I was a fan of his, not anymore... The threat to sue the neighborhood association for opposing him seems inappropriate. This and the many conditions he has delayed instituting tell me he sees his business as more important than the quality of life of his neighbors. Appropriate scale assessment needs to be weighed as strongly as the extra money made by business owners.
Rock ‘n’ Bowl owner gets permission to demolish pair of houses for parking lots
Essays, links and visuals highlighting an alternative, resilient place at the strategic crescent of one mighty river.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
It ain't over
The latest from Cree McCree, market maven, nutria designer and flea market queen:
The Great Blue Nile Costume Bust ain't over yet, kids! A sheriff showed up at my door this morning with a summons to appear in Municipal Court on May 3 as a witness at the trial of Blue Nile bartender Oliver "Ollie" Stevenson, who was just doing his job when the bust occurred. He's being charged with "selling clothes w/o a license" (he was only selling drinks) and with "not having a manager on the premises" (manager Jesse Paige was just steps away outside being issued his own summons.) This is totally bogus. Ollie shouldn't have to be a fall guy, and Jesse and I shouldn't have to go to court smack dab in the middle of Jazz Fest (Blue Nile's busiest week).Please help spread the word!!!
Here is the link to the original post I had on the subject:
blog piece
send email to your City Council or call the Mayor of Culture:
city council emails
Office of the Mayor
Phone: (504) 658-4900
Let me know if you hear anything.
The Great Blue Nile Costume Bust ain't over yet, kids! A sheriff showed up at my door this morning with a summons to appear in Municipal Court on May 3 as a witness at the trial of Blue Nile bartender Oliver "Ollie" Stevenson, who was just doing his job when the bust occurred. He's being charged with "selling clothes w/o a license" (he was only selling drinks) and with "not having a manager on the premises" (manager Jesse Paige was just steps away outside being issued his own summons.) This is totally bogus. Ollie shouldn't have to be a fall guy, and Jesse and I shouldn't have to go to court smack dab in the middle of Jazz Fest (Blue Nile's busiest week).Please help spread the word!!!
Here is the link to the original post I had on the subject:
blog piece
send email to your City Council or call the Mayor of Culture:
city council emails
Office of the Mayor
Phone: (504) 658-4900
Let me know if you hear anything.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Tactical Urbanism
from StrongTowns website:
DateWednesday, April 13, 2011 | AuthorCharles Marohn
Sometimes we want to make change but working within the system is just not getting it done. Sometimes the change we desire just needs a little nudge to get going. And sometimes it's just fun to go rogue, all for the cause of making our cities better.
Sometimes you need some Tactical Urbanism.
My fellow CNU NextGen'rs Mike Lydon and Dan Bartman (Twitter) along with Ronald Woudstra and Aurash Khawarzad have created and published a guide to making immediate change at the block level. Tactical Urbanism, the name of the report and the approach, is a do-it-yourself mashup of Jane Jacobs thinking and the Sons of Liberty tactics. This toolbox is exaclty what is needed for today's urbanist.
Tactical Urbanism is a pattern that features the following five characteristics:
1. A deliberate, phased approach to instigating change;
2. The offering of local solutions for local planning challenges;
3. Short-term commitment and realistic expectations;
4. Low-risks, with a possibly a high reward; and
5. The development of social capital between citizens and the building of organizational capacity between public-private institutions, non-profits, and their constituents.
Click here to read the entire article and to download the report:
Download report
DateWednesday, April 13, 2011 | AuthorCharles Marohn
Sometimes we want to make change but working within the system is just not getting it done. Sometimes the change we desire just needs a little nudge to get going. And sometimes it's just fun to go rogue, all for the cause of making our cities better.
Sometimes you need some Tactical Urbanism.
My fellow CNU NextGen'rs Mike Lydon and Dan Bartman (Twitter) along with Ronald Woudstra and Aurash Khawarzad have created and published a guide to making immediate change at the block level. Tactical Urbanism, the name of the report and the approach, is a do-it-yourself mashup of Jane Jacobs thinking and the Sons of Liberty tactics. This toolbox is exaclty what is needed for today's urbanist.
Tactical Urbanism is a pattern that features the following five characteristics:
1. A deliberate, phased approach to instigating change;
2. The offering of local solutions for local planning challenges;
3. Short-term commitment and realistic expectations;
4. Low-risks, with a possibly a high reward; and
5. The development of social capital between citizens and the building of organizational capacity between public-private institutions, non-profits, and their constituents.
Click here to read the entire article and to download the report:
Download report
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Creative economy: It's a rhizome, not a tree root.
Reading this morning about the Travellers, Irish nomadic people that little has been written about. They may be descendants of the Tinkers, or a much older population of religious peoples (some even tell a version of the Wandering Jew story of the metalworker who fashioned the nails for Jesus' cross) , or conversely, rise from the more recent Famine times.
In any case, author Rebecca Solnit went to find them in the 90s while in Ireland and reviews their clash with the settled people of Ireland in her "A Book of Migrations." Much like the Gypsies, laws have been designed to stop them and altercations with settled citizens recorded by officials when the Travellers attempt to stay or send their children to settled schools for a short time. Travellers do not want to stop. As one of their activists told Solnit, "Just as settled people remain settled people even when they travel, Travellers remain Travellers even when not traveling."
She sees how this would rankle those rooted citizenry and how the Travellers are lumped into a pillaging, roving mass whenever there was trouble during their stay, even when it was an isolated case or had nothing to do with a Traveller.
The following analogy struck me (as tropical gardeners will understand): "The French theorists Deleuze and Guattari declare that the hierarchical model of the tree has dominated too much of Western thought and offer in its place the rhizome, the loosely structured, horizontally spreading root system of plants such as the strawberry." Horizontal roots are the visual patterns that work best for creative economy structure. Allowing the rooted citizenry to hold their traditions and mores and flourish with their own growth while welcoming nomadic tribes to camp and offer a sidelong culture is an example of that. Even though people use the term gutter punks quite loosely, they are not the totality of young people in New Orleans, nor are the opportunistic carpetbaggers that come in the city's various moments of weakness and then go with our gold, the sum of the entrepreneurs. The ARK and Recycle For the Arts and Iron Rail Collective Library and Plan B (for example) were designed with the involvement of tribes of nomadic people, many who have since left, never to return.
No better example exists than those who came in March of every year from their own alternative lives and stayed until June, building, running and breaking down our New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in its glory days. Those tribes are mostly gone, replaced by corporate and professional festival designers, but not forgotten.
When the ARK was closed down, or when the Eris parade was stopped, statements of literate, progressive neighbors and friends went like:
I hate the gutter punks/everyone has to follow the same rules/troublemakers are not artists/who started it/I need a permit, why don't they/they're not from here/
What I hear in that tone is what was said about the Travellers:
Nomads are literally unsettling for sedentary populations. People are uncomfortable with traditions not being melded.
But the port (al) that is New Orleans needs vibrant people that create rather than extract. And defining the extractors as all of "those who will not stay" will not do.
New Orleans' creative economy should be welcoming and as diffused as light through a thick, wavy old piece of glass, with its source of energy is as collective and mysterious as the sun itself.
In any case, author Rebecca Solnit went to find them in the 90s while in Ireland and reviews their clash with the settled people of Ireland in her "A Book of Migrations." Much like the Gypsies, laws have been designed to stop them and altercations with settled citizens recorded by officials when the Travellers attempt to stay or send their children to settled schools for a short time. Travellers do not want to stop. As one of their activists told Solnit, "Just as settled people remain settled people even when they travel, Travellers remain Travellers even when not traveling."
She sees how this would rankle those rooted citizenry and how the Travellers are lumped into a pillaging, roving mass whenever there was trouble during their stay, even when it was an isolated case or had nothing to do with a Traveller.
The following analogy struck me (as tropical gardeners will understand): "The French theorists Deleuze and Guattari declare that the hierarchical model of the tree has dominated too much of Western thought and offer in its place the rhizome, the loosely structured, horizontally spreading root system of plants such as the strawberry." Horizontal roots are the visual patterns that work best for creative economy structure. Allowing the rooted citizenry to hold their traditions and mores and flourish with their own growth while welcoming nomadic tribes to camp and offer a sidelong culture is an example of that. Even though people use the term gutter punks quite loosely, they are not the totality of young people in New Orleans, nor are the opportunistic carpetbaggers that come in the city's various moments of weakness and then go with our gold, the sum of the entrepreneurs. The ARK and Recycle For the Arts and Iron Rail Collective Library and Plan B (for example) were designed with the involvement of tribes of nomadic people, many who have since left, never to return.
No better example exists than those who came in March of every year from their own alternative lives and stayed until June, building, running and breaking down our New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in its glory days. Those tribes are mostly gone, replaced by corporate and professional festival designers, but not forgotten.
When the ARK was closed down, or when the Eris parade was stopped, statements of literate, progressive neighbors and friends went like:
I hate the gutter punks/everyone has to follow the same rules/troublemakers are not artists/who started it/I need a permit, why don't they/they're not from here/
What I hear in that tone is what was said about the Travellers:
Nomads are literally unsettling for sedentary populations. People are uncomfortable with traditions not being melded.
But the port (al) that is New Orleans needs vibrant people that create rather than extract. And defining the extractors as all of "those who will not stay" will not do.
New Orleans' creative economy should be welcoming and as diffused as light through a thick, wavy old piece of glass, with its source of energy is as collective and mysterious as the sun itself.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Creative economy: It relies on roots
So, let's imagine a tree:
Glossy leaves, wide trunk and branches supporting birds in almost every part of its foliage, shading people and plants all around it.
How do you think it's roots grew? I suspect loads of nutrients in the soil with room and time...
If one is to allow living things to thrive, start by feeding the soil and allow it to grow away from stresses.
Agreed?
Then if we want a creative economy:
We need to support our elders, our neighbors and remember those who came before us. Who built your neighborhood? Where did those floors come from? What do the names on your street signs mean?
All of us need to trace the history of cultural items we talk about here back to their source and honor those individuals, their families and their crafts.
Things that occur to me:
When you take a picture of a Mardi Gras Indian without any credit to him, you take his craft. If you start to mass produce pralines and push out a home business to do it, then you do not honor your creative economy. When you stand in front of a singer's audience for an entire song taking picture after picture blocking those who sat with enough time to view him or her, you steal the moment. Or when you go to a musician's show and talk loudly on unimportant matters and break the moment. (Go.)
When you bypass a mechanic who has a hand made sign on his garage door and head instead for Speedy because you think the corporation has more aptitude based on signage, you slice into our root structure.
When you don't know why building new structures that are completely different in size from their neighboring ones is a abomination. Here's an idea: Take a look at a grove of trees and notice the relationship between them.
Moving into a neighborhood and renovating a house to new perfection, topping it off with a security system and wide fence and cameras is not rooting yourself. It's camping out til everyone else leaves. Your roots don't need to take all of the space.
Who are your area's roots? Who has been here, who knows the stories? Who belongs to that old chair or milk crate by the tree? That old, listing truck in front of you may hold more years of knowledge than your computer chip. Areas of our city are not only headlines: St. Bernard Avenue does not have to be feared, but honored for its past and potential future workers, men and women. Your corner store may not carry your top 10 items, but it's been there and is there for you to use for the other 30 you do need and get there. The neighbor who moved here after a 1970s JazzFest and has defined that corner with life and friendly banter to all. That newspaper-selling corner. Neutral ground activity. The parrot lady on Burgundy.
Those roots can create:
That 1.50 breakfast on Broad . Buttermilk Drops with the old Mackenzie taste, yeah. Kayak lessons on the bayou. Gondola rides in the park. Bird houses on the sidewalk on Claiborne. Electricians who bring you a used light fixture saying "This looked right for you." Bamboo groves in clumps. Recycling through foraging on trash night. Recycling via picking up leaves and then some organic coffee grounds for the garden. Less allergies and more greenery from volunteer plants being passed along. Quiet time at libraries. Music continuing on the street after school with instruments played on the way home. Hand made, decorated bikes slowly making their way down the street. Art, yes, Music yes. Those are the high priests and priestesses of the creative economy. Honor them of course. Make it easier for them to vend, to play, to create.
Just don't forget the bbq pit guys under the tree too.
Part1:
filibuster part 1
Glossy leaves, wide trunk and branches supporting birds in almost every part of its foliage, shading people and plants all around it.
How do you think it's roots grew? I suspect loads of nutrients in the soil with room and time...
If one is to allow living things to thrive, start by feeding the soil and allow it to grow away from stresses.
Agreed?
Then if we want a creative economy:
We need to support our elders, our neighbors and remember those who came before us. Who built your neighborhood? Where did those floors come from? What do the names on your street signs mean?
All of us need to trace the history of cultural items we talk about here back to their source and honor those individuals, their families and their crafts.
Things that occur to me:
When you take a picture of a Mardi Gras Indian without any credit to him, you take his craft. If you start to mass produce pralines and push out a home business to do it, then you do not honor your creative economy. When you stand in front of a singer's audience for an entire song taking picture after picture blocking those who sat with enough time to view him or her, you steal the moment. Or when you go to a musician's show and talk loudly on unimportant matters and break the moment. (Go.)
When you bypass a mechanic who has a hand made sign on his garage door and head instead for Speedy because you think the corporation has more aptitude based on signage, you slice into our root structure.
When you don't know why building new structures that are completely different in size from their neighboring ones is a abomination. Here's an idea: Take a look at a grove of trees and notice the relationship between them.
Moving into a neighborhood and renovating a house to new perfection, topping it off with a security system and wide fence and cameras is not rooting yourself. It's camping out til everyone else leaves. Your roots don't need to take all of the space.
Who are your area's roots? Who has been here, who knows the stories? Who belongs to that old chair or milk crate by the tree? That old, listing truck in front of you may hold more years of knowledge than your computer chip. Areas of our city are not only headlines: St. Bernard Avenue does not have to be feared, but honored for its past and potential future workers, men and women. Your corner store may not carry your top 10 items, but it's been there and is there for you to use for the other 30 you do need and get there. The neighbor who moved here after a 1970s JazzFest and has defined that corner with life and friendly banter to all. That newspaper-selling corner. Neutral ground activity. The parrot lady on Burgundy.
Those roots can create:
That 1.50 breakfast on Broad . Buttermilk Drops with the old Mackenzie taste, yeah. Kayak lessons on the bayou. Gondola rides in the park. Bird houses on the sidewalk on Claiborne. Electricians who bring you a used light fixture saying "This looked right for you." Bamboo groves in clumps. Recycling through foraging on trash night. Recycling via picking up leaves and then some organic coffee grounds for the garden. Less allergies and more greenery from volunteer plants being passed along. Quiet time at libraries. Music continuing on the street after school with instruments played on the way home. Hand made, decorated bikes slowly making their way down the street. Art, yes, Music yes. Those are the high priests and priestesses of the creative economy. Honor them of course. Make it easier for them to vend, to play, to create.
Just don't forget the bbq pit guys under the tree too.
Part1:
filibuster part 1
Friday, April 15, 2011
Midwestern life is designed for comfort
Nice and simple and without bitterness or cuteness, this description of the author's life in Madison, Wisconsin will help dispel the myths of the Midwest- that is, if you want to dispel them. This in particular, struck me as rightly said:
Broadly speaking—which is the only way to talk about this kind of thing, after all—Midwesterners are, true-to-reputation, kind and friendly, but they aren't particularly warm. Maybe in my narrow-minded, pre-Midwestern existence, I'd assumed that "friendly" and "warm" were the same thing, but it's a distinction I've found unnerving.
I include it on my New Orleans blog because a) so many people travel between the two towns, including me and b) the description of another's town helps me remember why mine is special too.
Click here to read the Slate piece
Broadly speaking—which is the only way to talk about this kind of thing, after all—Midwesterners are, true-to-reputation, kind and friendly, but they aren't particularly warm. Maybe in my narrow-minded, pre-Midwestern existence, I'd assumed that "friendly" and "warm" were the same thing, but it's a distinction I've found unnerving.
I include it on my New Orleans blog because a) so many people travel between the two towns, including me and b) the description of another's town helps me remember why mine is special too.
Click here to read the Slate piece
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Planners OK erasure of Mid-City street grid to create gigantic med-center ‘super block’
Another example of death by developer in another city in America:
Planners OK erasure of Mid-City street grid to create gigantic med-center ‘super block’
Planners OK erasure of Mid-City street grid to create gigantic med-center ‘super block’
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Creative economy filibuster
As you can see from some of my most recent series of posts on this blog, I am trying to come to terms with the term "creative economy" and what the implications are for us (once defined) politically, economically and socially.
My early thoughts on the definition I will use (this may change slightly or mostly):
Any undertaking among the rooted citizenry that is the opposite of mass production and does not use labor or natural resources as a commodity to produce the thing. Also, using ones hands or hand-maneuvered tools form the core of the work.
The definition includes the part of the process to think through how to build, illustrate, define, or re-imagine what is being built or crafted .
As most mass produced goods use a formula that includes efficiency which relies on undervaluing labor or natural resources,
efficiency should be replaced by sufficiency as a factor in ALL production.
Mass production also gives centralized systems an unfair leg up over smaller facilities that could be placed throughout a city. Centralization clearly needs to be opposed in order to reduce fuel consumption, the wear and tear on the roads and less hoarding of the tax base.
Next:
"Rooted citizenry": who they?
My early thoughts on the definition I will use (this may change slightly or mostly):
Any undertaking among the rooted citizenry that is the opposite of mass production and does not use labor or natural resources as a commodity to produce the thing. Also, using ones hands or hand-maneuvered tools form the core of the work.
The definition includes the part of the process to think through how to build, illustrate, define, or re-imagine what is being built or crafted .
As most mass produced goods use a formula that includes efficiency which relies on undervaluing labor or natural resources,
efficiency should be replaced by sufficiency as a factor in ALL production.
Mass production also gives centralized systems an unfair leg up over smaller facilities that could be placed throughout a city. Centralization clearly needs to be opposed in order to reduce fuel consumption, the wear and tear on the roads and less hoarding of the tax base.
Next:
"Rooted citizenry": who they?
Friday, April 08, 2011
Localism Index
The link to the national localism index is at the end of this piece, thanks to The New Rules Project at the Institute for Self-Reliance. Fascinating.
Do you wonder what our numbers are in the region?
I surely do, but what we DO know is the local bookstores are contributing more to the economy now than the chain bookstores. Hell, the parking meters along North Rampart are contributing more...No, I don't miss Borders.
And I can also tell you the impact that the farmers markets have on this city and region has risen dramatically. This is from our 2010 SEED report which measures markets economic impact. This is from our 3 weekly farmers markets and was done with our web-based tool we call SEED which stands for Sticky Economic Evaluation Device. The multiplier is a term for tracking how money is spent and re-spent in a regional economy. Obviously, when local businesses make money (like our market vendors), they re-spend that locally. How long it stays here before "leaking out" depends on what businesses they have available to them, whether Walmart where the money is sent to their home base of Arkansas more quickly or Joe's Nursery, who puts that money to work locally again.
2010 SEED
Market impact: $6,717,630.32 Sales in the market, and the amount of money generated by those vendors spending it again. The multiplier we used was for our region and is designed by Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The impact the market has on its surrounding areas: $3,217,727.94 Again, this is shoppers telling us if they were going to spend money in the businesses around the market while there. That number multiplied by the regional BEA number.
Sales tax from sales at nearby businesses to the market: $151,620.69 Those who grow their own food and then sell it directly do not collect sales tax. However, the market does add sales tax because of the sales at nearby businesses that happen when our shoppers go there.
Overall economic impact $9,935,358
From three 4-hour markets each week.
Index page
Do you wonder what our numbers are in the region?
I surely do, but what we DO know is the local bookstores are contributing more to the economy now than the chain bookstores. Hell, the parking meters along North Rampart are contributing more...No, I don't miss Borders.
And I can also tell you the impact that the farmers markets have on this city and region has risen dramatically. This is from our 2010 SEED report which measures markets economic impact. This is from our 3 weekly farmers markets and was done with our web-based tool we call SEED which stands for Sticky Economic Evaluation Device. The multiplier is a term for tracking how money is spent and re-spent in a regional economy. Obviously, when local businesses make money (like our market vendors), they re-spend that locally. How long it stays here before "leaking out" depends on what businesses they have available to them, whether Walmart where the money is sent to their home base of Arkansas more quickly or Joe's Nursery, who puts that money to work locally again.
2010 SEED
Market impact: $6,717,630.32 Sales in the market, and the amount of money generated by those vendors spending it again. The multiplier we used was for our region and is designed by Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The impact the market has on its surrounding areas: $3,217,727.94 Again, this is shoppers telling us if they were going to spend money in the businesses around the market while there. That number multiplied by the regional BEA number.
Sales tax from sales at nearby businesses to the market: $151,620.69 Those who grow their own food and then sell it directly do not collect sales tax. However, the market does add sales tax because of the sales at nearby businesses that happen when our shoppers go there.
Overall economic impact $9,935,358
From three 4-hour markets each week.
Index page
Monday, April 04, 2011
Tomgram: Rebecca Solnit, The Earthquake Kit | TomDispatch
Once again, Rebeccca Solnit adds some value to the conversation; no question that disaster recovery has long needed another voice besides FEMA.
It's clear to me that she heard our stories while she was in New Orleans and has added Haiti's own story as well to her excellent reporting.
Tomgram: Rebecca Solnit, The Earthquake Kit | TomDispatch
It's clear to me that she heard our stories while she was in New Orleans and has added Haiti's own story as well to her excellent reporting.
Tomgram: Rebecca Solnit, The Earthquake Kit | TomDispatch
Sunday, April 03, 2011
carpetbagger (pronunciation): kay•kay•prah•jex
carpetbagger: definition (okay its mine but it will do): Someone using malevolent seizure or a well-intentioned but still damaging takeover of a conquered or currently-at-risk culture or its goods.
"To carpetbag": Haphazardly embedding a project (or deliberately superimposing one large out-of-scale one over smaller ones) in order to take away or redirect the resources and services that are meant for the citizens to repair their lives. Once the resources have been eaten (leaving little except doorless houses), the carpetbaggers then move on to new fragile places.
Here's a short timeline:
2009:
The "artist" herself speaks: I fell in love with New Orleans before I came to the city. I met some people at a restaurant in New York and was so captivated by their spirit that I decided I would move to whatever city they were from. And of course that was New Orleans. I caught a train a couple of days (2002 or so from accounts) later landing, hilariously, in the middle of Mardi Gras without the slightest clue of what was going on. The first day I was presented with a Zulu coconut and I thought, “What is this, what is going on here?!” ...
...This said it is also fascinating for people riddled with ambition and drive in that, having been completely destructed, New Orleans is an empty slate for visionaries, enterprisers and builders of dreams.
Sooo, let me get this straight. You met some people in a restaurant, hopped a train and came to New Orleans. Huh.
I can just see it: hand on her Marlo Thomas hat winking at her own reflection in the Saks window.
and got a coconut that first day? why, you lucky thing...
And then you see the chance to work on an EMPTY slate for your own ambition.
right?
okay got it.
so then next...
from her website in 2010:
Life is Art Foundation is dedicated to an ongoing conversation with our neighbors. Through art projects involving the greater social ecosystem, the project exists to cultivate creativity and inspire the hearts, minds, and economy of the St Roch neighborhood and its visitors. Integrated into our spaces is a summer urban farm and children's program. As with the houses, the farm serves as art space and vehicle for community evolution. During summer months, herbs and vegetables are grown with neighborhood children for eating and selling to New Orleans' best restaurants. There is currently no exhibition at Life is Art Foundation St Roch, but programs will resume in 2011. (emphasis added)
Hey, that sounds pretty good. herbs and vegetables, divided between the neighborhood chidren (it's for the kids right?) and the city's "best restaurants".
Huh.
so which is it?
Did any of it even happen?
2011
From Doug MacCash's TP 04/03/2011 article: "She also plans to re-establish the neighborhood garden that once occupied one of the lots. In the more distant future, she’s considering inviting artists to creatively demolish the remaining blighted houses as art performances.
Whatever happens, Kaechele will orchestrate KKProjects’ fate from afar. She said she has spent the last five months in Tasmania, an island state of Australia, and plans to return in April, leaving a director behind to manage the New Orleans site and upcoming exhibitions."
The MORE distant future? wow, I wonder if that even means in this lifetime? (someone check, is she a believer in reincarnation?)
and they wonder why neighbors fight against talk of "green space" and "public art". And why so many of us turned away when she and her group walked in.
Ambition and drive on an empty slate.
Jesus.
Bye Bye. Good luck in new lands. Or maybe good luck is needed for the people who live there.
Full MacCash/TP article:
TP article
.
"To carpetbag": Haphazardly embedding a project (or deliberately superimposing one large out-of-scale one over smaller ones) in order to take away or redirect the resources and services that are meant for the citizens to repair their lives. Once the resources have been eaten (leaving little except doorless houses), the carpetbaggers then move on to new fragile places.
Here's a short timeline:
2009:
The "artist" herself speaks: I fell in love with New Orleans before I came to the city. I met some people at a restaurant in New York and was so captivated by their spirit that I decided I would move to whatever city they were from. And of course that was New Orleans. I caught a train a couple of days (2002 or so from accounts) later landing, hilariously, in the middle of Mardi Gras without the slightest clue of what was going on. The first day I was presented with a Zulu coconut and I thought, “What is this, what is going on here?!” ...
...This said it is also fascinating for people riddled with ambition and drive in that, having been completely destructed, New Orleans is an empty slate for visionaries, enterprisers and builders of dreams.
Sooo, let me get this straight. You met some people in a restaurant, hopped a train and came to New Orleans. Huh.
I can just see it: hand on her Marlo Thomas hat winking at her own reflection in the Saks window.
and got a coconut that first day? why, you lucky thing...
And then you see the chance to work on an EMPTY slate for your own ambition.
right?
okay got it.
so then next...
from her website in 2010:
Life is Art Foundation is dedicated to an ongoing conversation with our neighbors. Through art projects involving the greater social ecosystem, the project exists to cultivate creativity and inspire the hearts, minds, and economy of the St Roch neighborhood and its visitors. Integrated into our spaces is a summer urban farm and children's program. As with the houses, the farm serves as art space and vehicle for community evolution. During summer months, herbs and vegetables are grown with neighborhood children for eating and selling to New Orleans' best restaurants. There is currently no exhibition at Life is Art Foundation St Roch, but programs will resume in 2011. (emphasis added)
Hey, that sounds pretty good. herbs and vegetables, divided between the neighborhood chidren (it's for the kids right?) and the city's "best restaurants".
Huh.
so which is it?
Did any of it even happen?
2011
From Doug MacCash's TP 04/03/2011 article: "She also plans to re-establish the neighborhood garden that once occupied one of the lots. In the more distant future, she’s considering inviting artists to creatively demolish the remaining blighted houses as art performances.
Whatever happens, Kaechele will orchestrate KKProjects’ fate from afar. She said she has spent the last five months in Tasmania, an island state of Australia, and plans to return in April, leaving a director behind to manage the New Orleans site and upcoming exhibitions."
The MORE distant future? wow, I wonder if that even means in this lifetime? (someone check, is she a believer in reincarnation?)
and they wonder why neighbors fight against talk of "green space" and "public art". And why so many of us turned away when she and her group walked in.
Ambition and drive on an empty slate.
Jesus.
Bye Bye. Good luck in new lands. Or maybe good luck is needed for the people who live there.
Full MacCash/TP article:
TP article
.
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