01 June 2007

NOLA RISING (The Concept)

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 put up 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. Is it needed as much there? Perhaps not as intensely as one would think.

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