Magazine Street Parade

There is a song called Bourbon Street Parade - it's a second line staple in New Orleans. Although official parades rarely go down on Lower Garden portion of Magazine Street (except for the huge St. Pat's Day parades), there are quite a few small parades every once in a while.

I was painting in my old 'hood in Lower Garden District, on Magazine at Euterpe, with my teacher Phil on a Friday morning. At about 10:30, I noticed a bunch of people gathering around in small groups along Magazine St. just standing and waiting. One woman parked her gigantic SUV right next to where I was painting, idling her car, for half an hour. She was texting the whole time, and looked like someone who never had to be a foot away from an idling SUV in 90 degree heat for half an hour in her entire life. And suddenly she shut off the engine, got out, and walked away, leaving her SUV parked on the corner, right on top of one of those yellow diagonal lines indicating "you shall not park here. it is a corner." 

Then a parade came down the street. It was a last-day-of-school parade from the International School. Everyone was dressed up in pseudo-traditional outfit representing different countries that they recently studied about.  They teach all subjects in French and Spanish, but the first country represented in the parade was... Japon!

A little girl handed me this without explanation.
I had to smell it to know it was a coffee bean.

stilt walkers ended the short parade.

back to painting

I had to finish up in a hurry and forgot to put balcony railings. Oh well.

Orange Street, New Orleans

Orange Street in New Orleans is only 9 blocks long, but has a long history. According to John Chase's book Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children, the street was named "because it ran through the orange grove which the Jesuit fathers planted when once this region was part of their vast plantation." The region now is part of Lower Garden District, where you see street names like Race, Annunciation, Market, St. James, St Thomas, Celeste, and Constance. Only after I read the book in 1998 I found out why that coffee shop on Race at Magazine was called Rue de la Course. (The cafe is now called Mojo.)

That whole area has seen a renaissance since Louisiana's tax incentive towards film productions brought in young people from out of town, who have jobs and enough money to eat out and buy new clothes. After we moved out of that neighborhood, at least 2 Vietnamese restaurants have opened up, as well as one super high-end coffee shop, hip clothing boutiques, salons, iPhone repair place, a pub, more clothing boutiques, more coffee shops, a bike shop, and a crap load of Air BnB hosts.  The houses are being fixed up and repainted, and it just feels a lot livelier now than when I lived there.

Orange near Constance, New Orleans
oil on canvas, 18"x24"

I have a stack of reference photos that I flip through when it's raining, or when the windchill is below 30 degrees. The painting above was done this morning when it was sooooo cold, my husband looked me in the eyes and said "you know it's like -1 degree celsius," in case I didn't understand the seriousness of the windchill in fahrenheit. So I stayed inside and painted from a photograph, probably about 3 years old. I've painted the same block, around the time that photo was taken.

Purple Wall on Orange Street
oil on canvas, 18"x24"

It must have been a trash pick-up day.

Pickup Trucks

Pickup trucks in the Lower Garden District. 

Thalia St. at Annuncication St., New Orleans
oil on canvas, 18"x24"

Race St. at Constance St., New Orleans
oil on canvas, 18"x24"

Mojo Coffee Shop on Race St. at Magazine St., New Orleans
oil on canvas 14"x18"

Busted Flat on Thalia St., New Orleans
oil on canvas, 24"x18"

Market Street Power Plant

One of my favorite buildings in New Orleans is the Market Street Power Plant in the Lower Garden District. It was in operation between 1905 and 1973. In 1922, NOPSI was founded to serve the entire city of New Orleans with this Power Plant, instead of the more than 200 different gas/electric companies that were in operation at the time.

oil on canvas, 12"x24"

oil on board, 9"x12"

oil on board, 12"x16"

A few Hollywood movies were shot inside this abandoned building. After Katrina, a developer in Miami bought the power plant and nearby TwiRoPa building. To start redeveloping the power plant into a hotel-shops-condos-in-one, they demolished TwiRoPa in 2007. When that multi-use development didn't actually happen, there was also a talk of making this into a sporting goods store. We lived a couple of blocks away and I remember thinking, they better not sell guns in that sporting goods store... That didn't materialize and it still sits vacant. Broken and Beautiful.