NOLA RISING PROJECT
I have decided to undertake a public art project to spread across the city. The idea was spawned from two different ideas that I have opted to merge. The first was a photo I had taken last year of a building that was on the corner of Tchoupitoulas and Napoleon. Someone, presumably the owner or tenant, spray-painted "NOLA RISING" on the building. The photo ended up being great and has become a maxim of mine (if a thought behind an idea can imply the totality of a maxim).
Second was a group of random paintings that someone had strung up in the Marigny on a huge electrical pole. I wanted to try and climb the electrical structure to get one of the paintings, but thought better of it at eight in the morning. So, in lieu of taking art, I decided to leave art behind.
So far, I have given NOLA RISING drawings in two different areas of town. The first was in the Lower Ninth Ward in the middle of a great new vacuum of neighborhood space created by the breaking levees flooding out people's homes. Not just flooding, but breaking apart and destroying. It is in this neighborhood that I feel the spirit of New Orleans is needed first and foremost. The second area I have started is in my own back yard (not literally) around the Lower Garden District, Coliseum Square area, and the Irish Channel.
