This blog was founded in NYC as a place where we live and and as a source of inspiration. But every New Yorker knows, this city takes a lot out of us. It’s always on, it’s always awake, there’s always something happening and it’s worth considering a getaway to have a change of pace and scenery. 

This time the break from NYC is none other the glorious, world famous, NOLA –  New Orleans, Louisiana. A city of music, art, food, long standing traditions. There’s a lot to experience and as soon as we arrive, its clear we’re not in New York anymore. There’re palm trees, the sun is relentless. Even in April, the afternoon heat sends people looking for shade. But there’s still a cool breeze coming off the  Mississippi River; and it’s quite pleasant to be outside in the mornings and evenings.

My favorite thing about New Orleans is the art scene. There’s art everywhere. There’s street art, tons of galleries, museums and sculpture gardens, artists working outside and original art works for sale. We start off at Julia street. It’s an historic district next to Lafayette square that’s lined with galleries selling local, national and international artists, paintings, sculptures, in every style, size and price point. Julia 600 is my favorite, this is where i started my collection over 12 years ago, being able to purchase original oil paintings for a few hundred dollars each. Thankfully, the gallery is still there and still specializes is local New Orleans artists. There’s so much to see. It’s jam packed with art works that are beautiful, vibrant, and timeless. Its easy to see that these artists love their city, they celebrate its unique music scene, its natural beauty, and architecture. Painted in diverse styles, there’s something for everyone from the  most realistic and detailed depictions of landscapes that look like photographs to the most unexpected, abstract styles, neon hues, even led strips. Whether you are decorating for a specific style or just buy art that looks good, you will be sure to find something that you love in your budget. 

Linda Lesperance has been painting her city for decades and explores the themes of music, Mardi Gras and restaurants. She aims to capture the scene not as an outside observer but as someone who’s there, partaking in the festivities. Can you hear the horns and the trombones looking at this picture? The colors, the bright green house in the background, the deep purple of the musicians shirts, the shine of their instruments, its so beautiful, its a celebration of life and music but its also real. It’s not sanitized, its not made to be perfect. It’s what you would see and experience if you were there.

Thomas Lofton includes cats in every painting. His work is so detailed, it can transport you to the courtyards of New Orleans, to smell the jasmine and bougainvillea, to hear the gentle flow of the water fountain. It’s picturesque and peaceful. See more of his works in the online gallery.

Stephanie Reed loves the local fauna and paints the flowers with so much color and contrast, you can save money on buying bouquets and always have fresh flowers in your house. There’s something so alluring about these pinks and purples. They are almost too bright, too pigmented to be real and yet they’re a very accurate representation of the real thing. I took this picture in the little fountain pond in front of the New Orleans museum of art and the painting is more real than the real lily:

There’s something really special about this city, its romantic and unique. The nature and the culture make New Orleans a place like no other. And the artists that live here, painters and musicians, truly love this city and are really connected to their environment. Like we say about NYC it’s either New York or nowhere. That’s how these artists feel about New Orleans, affectionately called NOLA. It’s NOLA or nowhere. It’s not someone passing through, throwing a few ideas on a canvas. It’s talent that lives here, studies and appreciates their environmental, develop their skills and technique because there’s sooo much competition. These artists want to bring NOLA to the world. Truly remarkable. Before you spend thousands in a New York gallery or an auction house, consider checking out these galleries and supporting real artists working in a real city. Not because of connections or networks or celebrities or lifestyle but for the love of art. Period. 

I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to start my personal art collection, and to acquire more  pieces I love as time goes on. We’ve moved multiple times, replaced most of our furniture, changed a lot of things in our living space but these paintings have remained and will always be on my walls. There’re now as much a part of me as my family. 

One of the areas we loved walking around and went back to explore further is the Lower Garden District. There’re so many restaurants, shops and galleries to explore on Magazine street. One of the galleries we loved and purchased this piece for the kitchen is called Sullivan Glass Art. There’re local New Orleans artists that work in a diversity of mediums, multimedia pieces and sculptures and truly unique works.

We met the owners, who offered us some cold bubbly on a hot afternoon and shared stories in their back garden. Another thing that makes NOLA so special, these moments of meeting people who live here and share their experiences and opinions freely. There’s something so refreshing about making a human connection without talking about what one does, and how much money they make but rather the artists they love, their values, what brings them joy. These paintings are by Jacques Soulas, who’s French born New Orleans artist with amazing technique. His still life’s are jumping off the canvas and would add life and color to any space. 

Sara Hardin does incredible landscapes and according to her bio, explores the links between place and memory.  

There’re thousands of artists working in NOLA in all types of styles and mediums. The city is a great incubator of inspiration and talent. It’s beautiful to explore and to be able to bring a piece of it back to NY with a beautiful painting, photograph or sculpture.  

If New York is for over achievers, NOLA is for dreamers. 

It’s for people that have to create, have to be around beauty and talent. If NYC is too corporate and lost some of its identity to the billionaires, NOLA still knows who she is, real, unpretentious, and timelessly beautiful. 

Writing about New Orleans. There’s something romantic in the air walking walking around. Perhaps it’s the smell of jasmine. Perhaps it’s all the music. There’s just so much art and creativity. Something is in the air here, maybe in the water, to induce all these local artists and people born elsewhere to come here and to create, to put their best foot forward in making something new and different, capturing the moment, translating the beauty of nature to canvas and putting their raw emotion into music. Something so incredible about the tradition of art in this beautiful city, thinking about another place that could have produced so much talent. I hearken back to a century ago, to the jazz age, to Paris, to all of those artists that went there to create something new, to collaborate on something exciting, whether it was to break with tradition, to learn from each other. Just like those artists that created all of the art movements we know today, impressionism, favism, abstractionism. The artists working in NOLA today are creating incredible art, that is memorable, that touches a nerve, that captures a feeling, that translates human emotion to canvas, and will delight the eye and the hearts of generations to come.

To take the Paris connection further, something I discovered on this trip and didn’t know before is the influence of New Orleans on French Impressionism and particularly, on Edgar Degas. Incredibly famous artist known for paintings of ballerinas, he has 3 rooms at the Met with the bronze sculptures, painting and his bronze “Little Ballerina” sculpture in a real tutu skirt. The bronze was actually cast after his death based on his original ballerina he has cast in wax that had the tutu made out of real fabric as well as real hair wig tied back with a ribbon. 

Edgar Degas, born in Paris in 1834, lived in NOLA from 1872 to 1873 in his maternal uncles Garden District Mansion. The Musson’s house still stands, even though the family has lost the mansion due to gambling their fortunes away. The mansion has been converted to a bed and breakfast on the first floor and a museum dedicated to Edgar Degas on the second floor, with his bedroom and studio restored to 1872 decor when he stayed there.

Also interestingly enough, his style has changed dramatically and has become more impressionistic during his stay in New Orleans, adding Degas to a long list of artists inspired and transformed by this incredible place. The only paining he has ever sold in his life time was painted in New Orleans called “A Cotton Office in New Orleans.” Here he depicts his family’s office of cotton merchants. His uncle, Michel Musson is in the foreground of the painting examining cotton. Edgar Degas’ brother, Rene is seated behind his uncle reading a newspaper while his bother, Achille is on the very left of the composition, leaning against an open window with his top hat, observing the scene.

There’s also a painting within a painting, a steamship that hangs above the safe. This could allude to the fact that New Orleans was the largest cotton port and the steamships loaded here would transport cotton across the Atlantic. The painting doesn’t pay any mind to how this product was grown or harvested. It was the labor of the formerly enslaved people that toiled in unspeakable conditions that put that cotton in that trading office.

Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation and Civil War had abolished slavery in 1863 but there were over 300,000 enslaved peoples in Louisiana, many joined the great migration north but many stayed and had no other opportunities but to stay close to the plantations or the very same plantations where they were enslaved in order to work and make even the tiniest amount of income to survive. They faced the same harsh conditions of unrelenting sun, heat, no cover, no water, no facilities. Discrimination and constant threat from the white supremacist organizations, made their lives unbearably difficult and dangerous. This included the White League which was supported by the Degas family.

During the post Civil war period known as the Reconstruction, aimed to unite the country and provide opportunities for the formerly enslaved, there were many groups who continued to voice their opposition to the union. White League was one of those organizations. Best friends with the Ku Klux Klan that’s eponymous for hate and brutality, the White League or White Man’s league was a paramilitary terrorist organization  that committed atrocities and massacred people across many states, including a 17year old African American school teacher, Julie Hayden in Tennessee. This murder took place in 1874. How much did Degas’ family know of this and contributed to these atrocities? What did Edgar Degas know personally? Does it change the way we look at his art, a century and a half later, at his part in the impressionist movement, at his influence on the artists that came after? 

Can we see his beautiful ballerinas in the same light knowing that he and his family activity supported white supremacists terrorists. Can we marvel at his technique, admire his colors while aware that they owned slaves, benefited from their labor, built a thriving cotton trade on other people’s suffering and still managed to lose it all and became completely bankrupt. 

The bronze statue of the “Little ballerina” I mentioned is at the Met, but there were hundreds of bronzes cast by the Hébrard Foundery based on Degas’ original wax figures. This one was in the collection of Anne Bass, former wife of an oil billionaire and broke all records when it sold at Christie’s auction house for $41.6M.

Would you acquire work by this artist knowing his penchant for white supremacy? Would you contribute to foundations that acquire his work?

After learning this, I’ve removed his print from my wall. It was a print of ballerinas practicing on the bar. It always made me happy but I no longer see it in the same light. Some will say he was a man of his time, I say he was a racist and we need to reconcile with our history by looking at what has transpired so we don’t repeat it again and again and again. 

If you have an opportunity, support local and contemporary artists. If you have millions to spend on famous artists, consider opening an art center where artists can teach the new generation of artists and have studio space and supplies to create 🙂