2011 Five months in
May 28, 2011
My Mom Says My Artwork Has Really Improved at Antenna Gallery is a group exhibition, curated by Natalie McLaurin, that explores the connection between artworks made at different times in an artist’s life. By using childhood work shown next to recent works of art, this exhibition shows how some themes, forms, and content stay with the artist over the course of a lifetime. It includes my bookwork Lots of Love, Helen which is a portrait of my mother, Helen Basilo Gilbert (February 29, 1920-April 27-2011), along with several scrapbooks I made as a kid. My mother was a strong creative influence always urging me to make things and allowing me to cut up our encyclopedia and magazines as long as it was to go into a constructive project. At my graduate thesis exhibition, she told John Clemmer, Chairman of the Art Department at Newcomb, that I “used to be able to draw really well.” May she rest in peace.
Detail of Lots of Love, Helen bookwork
JUST BACK FROM SPRING TRAVELS and presenting (along with long time collaborators Jacques and Monica Arpin and hubby, Kevin McCaffrey): THE CAJUNS OF LOUISIANA: The strategies, traditions and techniques of a cultural community in a post-disaster situation in Paris at the 1ST International Conference on Cultural Psychiatry in the French Speaking World, Transcultural Psychiatric Section of the World Psychiatry Association. For a short, collaboratively-produced video we used to introduce the Cajuns and our field work in Acadiana, click here.
Patchworks 2011
SPEAKING OF CAJUN, in his latest documentary Cajun Food Traditions Now premiering this month on WYES, Kevin surveys the complex traditions and ingredients that make up Cajun cuisine. We will continue roaming, photographing, talking and tasting Acadiana to document CAJUN SMOKED MEAT STORIES for Kevin’s upcoming book with University of Mississippi Press.
Lundi Gras Boucherie, Mamou
We were able to do some Cajun food history research on our flower-filled drive around the Loire Valley while in residence at Maison Gai Saber in Leigne-sur-Usseau. To view an album of meditations on place merging French Quarter and Leigne views, click here.
Looking onto village square at Maison Gai Saber
We then moved into a more general ‘roots research’ when we visited Madrid at our artists’ residency with NoDoor .
NEXT UP, will be participating in the Global Fairness Initiative Weekend Events in late June: Art of the Americas Auction to be held at the historic Organization of American States building on the national mall and GFI’s launch of BeFair, a new green campaign for farmers in Guatemala. Click here for auction book and previewing opportunities.
The Rebecca Bryan Gallery at Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina has invited The VESTIGES Project to mark the 6th Anniversary of the Katrina floods with an exhibition September 1- October 7, 2011 entitled VESTIGES/TRINITAS. Along with other works that we’ll be showing, will be an installation (9’ x 18’) VESTIGES/trinitas, conceived and currently being constructed by Debra Howell and me with contributions by 50 artists and writers from far and wide. STAY TUNED!
Website Launch
January 22, 2011
WELCOME to the launch of my newly revamped website!
A snippet of the past year’s artventures:
THE FIRST QUARTER began in residence at Point B in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. My first solo NYC show Sur la ligne/On the Line opened at Sophie Brechu-West’s 571 Projects in Chelsea which included interactions with the adjacent new High Line and gallery visit with the Lower Eastside Girls Club.
Labor's Love, Brooklin, Maine
SUMMERTIME SCENARIOS
After its extended stay at Atlanta’s Buckhead Library, VESTIGES of New Orleans returned home. Our HOME, New Orleans? four neighborhood arts recovery project proudly concluded its year long evaluation and published a report. (download PDF) Please feel free to download it, share our lessons and pass it on. GO YE THEREFORE, this year’s HNO? LakeviewS project premiered in Gentilly and later travelled to Atlanta audiences.
Then it was time to beat the NOLA summer heat by stoking fires in Brooklin, Maine. Worked hard with inspiration: a view of Allen Cove just down from where E.B. White wrote. Then over to Massachusetts: Nantucket, Harvard, Boston and surrounding areas including a visit to The Healing Garden (unique breast cancer facility).
Headed to DC to participate in NEA Access to Excellence Museum panel and saw seeds of great Art to come to all areas of the country.
Artspot's Go Ye Therefore
MOVING INTO FALL
The fifth anniversary of the Katrina flood was marked by VESTIGES’ participation in tributes held in NOLA’s sister cities, at Houston’s DiverseWorks and Atlanta’s Spruill Gallery.
These travails were topped off with the continued support of Creative Capital and the Louisiana Division of the Arts and that of Stephen King’s Haven Foundation support for the first time!
Brought in the new year Cajun-style heading to Acadiana for the third new year’s holiday in a row: roaming the Atchafalaya swamp, supporting the seafood industry, and listening to the music all along the way. Kevin and I and the Arpins were continuing our research missions for projects you’ll be hearing about in the near future.
Atchafalaya New Year's
HUGE THANKS to web designer Taylor Lasseigne, known for his Slicesofamerica.com as well as the design of websites for artists Angela Driscoll, Mark Grote, Jim Richard, and many others!
Thanks for stopping by!