To Louisiana -- Love, Anne
It feels like it’s somehow been both a day and several lifetimes ago that I packed up my van with two frenchies and a career’s worth of art with my mind set on New Orleans.
In reality, it’s been a year. Twelve months that have swept by with the type of whimsical fury unique to this wonderfully weird little town. Three hundred and sixty some-odd days of French Quarter strolling, Royal Street shopping. Of music wafting from the streets like fog upon the river. Calliopes and trombones and bucket drums— yes even the bucket drums.
It’s a little odd, and maybe quite mad to fall so ridiculously in love with such a ridiculous little city in such a small amount of time. But fall I have, and fall I will continue to do.
Perhaps, then, it’s natural that my painting style has evolved alongside my heart. Blooming like great, fragrant magnolia, I have become enamored with capturing the intoxicating essence of Louisiana.
I recently spent a weekend at Bonne Terre, a beautiful farm in Poché Bridge, Louisiana. It was a tranquil, breathtaking place— exceeding the expectations its name lends— Good Earth, indeed.
Most of my days on the farm were spent photographing the surrounding scenery and touring the Atchafalaya Swamp— dotted with egrets, herons, wood storks and the occasional alligator. There were abandoned tug boats and pirogues, tiny shacks jutting impossibly out of this river of grass. In the same way I love New Orleans for its chaotic, restless culture so too do I love the wildness of Louisiana’s great bayous. They defy the very notion of “tame.” Unwieldy and vast and filled with terrifying beauty.
I’m now back home, sitting on my balcony above the gallery, watching the red sun set slowly on Royal Street and all of its people. To the left of me are 15 blank canvasses— pictures attached to each from my time at Bonne Terre. I’m summoning all the energy this wonderful place has to offer in hopes that I can magick these memories— these untamable brambles— to life on canvas.
Stay tuned, friends. Onward we march.
