Free wine - I’m soooooo there.
I’m in Dallas and was getting lunch at the Evil Empire Cafeteria. In an idle conversation with the chef there (and he is really a chef - great food) revealed that he was from New Orleans. Hadn’t been there in 20 years or so but had grown up there. He’d gone back down as part of a relief effort shortly after Hurricane Katrina. He said the part that really got to him was being on the Huey P. Long Bridge looking out over the city and there not being a single light on. His sincerity was doubtless and I got a real sense that the emotion was creeping up on him as he spoke. His eyes almost seemed go gloss over a little but I may have imagined that. My point is, there seemed to be something tugging at him. Maybe something pulling him like that feeling you have for the rest of the day when you run into a lover you haven’t thought of in years - every minute you ever spent together comes crashing into your head all at once. It started me wondering how many other long lost sons and daughters of New Orleans are feeling that pull - and if they’ll follow it…
In other news; Galerie Royale is having their first Art Opening since Hurricane Katrina this Saturday form 4:00pm to 7:30pm. It may be the first art opening in the city but I don’t know for sure - so I can’t say that. But I can say “FREE WINE”!!! There’s also an online/phone auction going on at the same time for those who can’t make it to the gallery. Nancy and the crew there have been struggling to keep the doors open everyday just as a presence. I think its good for morale but I can’t imagine its been very profitable. Small businesses that haven’t already gone down for the count are certainly on the ropes. Magazine Street may very well end up a shadow of itself when everything’s said and done. And let me say that I realize art is not on most peoples’ priority lists right now as there are bigger issues to deal with so just don’t bother with that criticism. I just figure, if this little business is going to have a get together and give away wine and offer a chance to forget your troubles and look at some art; even if it’s just a couple of hours, then its worth posting here. Plus, I’ll be there drinking wine and talking trash. And you can meet one of the few local painters still in New Orleans who isn’t filthy rich, and therefore, still cool: Robert Sutton.
Last week I was hanging out with Robert Sutton. For those of you not familiar, he’s a local artist who’s spent the last few months traveling around the country painting. He came back after the storm for reasons even he admits he doesn’t understand. But it worked out well since he’s been keeping the gallery open in exchange for a place to stay. He’s been living on MREs, taking lots of pictures, and painting like a madman. He really is the most prolific and, at times, the most hard-working painter I’ve ever known. I salvaged one of his paintings from a friend’s house in Lakeview and he was nice enough to clean it up for me so I can send it to her - it’s one of the few things she still owns and one of her most valued possessions since he’d given it to her, ironically enough, in exchange for an art textbook he was interested in.
Hope to see ya’ll there! Well, not all ya’ll - some ya’ll are mean.
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What an incredible gallery of photos.
Lots of us are feeling that pull. I grew up there, went to high school at Franklin when it was still at the courthouse on S. Carrollton, and moved away for good in 1984, but the wife and I have been trying to figure out for a month now how we might manage to move back. All we lack are schools, jobs, and housing, so how hard could it be? ;)
Seriously, she’s an architect, so she can probably find plenty of work, and we’ve got equity in our current house that could tide us over for a while if I had trouble finding something in teaching or hi-tech, but the school thing is really hard. How do we justify uprooting the kids and plunging them into such an uncertain environment, just to satisfy my aching homesickness and the feeling that I should be DOING something, ANYTHING, to rebuild the city?
It is very much like you describe, running into the girl who broke your heart twenty years ago and finding out that she is single again. And wondering what if, and could I possibly….