| After 3 years living in Oakland, CA and studying at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco I have found my way back to New Orleans where I have been working as an artist. I wanted to recap some of my thoughts about what its been like slinging paint and selling paintings in the French Quarter at Pirates Alley on the fence behind St. Louis Cathedral.
Its a great opportunity to get to work as a Pirates Alley artist. Its not my only hustle, I also babysit and am building up a practice as a bodyworker, but I am earning a significant portion of my income selling my art directly to people. Its great experiencing what it feels like to be part of a market culture and to get a taste of how people respond to my art as I am creating it. I consider Pirates Alley my outdoor studio space as some of my work I can do while I sit there. I also have been taking a day or two each week in my studio at home getting other pieces together. It feels great to have finished a significant amount of work in the last few months and to have gotten to put all of it out there into the world. Working like this feels a lot like the Creative Inquiry MFA program I recently graduated from. I notice that the drive for clear articulation and to build a solid body of work that are feeding me so deeply right now are lit by the same fires that got sparked during my degree program. Being in school helped me open up and surrender to my creative process in a way that was gratifying, beautiful, grounding and completely transformational in terms of what I think about my potential.
Working in the French Quarter propped up against a fence behind a cathedral with its steeple bell ringing in the hours among tour guides herding the masses and each telling their own version of the truth, tarot readers and poets for hire lining the curbside, every flavor of traditional musician blaring down the street making music as hot as the summertime sun, live statues and magicians, families, children and lost souls, it is a world unto itself. I get to sit there and take all of it in and offer it back my heart in the form of paintings of rivers and bones.
I really enjoy the community of artists I get to work around. Everyone has their own unique style and we all feed off each others creativity and learn from each others lessons. I am inspired all the time by the work that is going on around me.
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