need all the help he could get. The route involved a five-mile Mississippi River crossing, which would be especially dangerous in January’s high water. “The river is high,” Lewis explained. “But there’s no reason I can see to put it off, and every reason to

go as soon as we can.”

Remarkably, just as Lewis was preparing to embark on All Aboard NOLA’s journey towards inclusive and accessible sailing on the Pontchartrain, another nonprofit—after ten years of preparation—was preparing its own public debut.

Community Sailing New Orleans, a nonprofit committed to providing accessible sailing and educational opportunities on Lake Pontchartrain for people of all ages, genders, backgrounds, and abilities, has been building toward a mission of expanding the borders of sailing enthusiasm mission since its founding in 2010.

Between the tasks of acquiring lakeshore property, developing an experienced advisory board, building bulkheads and docks, and collecting the necessary vessels for community access, it took Community Sailing New Orleans a decade of preparation to be ready for the public. Executive Director Jacob Raymond was hired in March, shortly before the organization’s public opening—which, unfortunately, fell right atop the first COVID-19 outbreak.

With a sixty-five-year site lease, forty-nine vessels (including ten paddleboards), and equipment to facilitate sailing for people with disabilities, Community Sailing New Orleans distinguishes itself from All Aboard NOLA—an L3C, two ship fleet focusing on private party excursions–– as a larger entity with cooperative, educational, and therapeutic purposes.

But both are seeking to fill the gap of inclusive sailing access in the New Orleans area.

One of the primary barriers to sailing, for most people, is the price tag. Anyone wanting to purchase their own sailboat is looking at a few thousand dollars investment, at least. Boat owners will also need a place to put their boat, which could mean a costly year-round marina bill—and of course, there are hefty insurance and maintenance costs.

“Boat ownership is very expensive,” Raymond said, “but I don’t believe that prohibits people from enjoying sailing.

There are a lot of different avenues and approaches you can take to get on the water.”

For instance, Corinthians Sailing, a

After restoring the fifty-foot ketch-rigged sailboat, the Mai Tai Two, to seaworthiness, Captain David Lewis had to get his ship to the Pontchartrain—an arduous six-day journey along the Intracoastal Waterway and across the Mississippi River with the river level running at near record highs. Photo by Christie Matherne Hall.

“WHERE YOU HAVE DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES, YOU HAVE DIVERSE SOLUTIONS TO DIVERSE PROBLEMS, AND EVERYONE’S EXPERIENCE HAS SOMETHING TO BRING TO THE TABLE, I DON’T THINK THAT HAVING A MONOLITHIC COMMUNITY ON BOARD A SAILING VESSEL IS AS PRODUCTIVE AS THAT SPECTRUM OF PERSPECTIVE.” —DAVID LEWIS sailboat racing nonprofit organization, will allow anyone to crew a sailboat on Wednesday nights. “You just have to introduce yourself and put yourself out

there,” Raymond said.

For women, there’s the Lake Pontchartrain Women’s Sailing Association, which offers a $75 annual

Both All Aboard NOLA and Community Sailing New Orleans aim to push against centuries-old perceptions of who sailing is for, and to foster environments where people of every race, gender, sexuality, and even age can safely and comfortably experience the riches this ancient sport has to offer. Pictured: Captain David Lewis (left) and crew member Mark Lucas (standing far right) pictured with guests on a recent excursion on the company’s second ship, the _True Love_.

membership that includes year-round access to the club boat, Femme Fatale; crew matching for Wednesday night races, social events, and more.

The U.S. has experienced an upswing of community-based sailing nonprofits nationwide, which generally offer lowerpriced or free lessons and memberships to those who qualify. They have served to ease the financial burden of entry to sailing. That said, Community Sailing New Orleans is the only community initiative of its kind in Louisiana, as far as Raymond is aware.

Lowering prices, though, doesn’t automatically open the door to sailing for everyone. The way people think about sailing needs to change, too. Sailing has a longtime perception of exclusivity as a sport for the affluent, the white, the able-bodied, and the male, and the reputation is often enough to bar sailing opportunities from the imaginations of many.

“I think when people hear sailing, they think of this very elitist and very exclusive kind of sport,” said Raymond.

“Community sailing programs deconstruct people’s perceptions of what sailing is. This isn’t the seventy-twofoot cruising yacht serving cheese and crackers, with people wearing blazers and fancy deck shoes.”

Before Lewis purchased the Mai Tai Two, he worked a few months in Connecticut on the Amistad—a replica of the historic Spanish schooner of the same name, which was famously commandeered by kidnapped Africans in 1839. Discovering Amistad, the nonprofit organization which currently owns the replica Amistad, has a program that welcomes local school children aboard to get a hands-on history of the Amistad Uprising of 1839. It’s an empowering experience for the children who come aboard—about 85% of whom // A U G 2 0

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All Aboard NOLA’s two ship fleet includes the Mai Tai II, captained by David Lewis (pictured just below) and the _True Love_(pictured to the left top and bottom), captained by Christopher Peragine (pictured bottom right).

Photo by Christie Matherne Hall.

are children of color.

“We took the kids out into Long Island Sound and let them experience some of the things that sailors would have experienced in that time,” said Lewis. “As much as the history of this rebellion is interesting, these people [who commandeered the Amistad] are commonly called slaves, but they weren’t slaves. They were kidnapped illegally, in the sense that importing slaves from Africa had been illegal for fifty years at that point—maybe more. They were never sold. They never were put to work.

They were on their way from one end of Cuba to the other when they rose up and took command of the vessel and managed to pilot it all the way up the eastern seaboard—not any of them knowing how to sail at all.”

Inviting children aboard a tall ship can leave a big impression—one that sticks with them for years to come.

“Most of the kids [who visit the Amistad] are thrilled, because many of them have never been out on a boat before,” said Rose Witte, former Captain of 50

the Amistad. “And giving them the experience of sailing, and getting the sails up, and feeling the wind fill the sails, and taking turns driving the boat—that’s the thing that really gets me. [...] [After the field trips], the kids would come back and work on the boat. They fall in love with sailing, and the ship.”

In her time as Captain, Witte was also committed to getting Black children involved in sailing and the maritime industry. “There is a history of Black mariners in fishing and in the professional maritime trade, and it’s sort of gone by the wayside a bit,” she said.

“There’s not as many now. And it’s worse in sailing.”

While on the replica Amistad, Lewis met and worked under Witte, who is one of few female mariners of her caliber in the field. Witte grew up sailing in Chesapeake Bay—her grandfather showed her the ropes, as he had shown her mother. Witte worked summers in shipyards and on boats from an early age, and earned her Coast Guard certification at age twenty-two.

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History has a long habit of keeping women off of boats in general. The British Navy legally barred women from boarding military ships in 1808, and the U.S. Navy only assigned its first women aboard a combatant ship in 1994.

Despite the common practice of naming ships after women and references to “her maiden voyage,” plenty of old mariner accounts describe women aboard a ship as bad luck, presumably because they could rouse jealous attitudes among male sailors. (That said, topless or naked women were considered good luck onboard a sea vessel. Supposedly, a barechested woman could “shame nature into suppressing its anger.” Redheads were also considered bad luck on a ship, as were bananas.)

Today, women represent only two percent of seafarers worldwide. Clearly, some barriers remain. A 2019 World Sailing Trust study, comprised of over 4,500 sailors worldwide, found that 59% of women surveyed had experienced “some form of discrimination within

the sport.” Reports of discrimination included “isolation and harassment, being treated as less competent, not receiving the same opportunities and level of support as male sailors, and being stereotyped by gender.” Participants in the study were 73% female.

With over thirty years of professional sailing behind her, Witte has experienced more than her fair share of gender discrimination. Among other things, Witte has heard men mocking women’s high-pitched voices in maritime communications. “Sometimes they’d hold the microphone up to a speaker playing crying baby noises,” she said.

“There are times where it’s just so overt that it causes trouble,” Witte explained. “If I have somebody coming onboard and I see them acting in a domineering way that is upsetting to the female members of the crew—for instance, a guy coming in and taking a line out of a woman’s hand, while she’s working it perfectly—I see it coming, and I don’t tolerate it.”

Community sailing initiatives consider diversity—of culture, ethnicity, race, gender, age, beliefs, religion, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, family status, physical ability, appearance, and ideas—as a mission cornerstone.

“Where you have diverse perspectives, you have diverse solutions to diverse problems, and everyone’s experience has something to bring to the table,” Lewis explained. “And I don’t think that having a monolithic community on board a sailing vessel is as productive as that spectrum of perspective.”

Nearly a month after its original departure date, on the overcast morning of February 16, the Mai Tai Two— crewed by Captain Lewis and invaluable crew member Mark Lucas—finally left Patterson with a working engine.

(Sanders was unable to join due to a scheduling conflict.) They were preceded all the way to Houma by another vessel, owned by the Mai Tai Two’s previous captain. They stayed in Houma for the Krewe of Aquarius parade, then they were off again, dodging bigger boats and navigating heavy winds. The Mai Tai Two was tied to a rusty 1950s dredge near the Harvey Canal for several days to wait out some bad weather— Lewis mentioned that, lashed to a dredge, the Mai Tai Two looked like “she had tugboat dreams”—but they were able to prepare for the Mississippi River crossing

Community Sailing New Orleans has spent the past ten years preparing to open up its forty-nine vessel fleet— and accessible community sailing—to the people of New Orleans. Executive Director Jacob Raymond (pictured below) says they plan to begin offering services this fall.

Photos by Christie Matherne Hall.

soon thereafter. For the crossing, they were joined by Christopher Peragine, captain of All Aboard NOLA’s second ship, _Truelove_.

Fastened at the hip to the Aunt Donna, a hired towboat escort, the Mai Tai Two crossed the big river at over fifty percent more volume than it usually holds. Due to the wakes of several large, outbound ships, the Mai Tai Two lost half its Samson post; and it lost a fender to a bump with the Aunt Donna. Lewis said the bump “woke everyone up”— it sounded like a gunshot. Ketch and crew made it to Lake Pontchartrain on February 22, six days after embarking from Patterson. The bilge was dry, the boat was (mostly) seaworthy, and she proved herself capable of crossing the Mississippi lashed to a towboat— something she was not designed to do.

Now living happily in New Orleans, not only will the Mai Tai Two—and the _Truelove_—take people out on Pontchartrain cruises, but Lewis wants to eventually add an educational component––a “captain factory,” as he calls it. But for now, the Mai Tai Two and _Truelove_ are available to book for

private excursions until the COVID-19 pandemic is resolved by a vaccine or diminishes significantly. Private cruises start at $65 per person.

Community Sailing New Orleans is slated to begin phasing in some services by fall of this year as well, pending local health recommendations regarding COVID-19. By Spring of 2021, the organization will have sixty boats of various types to suit the needs of its participants, including those with disabilities. The general public will be able to sign up for Community Sailing New Orleans’ adult sailing courses for $300. Annual all-access passes—which allow students, individuals, or families to take out a boat—will range from $250$500. There will also be women-only programming in the future.

“We’re going to be running scholarships for youth and adaptive sailing, so there’ll be little to no cost for people who qualify for our community development programs,” said Raymond.

Sailing requires teamwork, intense focus, quick observational chops, the ability to adapt to rapidly changing environments, and improvisation skills.

These qualities can only improve with a diverse crew—and by its nature, the work itself improves everyone who participates in it.

“There’s just so many opportunities for profound personal growth on board a vessel like this, or any other sailing vessel,” Lewis continued. “It’s hard work. And it’s extremely rewarding, and it’s exacting, and it requires a lot of discipline—a lot of personal discipline— and resourcefulness. There’s very few things that will give you such a measure of self-confidence like weathering a significant storm or other adverse conditions presented by the sea.”

“And there’s also I suppose, a bit of faith involved. Mostly faith in yourself, I think, but that’s what you grow with it.” h

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P E R S P E C T I V E S : I M A G E S O F O U R S TAT E

Jim Blanchard

AT THE CROSSROADS OF OLD-SCHOOL TECHNIQUE AND MODERN RESEARCH, HISTORY REBUILDS ITSELF

The Luling mansion on Esplanade Avenue was designed by James Gallier, architect, for Florence Luling in 1865. The mansion was built in the Renaissance palazzo style on a thirty acre tract on the fashionable Esplanade Ave. in New Orleans. The Lulings, after the loss of their two sons, departed the mansion and moved to Europe. The estate was purchased by the Louisiana Jockey Club in 1871 and the mansion became host for many extravagant receptions, dinners, concerts and balls. In 1905, the property was sold and the estate was subdivided into lots for sale. The wings were demolished and the mansion became apartments. Image courtesy of Jim Blanchard.

U

pon first glance, the city of Thibodaux, Louisiana, may not seem like a destination for the height of period architecture, but for artist and historian Jim Blanchard, who grew up along Bayou Lafourche, it was the seat of inspiration for his unique career as an architectural archival artist. Whether detailing the exact measurements of the ironwork on the Henry S. Buckner Mansion on New Orleans’ Jackson Avenue or the precise mileage of maps depicting the Louisiana of eras past, Blanchard’s works are as much historical documents as they are works of art, each meticulously painted watercolor a testament to the rare contemporary combination of old school technique and modern examination—something he had almost no choice but to teach himself.

“I went to study art at Nicholls State University in the early 70s, but back then it was all about modernity and splashed paint, and no one was able to teach me the basics of classical technique,” said Blanchard. “So I went to work with my grandfather in the oil brokerage business, where I worked on titles for properties and learned to draft maps from my great uncles.”

The job provided a hands-on crash course in the historical significance of lineage. Blanchard spent his time in courthouses and libraries, researching data in hopes of finding important details on families, deeds, lands, and how placements and properties can change over the course of two hundred years.

“It’s an education that’s hard to get any other way,” he said.

And it shows. When the Ogden Museum of Southern 54

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Art hosted A Precise Vision, a 2018 exhibition of his work, Blanchard said he was stunned by the attention it received from people of all ages and demographics— perhaps, he wondered, because contemporary audiences rarely get the chance to admire traditionally crafted paintings produced in the modern age.

“When people see my work, it’s not uncommon for them to assume it was painted hundreds of years ago,” said Blanchard.

Indeed, Blanchard’s work has often been compared to that of French artist and cartographer Marie Adrien Persac, who in the mid-1800s also painted South Louisiana plantation houses and landscapes after marrying the daughter of a farmer in Baton Rouge. But the difference between the two painters’ work is evident, the natural inclinations of each artist impossible to erase no matter the amount of exact measurements and rigorous research live in each stroke.

“I hunt for details anywhere I can,” said Blanchard.

“Old photographs are great, because they have their own dimensions I can research, like different iron patterns.

I can look that up and scale the rest of the building’s proportions from there. I also look into a lot of building contracts that describe the height of the ceilings, or the widths of the rooms, so you get a lot of detail from that.”

Blanchard said that he will sometimes research for years before putting pen to paper. “I’ve always wanted to paint the old state house in Donaldsonville, for example, but there’s no image of it other than a couple of small, inconsistent drawings,” he said. “Recently, some friends of mine located a contract which seems to include some measurement numbers regarding the house, but it’s

in French, so they’re translating it for me. People have been looking for this information for decades, so that’s exciting.”

The records of history, after all, can change so much via the avenues of time, depending on who writes something down, and how much fictionalizing is involved, and who writes that down, and so on. What we’re left with today is often a mere fragment of truth, if we’re lucky.

Even so, with clout as a collector of historical artifacts, and as designer for buildings and restorations on projects like the Ashland and Bocage plantation houses, as well as holding positions as the historian for Houmas House and Gardens and curator of the recently-opened Great River Road Museum, Blanchard—who takes such meticulous care as to frequently scale his drawings with the help of a central human figure meant to be six feet tall—can’t escape the thrill of imagination.

“People wanted to create an illusion of themselves through these grand structures,” he said. “And I hope people can look at my work today and wonder: who really lived here? What was life like back then? It adds to the story. And I hope it might inspire others to search for more history, and learn something new.” h

Visit the recently-opened Great River Road Museum seven days a week from 10 am to 4 pm, where Blanchard’s collections, paintings, and maps will be displayed in the exhibitions, as well as in a separate gallery. jimblanchardgallery.com.

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