but...here's the gist.
getting back to lousiana, i spent the night in slydell,
which is on the more exposed eastern part of the north shore, a place i had not visited.
they had a lot of regular hurricane damage from wind and whatnot (my aunt lost 40 trees on her property and had roof damage leading to some minor flooding)
but as far as i could tell life went on normally there after the storm, people moved back into their houses.
repairs and stuff are taking forever due to labor shortages and insurance hoopla, but otherwise...normal.
coming into new orleans from that side of town, though, i crossed the I-10 bridge into new orleans east and...that was not ok.
a whole other chunk ...whole other city, really, to add to the list of ghost towns.
you know, apartment complex after apartment complex destroyed and abandoned.
i saw my first "Help" written on a roof, next to a hole the people had punched through to get out of the attic as the water rose.
i wandered around there a little bit, but could only take so much.
and i wasn't sure what to do with my day.
half of it had gone to escporting my grandmother to the grocery store and bank, and i hadn't done the neccessary prep to work on the painting i should be working on, plus there wouldn't be enough daylight.
so i fumbled my way to audabon park,l for no reason other than i like it.
huge oak trees and old houses and old nice comforting new orleans.
as soon as i parked i remembered that the art museum was there too. brilliant! my subconscious had figured out my day for me.
ok-so the art museum was actually in CIty park, but after a detour around audabon park i figured it out.
NOMA is small by any metropolis's standards, but served my purposes precisely. (certainly not premeditated purposes but it served me anyway)
just seeing fine art was good for me.
kind of grounded me and reminded me that its tangible and real. you know- you put some paint on som eobject in some form of representation and other people find some meaning in it.
and really, that's all its about. no pressure.
heh.
and there was a lot of local-american and lousiana artists that brought that home even more.
in a way makes "acceptance" (not that that's what i'ma fter-hehemn) less intimidating. cause, honestly, ...some of the art isn't very good. but its significant. either cause the person who did it did something ELSE that was good, or...cause tis just significant for one reason or another.
falling into the great AND significant category, i got to see what i think is my favorite painting--rodrigue's aiorioli dinner.
i turned a corner and there it was and i think i gasped and .. savored. its so much better in person. gave me more respect for him for sure.
but the thing that was most productive about the afternoon was seeing the other katrina art.
there were 6 peices.
4 as part of a preview for an exhibit that will be there next november. rolland golden.
he's a local artist who has been well known for paintings of new orleans, and is, aparantly, one of the first fine artists to take the katrina subject public in the non-craft art world.
(they sell all kinds of memorabilia type art--glass houses with blue rooves ((for the tarps)) and...all sorts of folky type art)
his paintings were fairly literal.
people reacting to the flooded city.
very powerful images, well composed and executed, but very literal.
which is the thing i'm struggling with with my own stuff.
and there was one lovely landscape. of a 9th ward block.
i think that one was phil sandusky. and i liked the way it was painted. a little more loose, impressionaistic.
and one photograph.
so-gave me a nice sense of perspective before is et off on 4 days of forced reflection.
on a boat with my mom. no work.
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