Day 5 - NoLA Rising Festival - Murals and Performance

Dramatic Double Feature. Part one is the four top short plays written by New Orleans high school students in the Recovery Public School District commissioned by the Ogden Museum of Southern Folkart and performed by NYC theater companies The Talking Band, NY-Neo Classical Ensemble, The Movement Theater Company, and IRT. The students will view the staged readings via live webcam down in New Orleans.



The second performance of the day was artist Jennifer Pagan's Shoebox Lounge an admired performance artist and activist in New Orleans, Pagan is bringing her catchy and meaningful show which last appeared in NYC at UCB to IRT. I cannot tell you how touching this piece was to me. Jennifer's piece was so uniquely New Orleans that those of us from down here found ourselves at some point shedding a tear. If you want to talk about someone who knows the soul and spirit of New Orleans, see Jennifer's Shoebox Lounge any and every opportunity you get. Pagan is also a teacher and administrator with Young Audiences.



Earlier in the day, Rex and crew (Avi, Lady Robin, Max-O and super reporter Liz) went out to Brooklyn to bring the mural art of ReX to that neighborhood. It was damned cold, but we were able to accomplish two pieces:

Madonna and Fetal Jesus

I know What He's Saying

Day Four - NoLA Rising Festival in NYC

Sorry for the delay in getting the updates of the NoLA Rising Festival posted. I've been nursing a cold that I neglected to take care of and it's finally gotten the better of me.

SATURDAY, Nov 22nd, 2008

The day fortunately began late with IRT transformed into a Jazz Cafe. While light Jazz was being performed live in the background, refreshments were served up and painting began...




The afternoon we held two screenings of "Wade in the Water, Children", a documentary by Elizabeth Wood, Gabriel Nussbaum and the Film Class from the first school to re-open after hurricane Katrina in Central City. "Wade in the Water, Children offers a poetic and devastating look at life in New Orleans through the eyes of the kids who call it home." To find out more about the film, visit www.wadeinthewaterdoc.com

Around eight that night, we kicked off all night festivities with WET!, an all night dance party hosted by SLIGHTLYaskew. Featuring the DJs: cassettenova, Eddie Mars & The Vietcong Disco and DJ Theo Action Lorraine.

DJ with Scarlet O'Gasm

Team NoLA Rising

No night would be complete without a little burlesque. We were proud to have New Orleans native Scarlet O'Gasm, of the Peach Tartes, performing the "Devil Went Down to Georgia."




But no night would be complete without light-up hoola-hoops! And this is how it went until the morning...

Day Two - Over 24 Hours of Paint Time to Prep for the Opening | Endless Love Crew - Robots Will Kill - NoLA Rising

By the time I got into the space on Thursday, I had just over 24 hours to finish making the space mine. So I did what any decently insane artist would do...put on music and started tuning out people, eating only when food happened to show up, and avoided meaningful banter. In the end, the show was ready with me finishing the walls about an hour before the doors opened...

Endless Love Crew

Robots Will Kill



Click on THIS LINK to see the photos on FLickr as they are uploaded

First Night in NYC Preparing for the NoLA Rising Festival | Photos by Nick Gaswirth

11/19/08

Howdy Folks!

It's been awhile since there's been an update, but as you can imagine, I've needed a little decompression time. I've spent that time organizing over 800 photos, shipping artwork, making phone calls and all the usual post-show craziness. So, to update everyone who would have liked to come up to New York for the NoLA Rising Festival, I'm going to do an event by event post.

Upon landing in New York, I took a taxi direct to IRT where the event was to be held by Slightly Askew for NoLA Rising. Five models awaited my arrival to be painted. I was going with the New Orleans cemetery theme/with Dia de La Muertos faces (as a tribute to our friend Mardi Claw). Everything was going smoothly except that the paint wasn't drying in a manner I was accustomed to. Considering it might be a difference of humidity, I painted on. However, much to our dismay after the photo shoot, Christin came in slightly panicky {approximately 2 a.m.} and announced, "the paint is NOT coming off!"

At that point, I stopped trusting that the base coat had been a latex primer, looked across the room and saw that was indeed not. INDEED not. As I read the words "High Epoxy Medium Enamel", I knew the models were screwed. A few days later, all the paint was off with minimal rashes and I learned a valuable lesson. Had I double checked what paint I had requested, all would be well. Unfortunately the hardware store where the paint was bought decided to rip off the girl who bought it seeing that she didn't know the difference of the paints.

The following photos were taken for NoLA Rising archive purposes, but professional prints of the shoot can be found by photographer Nick Gaswirth. ::: To SEE the photos that Nick Selected, GO HERE









NoLA Rising NYC

SLIGHTLY ASKEW / NOLA RISING / NEW YORK CITY

SLIGHTLY ASKEW & NOLA RISING

SLIGHTLY Askew and IRT has recently posted pics from some of their paint parties up in New York. See the full set here:

SLIGHLY Askew & NoLA Rising

SLIGHTLYaskew and IRT present NoLA Rising!



NoLA Rising is a post-Katrina arts campaign that focuses on public art, community building and arts therapy in New Orleans. In preparation for the arrival of NoLA Rising in November, SLIGHTLYaskew will be hosting paint parties across New York City. At each paint party, there will be free wood, paint and brushes. We will invite New Yorkers and passersby to paint these pieces of wood with messages of hope for the people of New Orleans.



The signs will be displayed at the NoLA Rising Exhibit which will be open November 21st through the 26th at the infrared theater (IRT) in the West Village. Many of the signs will also be displayed around the city of New York for public enjoyment, and the rest will be given as a gift to the city of New Orleans and its people who are struggling with post traumatic stress disorder and who are returning to and rebuilding their homes but cannot afford artwork.

Join us on Saturdays, and be on the look out for paint parties coming to your neighborhood!