Drive Down Bayou Dularge

During the time when the Gulf was closed due to the BP oil spill, I went for a ride down the bayou to get some photos of trawl boats for my artwork. Since the Gulf was shut down, these shrimpers decided to take that time to repair their nets. I had the opportunity to take some great photos that day. From those photos I was able to work up some drawings and have quite a few designs worked up. Here is my trial run of a couple of them. The top one shows what happens when you drop a tile before it's fired. Oops. It cracked but I decided to break it up more and fire it anyway. It just might be part of a mosaic some day.

I had a great time talking with some very nice and interesting people that day and also had the opportunity to watch them make stitches in their nets. That's something I hadn't seen since I was a small child watching my great grandmother make a net by hand. I remember her reluctance in allowing me to make a couple stitches in her precious net. She took great pride in what she was doing and was known for her work. This was a source of their income, so I imagine letting go of it was hard. She did show me but unfortunately this knowledge had been long forgotten. It was nice to see it done again and to reflect so far back into the past.

Photography First

Photography was one of the first art forms I was interested in and is a great resource for my works in clay and paint. I've been interested in photography since I was a teenager and refer to the multitudes of photographs I take locally.

My need to expose the beauty of South Louisiana's culture, wildlife and wetlands to the world is what inspires many of my designs. The people, food and culture here is interesting and unlike anything in the U.S. All this is what makes this place home. It's my life. It's what I'm about. It's a part of me.

Now I feel hurried. Documentation is needed more than ever to prove that it all was once here, because in the near future, it may no longer be. At the rate we are loosing wetland, this could happen in my children's lifetime. This is nothing new. The world should know.

My first posts will be of some local photographs. The beginnings of my designs.