Bingo Man's Place

Some years ago I was at the Pirates Alley Cafe in the French Quarter doing a late night wedding. A group of people from UK were there drinking and loud. I asked them why they were there and they said they were waiting to see the ghost of Jean Lafitte as they read on the web he haunts the alley. I disagreed as the Pirate Lafitte left New Orleans area for Galveston TX never to return. He swore he was going after a rift with the Governor WCC Claiborne over his help at the Battle of New Orleans. As I was just beginning to do weddings there I related a story about a young pirate Reginald Hicks. Pirate Hicks married his sweetheart in the Alley the night before the Battle of New Orleans and went to fight. He now returns every night to seek his bride. The romantic story seemed to catch on and today many people read it on the web and ask to be married in Pirates Alley. No one has caught a picture of him so I digitally created the above postcard of the Ghost in Pirates Alley.
I am amazed that a story created over a bottle of wine late one night in the French Quarter has traveled. I hear it discussed now and then and as I am intimately aware of its origin add to it all the time. The Ghost in Pirates Alley is now a classic French Quarter tale.

Pirate Santa T-shirt from Zazzle.com

2010-10-14T14:21:00.000-07:00

Pirate Santa T-shirt from Zazzle.com

Pirate Santa by figstreetstudio
Design custom tshirts at Zazzle

Sassy Root Beer Basin St Soda T Shirt from Zazzle.com

2010-10-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

Sassy Root Beer Basin St Soda T Shirt from Zazzle.com

Sassy Root Beer Basin St Soda by figstreetstudio
Browse Sassy T-Shirts

Pop Rouge, Basin St. Soda Mugs from Zazzle.com

2010-10-14T06:48:00.000-07:00

Pop Rouge, Basin St. Soda Mugs from Zazzle.com

Pop Rouge, Basin St. Soda by figstreetstudio
See other Pop Mugs

Pop Rouge, Basin St Soda Co T Shirts from Zazzle.com

2010-10-14T06:39:00.000-07:00

Pop Rouge, Basin St Soda Co T Shirts from Zazzle.com

Pop Rouge, Basin St Soda Co by figstreetstudio
Design a custom t shirt with zazzle.com

Basin St Soda , Local Flavors

2010-10-14T05:26:00.000-07:00

New Orleans Basin Street Soda Co. by figstreetstudio
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Basin Street Soda Co. by figstreetstudio

Basin Street Soda coming in Spring. Help support a local beverage.

New Orleans is unique for its history, food, and flavors. "Southern Comfort", Cafe and bluses found on famous Bourbon St. Coffee, Cafe Aulait, Hurricanes, Hand Granades, and many more flavors were found or discovered in the French Quarter. Local beers like Dixie were a favorite for many years and now seem to be coming back. A small group of people now offer New Orleans flavors in soda. Named after the old jazz and blues found on old Basin St, the Basin Street Soda Co. plans on offering unique New Orleans flavored soda by next spring. Looking for funding and a local bottler to help get the project going. Until then you can enjoy some of the t-shirts offered for sale. Keep looking for the "Sassy Fresh" Root Beer, "Pop Rouge" and "Satsuma" Orange to come your way soon.

Basin St. Soda Co. by figstreetstudio
fridge magnets by zazzle.com

New Orleans Christmas Cards and Ornaments

2009-09-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

Big Sale! on cards and postage click image for details. New Orleans art on Holiday Cards available from local artist.

French Quarter Water Meter by figstreetstudio
Create photo ornaments online

New Orleans Cathedral by figstreetstudio
make your own greeting cards online with zazzle

Each year I design something new for the Holiday cards and ornaments I sell on the web. This year I tried to use the snow that fell in 2008 as help in doing the designs. I managed to get a few pictures late morning on the day of the snow and tried my best to show how the snow still clung to things in Jackson Square. Take a look at these new 2009 Holiday cards and ornaments at my stores on the web by going to the home page at http://www.figstreet.com/studio.

Pirates Alley SG2 Red by figstreetstudio
Shop for cards at zazzle

Below is an older snow card too.

Jackson Square Snow Christmas by figstreetstudio

New Orleans Snowman Christmas Card by figstreetstudio
Browse New Cards

Porcelain Christmas ornaments at this link- http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/398786

New Orleans Snowman Adult by figstreetstudio
More New Cards

All of the cards at Zazzle allows you to add or edit the inside of the card to add names or sentiments. The above card is an older version of a local snowman.

Older New Orleans Snowman, Mr Bangle, Happy Hol... by figstreetstudio
See other Older Cards

Jackson Square New Orleans by figstreetstudio
Create photo ornaments online

Golden Fleur De Lis by figstreetstudio
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New Orleans Water Meter Tiles

2009-07-07T12:11:00.000-07:00

Replica water meter covers in plastic available at Fig Street Studio, also ornaments, buttons, magnets, and postcards.

New Orleans famous water meter cover used as art on posters, clocks, ceramic tiles, murals, shirts,cards, invitations designed in New Orleans by local artist JK Schwehm of Fig Street Studio. Here is a link to many different products with the water meter cover- http://www.zazzle.com/figstreetstudio/meter+gifts?pg=5#products

Large New Orleans Water Meter Cover Clocks are also available-http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio.435759905

The famous New Orleans water meter cover on ceramic tiles and vinyl stickers. A large ceramic tile mural can be used as table top or kitchen backsplash. See Fig Street Studio store at Cafe Press. Water Meter Cover on tiles, shirts and more.

MUALS:

We can create a large Water Meter Tile Mural out of ceramic tiles for a small table top or you can use a few vinyl stickers to create a table top you seal in varnish. E-mail with questions about the many tile murals we make at Fig Street Studio.

Click on links or image for the many water meter cover gifts.

See all the tiles here- http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/397643

And Water Meter Cover Shirts here-

New Orleans Water Meter Cover by figstreetstudio
Browse New T-Shirts

New Orleans Water Meter Cover Replica by figstreetstudio
Create photo sculptures with Zazzle

Red and Blue NOLa Water Meter by figstreetstudio
More Red Posters

New Orleans Water Meter by figstreetstudio
Learn how to sell artwork on Zazzle.com

Crawfish Cartoon on Shirts and Gifts

2009-06-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

Comical crawfish on unique gifts, aprons, bibs,clocks, kids tops, shirtshttp://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/596208
See many unique cajun crawfish on shirts at Fig Studio.Street

Personalized Lobster Gifts

2009-06-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

Add name or sentiments to large apron or t-shirt at Fig Street Studio Zazzle store on the web. More unusal gift ideas available.

Lobster Apron by figstreetstudio
Design custom aprons online at zazzle.com

Lobster tops or shirts for ladies, men, and kids.

Lobster Shirt by figstreetstudio
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Lobster Shirt by figstreetstudio
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French Quarter Street Name Blue Letter Tiles and other Street Signs

2009-06-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

Sold on the web for the past 8 years, replica blue letter street name tile, letters and numbers several designs see them and other street signs at http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/434932

Art Tiles, magnets, stickers with the individual letters and the big tile murals found in the French Quarter, black and white metal signs on old lamp posts, and the Spanish Tile Murals. All these have become icons for tourists visiting New Orleans. We have used these icons with others like the water meter cover to make art. See the links here to view them.

New Orleans has several ways it signs the streets. The famous Blue Letter Street Tiles set in the sidewalk are duplicated below seem to be the favorite.

For the history of these replica tiles and the original tiles read: http://blogofbingo.blogspot.com/2006/05/new-orleans-street-tiles.html

Ceramic measuring 4.25” x 4.25” and 1/6-inch thick. Images are applied with a polyester resin that accepts dye as part of the coating and heat set onto the ceramic. Blue Letter Tiles Link

Spanish Tile Street Name Mural Replicas

Quote about the tiles in New York Times-
"One of the most effective methods of designating streets that I have seen is that used in New Orleans. It consists of blue tiles four by six inches and three-quarter inch thick on each of which is a five-inch letter of the alphabet in white. . . . These not only present a neat appearance, but are large enough to be read without difficulty. -- Albert E. Davis of the Bronx, N.Y., in a Dec. 3, 1913, in a letter to the editor of The New York Times."

French Quarter Street Name Spanish Tile Murals are different from the French Quarter Blue Letter tiles and the metal street signs. All 3 designs are different icons of the French Quarter. All 3 designs of the street signs are duplicated in my shop.

Make your own New Orleans street sign. Edit or add text, your name, address whatever to both postcard size or vinyal stickers see my Zazzle shop, click images. Great to use for table signbs at parties.

Street Sign Blank, Add Name, Rue Name by figstreetstudio
Browse other Street Postcards

Bourbon Street Sign by figstreetstudio
View other bumper stickers from zazzle

Street Sign Blank, Add Name, Rue Name by figstreetstudio
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The Un-Official Symbols of New Orleans

2009-03-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

Interest has gained since Hurricane Katrina in two unofficial symbols of New Orleans, the Fleur De Lis and the New Orleans Water Meter Cover, both are things I have used in my art for many years. The Ford Box Water Meter Cover was designed in 1920 just to be different for water meters used in New Orleans. The designer does not claim ownership of the design and artists for a long time have made it into art, hats, ornaments, and jewelry. There are several other water meter cover designs in New Orleans but the favorite is the Star and Crescent design.

The Fleur de Lis, originally the symbol of the French Kings since Clovis is said to represent a Lilly or the Christian Holy Trinity. The official flag of the City of New Orleans does have three fleur de lis on it and I have the flag on gift items I sell from my web page. In an effort to be different I also took the Water Meter Cover design and adapted it in several ways and colors. The unique styles, rectangular, blue, green, and other adaptations are all sold on various gifts from my web page. Many different Fleur De Lis are also sold on gifts. I believe I am the only one to have the Water Meter Cover on shoes and neckties too. Although as each day passes I notice more and more copies of my designs sold by other places. From clocks, to shoes. I have many New Orleans symbols on my web based stores at http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio and at http://www.zazzle.com/figstreetstudio.

New Orleans Water Meter Cover by figstreetstudio
See other New T-Shirts

The Ghost In Pirates Alley

2009-03-26T07:31:00.001-07:00

The First Wedding In Pirates Alley New Orleans

The tradition of being married in Pirates Alley in the French Quarter is clouded in secrecy and varies as who tells the tale. One is never sure who was actually the first to get married there but this tale as told to me often during my life is a sure as any tale of pirates, ghosts, and love. Back in the days of the Pirates of Barataria many young men from many places joined in to make a fortune. Called "smugglers" by some, hated by Spain, used by France but admired by Americans as an independent lot who at times would help the poor and ill treated.

I am told one Reginald Hicks, who began as a mere cabin boy on an English ship was taken by some pirates and raised by them. Only a lad in his early teens when captured ultimately raised himself to a first mate of a pirate ship by the time of the War of 1812. He was trusted by all his pirate brethren and their leader Jean Lafitte. He was known to go along with several other men to met with General Jackson to aid the Americans in the Battle of New Orleans, mostly as "cannoneers" as they were very good shots.
Of course Master Hicks was a good looking young man having many a lass looking at him but in his heart was none other but a beautiful Creole French girl, Marie Angel Beauchamp. She too had only thoughts of him and whenever he came into the City they would steal off into the night, keeping their love a secret as it was not permissible for a young Spanish Creole Catholic girl to be seeing a Pirate of English extraction.

As things would happen on Master Hicks' visit to meet with General Jackson he learned that his Marie was expecting their child. He being raised as an English gentleman his first decade of life did not want to leave the city without getting married. His child would have a father and his love would not be scorned for having a child without a husband. All evening they searched in vain for a priest to marry them but most required that they both be Catholic, others would not think of doing a ceremony on such short notice. Eventually they had 2 options, simply jumping a broom down in Barataria or seeking out a German born baker in the jail who was also an ordained Protestant minister. Master Hicks did not want to take Marie to Barataria which meant she would have to stay and may never see her family and friends in the city again. So they very early in the morning made their way to the Cabildo and asked the jail's warden if they could speak with the German Minister. He would only allow them to see him through the iron gate facing Orleans Alley. But right there and then they were married. Soon gathered many early arriving workers and some visitors who witnessed the first wedding in Pirates Alley. Documents drawn and signed by a Notary on his way to file others for record at the Cabildo and all present signed making the marriage both Civil and Religious.
Here again the story varies as exactly what happened. What happened to Master Reginald Hicks remains a mystery, some say he was killed in the Battle of New Orleans and seeks out his lovely Marie nightly in Pirates Alley today as a spirit. Others say he and Marie left for Galveston with Pirate Lafitte after Louisiana was sold to America. But if you go to Pirates Alley early in the morning on the right day of the right month you can hear laughter and celebration and wedding bells and a cold breeze passes you by. Could it be the ghost of Master Hicks seeking his bride?

Believe as you may.

Pirates Alley Ghost by figstreetstudio
See other Pirates Posters

JK Schwehm at Fig Street.
Copyright 2003 [Fig Street, LLC]. All rights reserved.
Revised: March 25,2009 by the author

The Ghost In Pirates Alley by figstreetstudio
Browse Ghost Postcards

Art Sales Tumble

2009-03-06T05:57:00.000-08:00

Listening to MSNBC and CNBC yesterday a commentator said to cut back on unnecessary spending, save, as things will get worse. I noticed with all the talk the last few months art sales have tumbled to about 40% of what they were last year this time. I am sure things are bad as we read about GM going belly up but I never did sell big ticket items that ate gasoline like I like to eat ice cream, several gallons a minute. I always lived responsible and never owned a big SUV gas guzzler, yatch, swimming pool, or condo in Spain. Although the condo in Spain does sound like a good idea now. My retirement acount is also about half its value now, but I am sure GW will have no problems with his retirement now. It feels good to point out to my friends all those wars cost us our savings, not his.
To combact the falling art sales I have discounted deeply and hope people see that art does not cost much, does not burn gasoline, sits comfortably on a wall and causes us to relax. Something we can do as our elected officials move forward to correct the past mistakes. I am turning off MSNBC and CNBC to save electricity in my part of cutting back. Only news I am interested in is art history and painting something new. How about a portrait of your puppy?

New Orleans Spanish Tile Mural Replicas

2008-02-28T09:13:00.000-08:00

Spanish Talavera tiles are hand painted clay tiles that originated in the area of Talavera de la Reina, Spain. They are soft clay moulded and hand colored with a Arabic-Andalusian influence found throughout Spain. Some Spanish Potters brought the style with them to Mexico. The street name murals in the French Quarter were given to New Orleans in 1962 and some, due to weather and wear and tear from vistors touching them are falling apart. Visitors love the murals and take photographs of them. Now there are replica tiles designed by a local artist.

Replicas of the Spanish Tile Murals found at Jackson Square, and as street names along the walls in the French Quarter in New Orleans come in several sizes. This realistic tile mural will be a part of the history of New Orleans and can be used as a display, wall hanging, table top, or tile back in a kitchen or bath.
Comes in several sizes and prices. The smallest is a single 4.5 inch square ceramic tile that is heat set with the design. Other sizes go up to a 27 x14 inch mural composed of 18 sq heat set ceramic tiles. The mural needs to be assembled either glued or set to a backing. Not for floors, just walls or display.

Follow this link for more details and to order http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/4855160

Combining these many different tiles can make a Spanish Style Table top.

Lighthouse That Never Was

2007-10-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

The great looking Camp. St. Lighthouse that now houses a glass studio never really was a functional light. It was built by the Lighthouse for the Blind, a charity, then later sold as they moved to new offices. It is a wonderful building on a well traveled street close to the Ogden Museum where I docent at times.

I walked that area and took many photos but finally settled on painting the light next to the light. The old gas light glowing near the lighthouse that no longer functions. I sell prints, framed and unframed, tiles, postcards, note cards, and other gift items of this and the other lighthouses near New Orleans. Many of which were destroyed by the storm. My way of preserving what I grew up seeing in my home town. To see more New Orleans area lighthouse prints visit Fig Street Art Studio on the web.

New Orleans Christmas Ornaments

2007-10-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

The Ritz-Carlton Gift Shop, 3rd floor inside the New Orleans Hotel on Canal St. sold my art on porcelain Christmas ornaments. Last year they told me they sold out in 2 weeks so I hope they order more to sell. If they do not you can always order direct from my web page and order the New Orleans Christmas cards. Both cards and ornaments are sold on the web by local New Orleans Artist.

The above photo was from the tree in the Ritz with my ornaments displayed. Ordering direct from the artist saves the middle man costs and helps the artist.

MORE NEWS ABOUT NEW ORLEANS ORNAMENTS

A nice newspaper article featured my 'Rebuild New Orleans' Christmas Ornaments and a little background info on my art. The ornaments feature New Orleans art and other Christmas designs on round and oval porcelain. They are heat set into the ornament and last a very long time. Any publicity helps especially when you are trying to rebuild after a disaster. (Times-Picayune, Nov 26, 2005)

Each year I add a new design to the Christmas collection at Fig Street Art Studio stop in and see what is new this year. Cafe Press offers Coupons on the ornaments usually after Christmas, enter the code they give into the coupon code block. Other savings on New Orleans Christmas cards and sweatshirts too. Sales help a struggling New Orleans artist.

Christmas Ornaments At Bucktown

2007-08-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

Bucktown Pharmacy on 1701 Lake Ave in Metairie, La.will sell unique New Orleans Christmas ornaments this season. Round 3.5 inch porcelain ornaments with images of the Lake Front, French Quarter, and other images unique to our area. Great for gifts or to decorate with. Featured in the Times Picayune for the 'Rebuild New Orleans' design. The designs have won praise for years by many organizations and were featured in 2006 at the Ritz-Carlton Gift Shop on Canal St. Stop in and see the many unique Christmas cards and gift ideas sold at Bucktown Pharmacy. Location http://bucktownpharmacy.com/ --- Read reprint of news article http://blogofbingo.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_archive.html

Gen. Andrew Jackson Statue

2007-07-02T06:57:00.000-07:00

Some years back I read in the local paper that someone was able to take the sword off the statue of Gen. Andrew Jackson and a new one had to be made. Lucky for us the statue in Jackson Square is one of three made by an American artist and the first equestrian statue to be done in the USA. Back then I had to go to the New Orleans Public Library to find out information on Clark Mills but today it is easier to research things about art and New Orleans using the Internet. Clark Mills (1810–83 born NY) was a self trained American sculptor who completely designed and cast the statue for Lafayette Square in 1853 at Washington, DC . The statue was so remarkable that a committee in New Orleans asked him to cast another for the Place D'Arms which upon dedication in 1856 was renamed Jackson Square. Eventually a total of three were cast, the one in Washington, DC, New Orleans and another near Jackson's birthplace in Tennessee. Like most things I paint in New Orleans I always like to know more so when I paint it I can relate to it better. Lucky for me I have been able to visit each statue and will be in Washington, DC This summer to visit art there and will stop in Lafayette Square and see the original statue again. For another web page about the Gen. Jackson statue see http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2006-09-26/blake.php . Did you know that Philadelphia also has the same statue of Joan of Art as in the French Quarter?

Old French Lady By The River, A Travel Article on New Orleans

2007-06-27T06:39:00.000-07:00

While doing some research on Jackson Square to add some info about my Jackson Square paintings in my Blog I ran across an article written around 1913 by a visitor to New Orleans published in a travel book back then. In fact I found the book itself for sale on E-Bay but it was way too costly for me. It is a rare book and I hope the New Orleans Public Library has a copy. To help preserve what was said about my city then I am reproducing the article on New Orleans here for everyone to read as it applies just as much today as it did 95 years ago. When I paint things I like to know more than just what I see, some history or story to get the spirit of what I paint. Viewing my Jackson Square paintings I think I capture that unique spirit of New Orleans as described in this article.

Below it is an old video on New Orleans Travel from 1940, you can scroll down to it and see what New Orleans looked like in 1940.
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New Orleans:
The Old French Lady On The River

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From "The Personality of American Cities" By Hungerford, Edward, 1875-1948 Publisher New York : McBride, Nast & Company 1913, Not In Print,

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At the bend of the river she stands — this drowsy old French lady of the long ago. They have called her the Crescent City. But the Mississippi makes more than a single turn around the wide-spreading town. And the results are most puzzling, even to those steady-minded folk who assert that they are direction-wise. In New Orleans, east seems west and north seems south. It must almost be that the Father of Rivers reverses all the laws of Mother Nature and runs his course upstream.
New Orleans is upon the east bank of the Mississippi. All the guide-books will tell you that. But in the morning the sun arises from over across the river, and in the cool of evening his reddish radiance is dying over Lake Ponchartrain, directly east from the river at least, so your direction wise intelligence seems to tell you. But east is east and west is west and Old Sol has made such a habit of rising and setting these many thousand years that his reliability is not to be trusted. As to the reliablity of the Father of Waters there is quite another matter.
Truth to tell, the Mississippi river is probably the most utterly unreliable thing within the North American continent. He has shifted his course so many times within the brief century that the white-skinned men have known him, that the oldest of them have lost all trace of his original course. And so to steer a vessel up and down the stream is a doubly difficult art. The pilot does not merely have to know his steering-marks — the range between that point and this, the thrust of some hidden and fearfully dangerous reef, the advantage to be gained between eddies and currents for easy running he has to learn the entire thing anew each time he brings a craft up or down the river. Mark Twain has long since immortalized the ample genius of the Mississippi pilots. The stories of the river's unreliability, of its constant tendency to change its channel are apocryphal — almost as old as the oldest of the houses of old New Orleans. And this is not the story of the river.
Yet it must not be forgotten that the river almost is New Orleans, that from the beginning it has been the source of the French lady's strength and prosperity. Before there was even thought of a city the river was there pouring its yellow flood down from an unknown land to the great gulf. Bienville, the real founder of New Orleans, saw with the prophetic sight of a really great thinker what even a river that came to the sea from an unexplored land might mean in years to come to the city of his creation. His prophecy was right. When the river, with the traffic upon its bosom, has prospered, New Orleans has prospered. And in the lean years when the river traffic has dwindled, New Orleans has felt the loss in her every fiber. There are old-timers in the city who shake their heads when they tell you of the fat river-boats crowding in at the levee, of the clipper-ships and the newer steam-propelled craft at the deeper docks, of the crowds around the old St. Louis and the St. Charles Hotels, the congested narrow streets, the halcyon days when the markets of the two greatest nations in the world halted on the cotton news from Factors Row. And New Orleans awaits the opening of the Panama canal with something like feverish anticipation, for she feels that this mighty nick finally cut into the thin neck of the American continents, her wharves will again be crowded with shipping — this time with a variety of craft plying to and from the strange ports of the Pacific. So much does her river still mean to her.
Factors Row still stands, rusty and somewhat grimed. No longer is it consequential in the markets of the world. In fact, to put a bald truth baldly, no longer is New Orleans of supreme consequence in the cotton problem of all nations. A great cotton shipping port she still is and will long remain. But the multiplication of railroad points and the rapid development of such newer cotton ports as Galveston, to make a single instance, have all worked against her preeminence.
This is not a story of the commercial importance of New Orleans, either. There are plenty who are willing to tell that story, with all of its romantic traditions of the past and its brilliant prophecies for the future. This is the story of the New Orleans of today, the city who with an almost reverential respect for the Past and its monuments still holds her doors open to the Present and its wonders.
Of the Past one may know at every turn. North of Canal street — that broad thoroughfare which ranks as a dividing path with Market street in San Francisco — the city has changed but little since the Civil War. South of Canal still called the "new " part of the city there has been some really modern development. Prosperous looking skyscrapers have lifted their lordly heads above the narrow streets and the compactly built "squares " which they encompass ; there are several modern hotels with all the momentary glory of artificial marbles and chromatic frescoes, department stores with show windows as brave and gay as any of those in New York or Chicago or Boston. But even if the narrow streets were to be widened, New Orleans would never look like Indianapolis or Kansas City or St. Paul — any of the typical cities of the so-called Middle West. Too many of her stout old structures of the fifties and the sixties still remain. And hung upon these, uncompromising and triumphant, are the galleries.
The galleries of New Orleans! They are perhaps the most typical of the outward expressions of a town whose personality is as distinct as that of Boston or Charles-ton or San Francisco. They must have been master workmen whose fingers and whose ancient forges worked those delicate and lacelike traceries. And it has been many thankful generations who have praised the practical side of their handicraft. For in the long hot summer months of New Orleans these galleries furnish a shade that is a delight and a comfort. On rainy days they are arcades keeping dry the sidewalks of the heart of the town. And from the offices within, the galleries, their rails lined with growing things, are veritable triumphs. Once in a great while some one will rise up and suggest that they be abolished — that they are old-fashioned and have long since served their full purpose. That some one is generally a smart shopkeeper who has drifted down from one of these upstart cities from the North or East. But New Or-leans is smarter still. She well knows the commercial value of her personality. There are newer cities and showier within the radius of a single night's ride upon a fast train. But where one man comes to one of these, a dozen alight at the old French town by the bend of the yellow river.
" Give J a few French restaurants, some fame for its cocktails or its gin-fizzes just as New Orleans has and I will bring a dozen big new factories here within the next three years," said the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of a thriving Texas town the other day. He knew whereof he spake. And now, we shall know whereof we speak. We shall give a moment of attention to the little restaurants and the gin-fizzes.
Let the gin-fizzes come first, for they are nearly as characteristic of the old town as her galleries ! You will find their chief habitat just across a narrow alley from the St. Charles Hotel. There is a long bar on the one side of the room, upon which stand great piles of ice-bound southern oysters — twelve months of the year, for New Orleans never reads an " R " in or out of her oyster-eating calendar. But any bar may bring forth oysters, and only one bar in the world brings forth the real New Orleans gin-fizz. Two enterprising young men stand behind the bar-keepers in a perpetual shaking of the fizzes. If it is tantalizing to shake that whereof you do not taste, they show it not. And in the hours of rush traffic there are six of the non-bar-keeping bartenders who give the correct amount of ague to New Orleans' most delectable beverage. A hustler from North or East would put in electric shakers instanter — a thousand or is it ten thousand revolutions to the minute? He would brag of his electric shakers and the New Orleans gin-fizz would be dead — forever. Romance and an electric shaker cannot go hand in hand.
" The ingredients? " you breathlessly interrupt. " The manner of the mixing? "
Bless your heart, if the Gin Fizz House published its close-held secret to the world, it would lose its chief excuse for existence and then become an ordinary drinking-place. As it is, it holds its head above the real variety of saloons, even above the polished mahogany bar of the aristocratic hotel across the narrow street. For its product, if delightful, is still gentle, although insidious, perhaps. It is largely milk and barely gin. You can drink it by the barrel without the slightest jarring of your faculties. And it is rumored that some of the men of New Orleans use it as a breakfast-food.
From the Gin Fizz House to the Absinthe House is a long way,— in more meanings than one. The Absinthe House is hardly less famed, but in these days when drinking has largely gone out of fashion and worm-wood is under the particular ban of the United States statutes, it is largely a relic of the past. It stands in the heart of the old French town and before we come to its broad portal, let us study the fascinating quarter in which we are to find it.
We have already spoken of Canal street, so broad in contradistinction to the very narrow streets of the rest of the older parts of the town, that one can almost see the narrow water-filled ditch that once traversed it, as the dividing line of the city. South of Canal street, the so-called American portion of the city, with many affectations of modernity north of that thoroughfare curiously enough the down stream side the French quarter, architecturally and romantically the most fascinating section of any large city of the United States. The very names of its streets Chartres, Royal, Bourbon, Burgundy, Dauphine, St. Louis quicken anticipation. And anticipation is not dulled when one comes to see the great somber houses with their mysterious and moth-eaten courtyards and the interesting folk who dwell within them.
We choose Royal street, heading straight away from Canal street as if in shrinking horror of electric signs and moving picture theaters. In a single square they are behind and forgotten and, if it were not for the trolley cars and the smartly dressed French girls, we might be walking in Yesterday. The side streets groan under the same ugly, heavy patterns of Belgian block pavement that have done service for nearly a century. Originally the blocks brought long years ago as ballast in the ships from Europe were in a pretty pattern, laid diagonally. But heavy traffic and the soft sub-strata of the river-bank town have long since worked sad havoc with the old pavements. And a new city administration has finally begun to replace them with the very comfortable but utterly unsentimental asphalt.
Here is the Absinthe House, worth but a single glance, for it has descended to the estate of an ordinary corner saloon. Only ordinary corner saloons are not ordinarily housed in structures of this sort. You can see houses like this in the south of France and in Spain — so I am told. For below Canal street is both French and Spanish. Remember, if you please, that the French of the Southland shared the same hard fate of their countrymen in that far northern valley of the great St. Lawrence neglect. The French are the most loyal people on earth. Their fidelity to their language and their customs for nearly two centuries proves that. That faith, steadfast through the tragedy of the indifference and neglect of their mother country, doubly proves it. And the only difference between the French-man of Quebec and the Frenchman of New Orleans was that in the South the Spaniard was injected into the problem. But the Frenchman in the South was not less loyal than his fellow-countryman of the North. A dissolute king sitting in the wreck of his great family in the suburbs of Paris might barter away the title of his lands, but no Louis could ever trade away the loyalty of the older French of New Orleans to their land and its institutions. In such a faith was the French quarter of the city born. In such faith has it survived, these many years. And perhaps the very greatest episodes in the history of the city were in those twenty days of November, 1803, when the French flag displaced the Spanish in the old Place d'Armes, to be replaced only by the strange banner of a newborn nation which was given the opportunity of working out the destiny of the new France.
So it was the Spaniard who took his part in the shaping of the French quarter of New Orleans. You can see the impress of his architects in the stout old houses that were built after two disastrous and wide-spread fires in the closing years of the eighteenth century — even in the great lion of the town ; the Cabildo which rises from what was formerly the Place d'Armes and is today Jackson square. And the old Absinthe House, with its curiously wrought and half-covered courtyard is one of these old-time Spanish houses.
Now forget about the absinthe as the rest of the French folk of the land are beginning to forget it and turn your attention to the courtyards. In another old Southern city — Charleston — the oldest houses shut the glories of their lovely aging gardens from the sight of vulgar passers by upon the street by means of uncompromising high fences. The old houses of New Orleans do more. Their gardens are shielded from the crowded, noisy, horrid streets by the houses themselves. And he who runs through those crowded, noisy, horrid streets, must really walk, for only so will he catch brief glimpses of the glories of those fading courtyard gardens.
Sometimes, if you have the courage of your convictions and the proper fashion of seizing opportunity by the throat you may wander into one of the tunnel-like gateways of one of these very old houses. No one will halt you.
Here it is — old France in new America. The tunnel-like way from the street is shady and cool. From it leads a stair to the right and the upper floor of the house, a stair up which a regiment might have walked, and down which the old figure of a Balzac might descend this moment without ever a single jarring upon your soul. The stair ends in a great oval hall, whose scarlet paper has long since faded but still remains a memory of the glories of the days that were. The carved en-tablatures over the doors, the bravado of cornice and rosette where the plaster has not finally fallen, proclaim the former grandeur of this apartment. And in some former day a great chandelier must have hung from the center of its graceful ceiling. Today some one of the neighboring antique stores has reaped its reward, and a candle set in a wall-lantern is its sole illumination. A shabby room will not bear the glories of a gay chandelier. And the old Frenchman and his wife who live in the place have all but forgotten. They have a parrot and a sewing-machine and what are the glories of the past to them?
Of course, such a house must have its courtyard. And if the huge copper-bound tank is dry, and the water has not forced its way through the battered fountain these many years, if the old exquisite tiles of the house long since went to form the roof of the new garage of some smart new American place up the river — the magnolia still blossoms magnificently among the decay, and Madame's skill with her jessamine and her geraniums would confound the imported tricks of those English gardeners in the elaborate new places.
Here then is the old France in the new land the priceless treasure that New Orleans wears at her very heart. And here in the very heart of that heart is an ugly old building boarded up by offensively brilliant advertising signs.
An ugly old building did we say, with rough glance at its rusty façades? Can one be young and beautiful forever? Rusty and beautiful oh no, do not scorn the old St. Louis Hotel for following the most normal of all the laws of Nature. For within this moldering and once magnificent tavern history was made. In one of its ancient rooms a President of the United States was unmade, while in another chamber human life was bought and sold with no more concern than the old Creole lady on the far corner shows when she sells you the little statues of the Blessed Virgin.
These wonders are still to be seen for the asking. The concierge of the old hotel is a courteous lady who with her servant dwells in the two most habitable of its remaining rooms. There is no use knocking at the hotel door for she is very, very deaf indeed, poor lady. But if you will brave a stern " No Admittance" sign and ascend the graceful winding stair for a single flight such a stair as has rarely come to our sight you will find her ready and willing. One by one she shows you the rooms, faded and disreputable, for the hotel is in a fearful state of disrepair. The plaster is falling here and there, and where it still adheres to the lath the old-time paper hangs in long shreds, like giant stalactites, from the ceiling. Once, for a decade in the "late eighties," an effort was made to revive the hotel and its former glories a desperate and a hopeless effort and the pitiful " innovations " of that régime still show. But when you close your eyes you do not see the St. Louis Hotel of that decade, but rather in those wonderful twenty years before the coming of the cruel war. In those days New Orleans was the gayest city in the new world, uptilting its saucy nose at such heavy eastern towns as New York or Boston. Its wharves were crowded with the ships of the world, the riverboat captains fought for the opportunity of bringing the mere noses of their craft against the overcrowded levee. Cotton — it was the greatest thing of the world. New Orleans was cotton and cotton was the king of the world.
No wonder then that the St. Louis Hotel could say when it was new, that it had the finest ballrooms in the world. They still show them to you, in piecemeal, for they were long since cut up into separate rooms. The great rotunda was ruined by a temporary floor at the time the state of Louisiana bought the old hotel for a capitol, and used the rotunda for its fiery Senate sessions.
All these things the concierge will relate to you — and more. Then she takes you down the old main-stair, gently lest its rotting treads and risers should crumble under too stout foot-falls. Into the cavernous bottom of the rotunda she leads you. It is encumbered with the steam-pipes of that after era, blocked with rubbish, very dark withal. The concierge, with a fine sense of the dramatic, catches up a bit of newspaper, lights it, thrusts it ahead as a lighted torch.
" The old slave mart," she says, in a well-trained stage whisper, and thrusts the blazing paper up at full arm's length. As the torch goes higher, her voice goes lower : " Beyond the auction block, the slaves' prison."
As a matter of real fact, the " slaves' prison " is probably nothing more or less than the negro quarters that every oldtime southern hotel used to provide for the slaves of its planter patrons. But the concierge does not overlook dramatic possibilities. And she is both too deaf and too much a lady to be contradicted. She has given you full value for the handful of pennies she expects from you. And as for you — a feeling of some-thing like indignation wells within you that the city of New Orleans has permitted the stoutly built old hotel to fall into such ruin. In an era which is doing much to preserve the monuments of the earlier America, it has been overlooked.
Such resentment softens a little further down. You are in Jackson square now —the Place d'Armes of the old French days — and facing there the three great lions that have stood confronting that open space since almost the beginning of New Orleans. The great cathedral flanked by the Cabilda and the Presbytery is not, of itself, particularly beautiful or impressive. But it is interestng to remember that within it on a memorable occasion Andrew Jackson sat at mass interesting because he had just fought the battle of New Orleans and ended the Second War with England. And the Te Deum that went up at that time was truly a thankful one. The Cabilda and the Presbytery, invested as they are with rare historical interest, are more worth while.
But to our mind the chief delight of Jackson square are the two long red-brick buildings that completely fill the north and south sides of that delectable retreat. In themselves these old fellows are not architecturally important, although by close inspection you may find in the traceries of their gallery rails the initials of the wife of the Spanish grandee Madama de Pontalba historically they are not distinguished, unless count the fact that in one of them dwelt Jenny Lind upon the occasion of a not-to-be-forgotten engagement in New Orleans but as the sides of what is perhaps the most delightful square in the entire Southland they are most satisfying. Jackson square has fallen from its high estate. Its gardens were once set out in formal fashion for the elect of New Orleans, nowadays they are visited by swarms of the cheaper French and Italian lodgers of the neighborhood, and scrawny felines from the old Pontalba buildings use it as a congregating place. But, even in decadent days, its fascination is none the less.
Beyond Jackson square rests the French market, the very index to all that New Orleans' love of good eating that has become so closely linked with the city. The market-scheme of the city as this is being written is being greatly revised. Up to the present time the market-men have been autocrats. The grocers of the city have been forbidden to sell fresh fruits or vegetables; if a retailer be audacious enough to wish to set out with a private market, he must be a certain considerable number of squares distant from a public institution—and pay to the city a heavy license fee as penalty for his audacity. Nor is that all. The consumer is for-bidden to purchase direct from the producer, even though the producer's wagon be backed up against the market curb in most inviting fashion. New Orleans recognizes the middleman and protects him or has protected him until the present time. Even peddlers have been barred from hawking their wares through her streets until noon when the public markets close and the housewives have practically completed their purchases for the day.
But banish the thoughts of the markets as economic problems, cease puzzling your blessed brains with that eternal problem of the cost-of-living. Consider the French market as a truly delectable spot. Go to it early in the morning, when the sun is beginning to poke his way down into the narrow streets and the shadows are heavy under the galleries. Breakfast at the hotel? Not a bit of it.
You take your coffee and doughnuts alongside the market men at long and immaculate counters in the market-house. And when you are done you will take your oath that you have never before tasted coffee. The coffee man bends over you he is a coffee man descended from coffee men, for these stalls of the famous old markets are almost priceless heritages that descend from generation to generation. In these days they never go out of a single family.
"Café lait?" says the coffeeman.
You nod assent.
Two long-spouted cans descend upon your cup. From one the coffee, from the other creamy milk come simultaneously, with a skill that comes of long years of practice on the part of the coffeeman.
That is all —café lait and doughnuts. They make just as good doughnuts in Boston, but New England has never known the joys of café lait. If it had, it would never return to its oldtime coffee habits. And the older markets of Boston do not see the fine ladies of the town coming to them on Sunday morning, after mass, negro servants behind, to do their marketing, themselves.
Hours of joy in this market the food capital of a rich land of milk and honey. After those hours of joy breakfast at the Madame's.
The Madame began — no one knows just how many years ago by serving an eleven o'clock breakfast to the market-men, skilled in food as purveyors as most critical of the food they eat. The Madame realized that problem and met it. So well did she meet it that the fame of her cookery spread outside the confines of the market-houses, and city folk and tourists began drifting to her table. In a few years she had established an institution. And today her breakfast is as much a part of New Orleans as the old City Hall or the new Court House.
She has been dead several years dear old gastronomic French lady but her institution, after the fashion of some institutions, lives after her. It still stands at the edge of the market and it still serves one meal each day the traditional breakfast. It is sad to relate that it has become a little commercialized they sell souvenir spoons and cook-books — but you can shut your eyes to these and still see the place in all of its glories.
A long, low room at the back of and above a little saloon, reached from the side-door of the saloon by a turning and rickety stair. A meagerly equipped table in the long, low room, from which a few steps lead up to a smoky but immensely clean kitchen. From that kitchen odors. Odors? What a name for incense, the promise of preparation. You sometimes catch glimpses of busy women, fat and uncorseted. Cooks?
Perish the words. These are artists, if artists have ever really been.
Finally and upon the stroke of eleven the breakfast. It shall not be described here in intimate detail for you, dear reader, will not be sitting at the Madame's hospitable table as you read these lines. It is enough for you to know that the liver is unsurpassable and the coffee the coffee gets its flavor from an adroit sweetening of cognac and of sugar. What matter the souvenirs now? The breakfast has lost none of its savor through the passing of the years.
For here is New Orleans where it seems impossible to get a poor meal. There is many and many an interior city of size and pretentious marbleized and flunkeyized hotels of which that may not be said. But in New Orleans an appreciation of good cookery is an appreciation of the art of a real profession. And of her restaurants there is an infinite variety La Louisiane, Galatoire's, Antoine's, Begue's, Brasco's the list runs far too long to be printed here. Nor does the space of this page permit a recountal of the dishes themselves the world famed gumbos, the crawfish bisque, the red-snapper stuffed with oysters, the crabs and the shrimps. And lest we should be fairly suspected of trying to emu-late a cook-book, turn your back upon the fine little restaurants, where noisy orchestras and unspeakable cabarets have not yet dared to enter, and see still a little more of the streets of the old French quarter.
More courtyards, more old houses, a venerable hall now occupied by a sisterhood of the Roman church but formerly gay with the " quadroon balls " which gave spicy romance to all this quarter. And here, rising high above the narrow thrust of Bourbon street, the French Opera, for be it remembered that New Orleans had her opera house firmly established when New York still regarded hers as a dubious experiment. To come into the old opera house, builded after the impressive fashion of architects of another time, with its real horseshoe and its five great tiers rising within it — is again to see the old New Orleans living in the new. It is to see the exclusive Creoles perhaps the most exclusive folk in all America half showing themselves in the shadowy recesses of their boxes. And to be in that venerable structure upon the night of Mardi Gras is to stand upon the threshold of a fairy world.
It is not meet that the details of the greatest annual carnival that America has ever known should be fully described here. It is enough here and now to say that New Orleans merely exists between these great parties at the eve of each Lent; that nearly a twelvemonth is given to preparations for the Mardi Gras. One festa is hardly done before plans are being made for the next — rumor runs slyly up and down the narrow streets, costumiers are being pledged to inviolate secrecy, strange preparatory sounds emerge from supposedly abandoned sheds and houses, rumors multiply, the air is surcharged with secrecy. Finally the night of nights. Canal street, which every loyal resident of New Orleans believes to be the finest parade street in all the world, is ablaze with the incandescence of electricity, a-jam with humanity. For a week the trains have been bringing the folk in from half-a-dozen neighboring states by the tens of thousands. There is not a single parish of venerable Louisiana without representation; and more than a fair sprinkling of tourists from the North and from over-seas.
Finally after Expectancy has almost given the right hand to Doubt, the fanfare of trumpets, the outriders of Parade. From somewhere has come Rex and The Queen and all the Great and all the Hilariously Funny and the rest besides. From the supposedly abandoned sheds and houses, from the costumiers? Do not dare to venture that, oh uncanny and worldly minded soul !
Fairyland never emerged from old sheds, a King may not even dream of a costumier. From thin air, from the seventh sense, the land of the Mysterious, this King and Queen and all their cavalcade. Then, too, the Royal Palace the historic French Opera House floored and transformed for a night. More lights, more color, the culinary products of the best chefs of all the land working under a stupendous energy, music, dancing, white shirts, white shoulders, gayety, beauty — for tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, and Catholic New Orleans takes its Lent as seriously as it gaily takes the joyousness of its carnivals.
For three-quarters of a century these carnivals have been the outspoken frivols of the old French lady by the bend of the yellow river. In all that time the carnival has progressed until it today is the outward expression of the joyousness of a joyous city. In all that time did we say? There was an interregnum the Four Years. In the Four Years the little French restaurants were closed, the lights at the Opera extinguished there could be no Carnival, for Tragedy sat upon the South-land. And in a great house in Lafayette square there sat a man from Massachusetts who ruled with more zeal than kindness. And that man New Orleans has not forgotten — not even in the half-century that has all but healed the sores of the Four Years.
" It is funny," you begin, "that New Orleans should make so much of the Boston Club, when Butler came from —"
It is not funny. You saw the Boston Club which vies for social supremacy in the old French city with the Pickwick Club, there in Canal street, at least you saw its fine old white house in that broad thoroughfare.
It is not funny. Your New Orleans man tells you — courteously but clearly.
We named our club from that game," he says.
" Boston was a fine game, sir," he adds. "And that without ever a thought of that town up in Massachusetts."
From a carnival to a graveyard is a far cry indeed, and yet the cemeteries of New Orleans are as distinctive of her as her Mardi Gras festivities. We have spoken of the river and the great part it has played in the history of the city that rests so close to its treacherous shore. And it is that very treacherous shore that makes it so exceedingly difficult to arrange a cemetery in the soft and marshy soil on which the city is built.
So it is that the New Orleans' cemeteries are veritable cities of the dead. For the bodies that are buried within them are placed above the ground, not under them. Tombs and mausoleums are the rule, not the exception, and where a family is not prosperous enough to own even the simplest of tombs, it will probably join with other families or with some association in the ownership of a house in the city of the dead. And for those who have not even this opportunity there are the ovens.
The ovens are built in the great walls that encompass the older cemeteries and make them seem like crumbling fortresses. Four tiers high, each oven large enough to accommodate a coffin the sealed fronts bear the epitaphs of those who have known the New Orleans of other days. A motley company they are — poets, pirates, judges, planters, soldiers, priests around them the scarred regiments of those who lived their lives without the haunting touch of Fame upon the shoulder no one will even venture a guess as to the number that have been laid away within a single one of these cities.
And when you are done with seeing the graves of Jean Lafitte or Dominique You why is it that the average mind pricks up with a more quickened interest at the tomb of a pirate than at a preacher — the Portuguese sexton begins plucking at the loosely laid bricks of one of these abandoned ovens. Abandoned? He lifts out a skull, this twentieth century Yorick and bids you peep through the aperture. Like the concierge of the old hotel, looking is made more easy from a blazing folding copy of the morning Picayune. In the place are seemingly countless skulls, with lesser bones.
" He had good teeth, this fellow," coughs the Portuguese.
You do not answer. Finally " Do they bury all of them this way? "
Not at first, you find. The strict burial laws of New Orleans demand that the body shall be carefully sealed and kept within the oven for at least a year. After that the sexton may open the place, burn the coffin and thrust the bones into the rear of the place. And New Orleans can see nothing unusual in the custom.
" New Orleans is more like the old San Francisco than any other community I have ever seen," says the Californian. Not in any architectural sense and of course two cities could hardly be further apart in location than the city in the flat marshlands whose trees are below the level of the yellow river at flood-tide, and the new city that rises on mountainous slopes from the clear waters of the Golden Gate. But there is an in-tangible likeness about New Orleans and his city that was but never again can be, that strikes to the soul of the Californian. Perhaps he has come to know something of the real life of the Creoles — of those strange folk who even today can say that they have lived long lives in New Orleans and never gone south of Canal street. Perhaps he has met some of that little company of old French gentlemen who keep their faded black suits in as trim condition as their own good manners, and who scrimp and save through years and months that they may visit not Chicago or New York but Paris, Paris the unutterable and the unforgettable.
" New Orleans is more like the old San Francisco than any other community that I have ever seen," reiterates the Californian. " It is more like the old than the new San Francisco can ever become."
And there is a moral in that which the San Franciscan speaks. In the twinkling of an eye the old San Francisco disappeared forever. Slowly, but surely, the old New Orleans is beginning to fade away. There are indubitable signs of this already. When it shall have gone, our last stronghold of old French customs and manners shall have gone. One of the most fascinating chapters in the story of our Southland will have been closed.

Here is a video from 1940-

Fleur De Lis as The Symbol of New Orleans

2007-06-26T05:52:00.000-07:00

The Merovigian King Clovis, first king of the Franks, is said to have been given a golden lily by an Angel when he converted to Christianity beginning the use of the Fleu De Lis as a symbol of French Royalty. Today the Fleur De Lis has mushroomed up all over New Orleans as a symbol of the rebirth of the City after Hurricane Katrina. The Fleur De Lis can be found in every shop in the city as ear rings, key chains, ceramic tiles and on all sorts of T-shirts. Artists have integrated it into designs and abstract paintings, tourists take the image home as a remembrance of their visit and of course three are centrally placed in the official flag of the City of New Orleans. The use of the Fleur De Lis has been documented throughout history . Joan of Arc, Maid of Orleans carried a white banner of God blessing the Fleur De Lis in her battles. It has been used as emblem of the Virgin Mary and Holy Trinity by the Church, and various military units, including the United States Army, use it to denote power and strength. The Fleur De Lis used for centuries in Heraldry now has become the unofficial symbol of the City of New Orleans.

I have used the Fleur De Lis in my art and crafts for several years but lately interest has gained and I sell many ceramic tiles, aprons, and stickers with the design on them see my page at http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/1925039 for samples.

Fleur De Craw, CRAW DA, Fleur De Lis Crawfish by figstreetstudio
Browse Fleur T-Shirts

New Orleans Symbols by figstreetstudio
Be a graphic design affiliate with Zazzle.

Fauvist Art

2007-05-29T11:35:00.000-07:00

I love colors and playing with one color next to the other then using negative space to compliment the design. The Fauvists were best at it and I think H. Matisse was a master at design. Besides painting in acrylic I do design work and love to mimic H. Matisse. As a Homage to Matisse I put some of my designs on note cards then decided they look good on ceramic tiles too. Like all my art I place as much as looks nice at Cafe press and Zazzle. Those web pages allow me to put those designs on all sorts of things. Here are a few - http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/3053405

Ban On Use of Water Meter Lid

2007-05-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

The New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board wants the State to ban the use of the water meter lid by artists. The lid was designed in 1921 and has always been in the Public Domain. To get around that the S&WB wants to claim it as an emblem and needs a state law. If it is successful the lid would be removed from the public domain and could be licensed. The popularity of the lid was made by the very artists who used it over many years. Now that it has become popular the S&WB wants to close off its use. The artists have helped stop the abuse of taking of the lids by making available to people unique products, plates, hats, shirts, that can be bought at local stores. I hope someone with a little clout sees through what is going on. What would be the next unique design taken from commerce by this type of action, the "Fleur De Lis"? The news article is below. Anyone who likes the design should buy them now before they are banned sold locally at Bucktown Pharmacy, Lake Ave. Metairie, La. and see http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/1126148

PS: As of June 22,2007 the bill failed the Louisiana House of Represenatives and should not become law unless it is re-consider and re-introduced. It then was reconsidered and passed. ANy reproduction will carry a $5,000.00 fine.
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New Orleans Times Picayune June 24,2007

Emblem fair game

Artists and vendors who've been reproducing the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board's popular "Crescent Cover" logo won a reprieve Friday when the House struck down legislation that would have allowed the board to license the image and penalize anyone who uses it without permission. The 47-27 vote on Senate Bill 319 by Sen. Edwin Murray, D-New Orleans, was 23 votes shy of the two-thirds super majority needed on bills that impose fines. Water board officials were seeking the change as a means of getting some legal control over a logo that has been reproduced for years on everything from T-shirts and Mardi Gras beads to coasters and commemorative plates. But opponents said the logo, which dates to 1921, should remain in the public domain where anyone can use it. "Isn't imitation the highest form of flattery?" asked Rep. Jim Tucker, R-Algiers. The bill, which has already passed the Senate, can be brought up again for another vote. On Monday June 25, 2007 the bill was reconsidered and finally passed. When signed by the governor sales of items with the lid will be banned.

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Leggo our logo! S&WB asks state to protect emblem
But it doubts licensing brings much money
Friday, May 11, 2007
By Jan Moller
New Orleans Times-Picayune

BATON ROUGE -- It's been reproduced on everything from T-shirts and Mardi Gras beads to cufflinks, gourmet chocolates and commemorative plates.

Now -- after years of watching its famous moon-and-stars logo get appropriated by artists and tourist vendors -- the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans wants a cut of the action. Or, at the very least, some say over who gets to profit from its "Crescent Cover" logo.

"We just want to have some type of control over its use," said Robert Jackson, a spokesman for the board, which on Thursday asked the Senate Local, Municipal and Parochial Affairs Committee to provide legal penalties to anyone who uses its logo without a license.

(Read the whole article on the web at- http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-4/117886771564080.xml&coll=1)

New Designs In My Shop

GRANOLA- Girl Raised At New Orleans

2007-05-04T14:41:00.000-07:00

A nice lady asked I design her a special shirt. She wanted something to reflect that she supports New Orleans in its recovery from the storm even though she has moved away some years ago. After all she is a girl raised at New Orleans, thus the "GRANOLA" shirt design was born. She also asked that I sell it to others so they too can show support for the recovery, after all the sales help me rebuild. Just to be safe I had the idea trademarked too. Sometimes people copy my designs. I had people as far away as Washington State do copies of my New Orleans designs that were intended to help me recover from the storm. Funny how some people are.

So help support the recover of New Orleans and my recovery too, buy a shirt or sticker from Fig Street Studio.

Old Photos To Art

2007-04-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

For years for family and friends I have taken old photographs and transformed them in to art by painting compositions from the photo onto 8X10 watercolor paper. Once framed they become a work of art and cherished family heirloom. I often take time to also offer this service to the general public and would consider commissions from anyone with an interest in having an old photograph turned into a painting. This is no computer generated gimmick but a real painting so expect the prices to reflect the time and skill it takes to do a work of art. For more information and samples see http://www.figstreet.com/studio/photoart.html

New Orleans Ceramic Tiles In News

2007-01-27T16:16:00.000-08:00

My New Orleans scenes on ceramic tiles were featured in the "Inside -Out" pull out section of the New Orleans Times Picayune Newspaper on Saturday January 27, 2007. Three of the tiles with graphic designs I did of an old streetcar, Satsumas, and a sign selling crawfish were displayed.
I do sell more of them with my paintings of places in the French Quarter but the article featured the graphic design over the paintings. A while back I did a blog entry on the New Orleans Street Tiles I do also that seem to do well when people add names and street numbers to their homes. Here is the link to the page with most all of my ceramic tiles -Fig Street Tiles

Porcelain Christmas Ornaments

2006-12-18T16:37:00.000-08:00

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Gift Shop is featuring my Porcelain Christmas Ornaments at their gift shop in the New Orleans Hotel on Canal St. The hotel just re-opened Dec 9,2006 and still has some renovation going on outside. I took a picture of the tree and the ornaments on it. You can now get my ornaments locally or buy them on the web. Stop in my Studio web page at http://www.figstreet.com/studio and see the links for Christmas Ornaments and Cards by New orleans Artists. And remember to check out all the New Orleans centered gifts at both my Cafe Press Shop and my Zazzle Shop on the web. Locally available at Bucktown Pharmacy Metairie, LA.

Fleur De Lis

2006-10-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

Always a symbol of Bourbon France the Fleu De Lis has become the favorite symbol of New Orleans. All over the French Quarter people, shops, shirts, jewelry, anything that can sport a Fleu de Lis does. I have made many Fleu de Lis designs over the years but settled on a unique wrought iron style I have made in many colors on many products at my Fig Street Studio Shop on the web. Follow the link to see those designs and many others.

Katrina Anniversary

2006-08-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Katrina has occupied so much of my life for the past year I found it difficult to even think about it. I live it every day. Each day I am repairing something damaged by the storm. It is difficult to do anything any day that does not relate back to that day. I did try my best to come up with a shirt to memorialize the event. I thought a satellite image of the large storm hitting shore was something to show the severity and hugeness of the event. One year and still trying to rebuild. See http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/1770458 for shirts.

New Orleans Street Tiles

2006-05-15T16:21:00.000-07:00

I often get contacted about the New Orleans Street Tiles because I use the design elements in some art and some T-shirts. I also have made some similar ceramic tiles based on the orginals I sell on the web that can be used decoratively. A lot of people want the original tiles so they can spell out their names with them in their home. Several artists do stylized paintings and signs mostly out of hardboard and acrylic. My ceramic tiles are made with a heat transfer process and are suitable for decorative purposes. The orginal old tiles used for street names are very durable. They are called 'Encaustic tiles'. Encaustic tiles are unglazed, the design is not painted on with dyes or minerals, but dry or dust pressed from clays. Most ceramic tiles are surface decorated by painting or embossed designs created by a mold. Encaustic tiles are stronger in that their designs are inlaid and baked in the tile. The original tile company, believed to be The American Encaustic Tile Company of Ohio and New York was in operation from 1875 until 1935, closing with the depression. Several art tile companies do make decorative tiles now and a local ceramic shop hand paints letters on tile blanks the size of the originals and fires them. Most are not encaustic tiles but painted ceramic tiles that do not wear as long. There is a Spanish company that still makes similar blue lettered tiles but I do not know what company imports them now.

Victoria, B.C. also has tiles on the sidewalks but reverse colors, white letters with blue backgrounds made for them by the same tile company. They still have a few in stock but also ask contractors to save the tiles when work is done. They too have different leads in trying to get duplicates and say craftsmen now charge up to $100 for one duplicate tile. The process is time consuming and for just one tile it is costly. France still has homes with tile floors made in the same manner that look as good as new. I have replica tiles made from a heat transfer methodand the big street name tile murals can add in your name to personalize them to at extra costs.
Here is a link to the New Orleans Street tile designs I sell on the web: http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/434932

Spanish Tile Street Name Mural Replicas

You can have your name or street number made into a vinyl sticker that looks like the famous street tiles and can be put on your mail box.

There are hats, shirts, ceramic tiles, stickers, magnets, and buttons that can be personalized with whatever you want to look like the street tiles. Just ask via e-mail for the details.

Historical Quote from the New York Times in 1913-
"One of the most effective methods of designating streets that I have seen is that used in New Orleans. It consists of blue tiles four by six inches and three-quarter inch thick on each of which is a five-inch letter of the alphabet in white. . . . These not only present a neat appearance, but are large enough to be read without difficulty. -- Albert E. Davis of the Bronx, N.Y., in a Dec. 3, 1913, in a letter to the editor of The New York Times. "

Lighthouses Remembered

2006-03-28T06:59:00.000-08:00

Hurricane Katrina damaged many buildings in the Greater New Orleans Area of those were the many famous lighthouses. I remember growing up at West End seeing the old lighthouse overlook Lake Pontchartrain in calm and stormy weather, now it lays toppled over. I do have many pictures of the light as I use photographs to paint from but I would love to know if the Historic West End Lighthouse will be repaired. I have other lighthouses on my paintings page linked below.

Camp Street Lighthouse

Manchac Lighthouse

Storm Destroys Lighthouse

Link with more information on the damage to the West End New Canal Light- http://lighthousefoundation.org/newsroom/national_newcanal_collapse_2005nov30.htm and see The Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation page at http://www.saveourlake.org/

A Lot of T-Shirts

2006-03-25T06:44:00.000-08:00

T-Shirts have become not only something to wear but a platform to make a statement. A well worn T-Shirt can make a bold declaration, a patriotic comment, a silly remark, even help move an issue or gain a friend. T-Shirts celebrate births, deaths, occasions like weddings or a party, even a political march or charity event. They help raise money for worthy causes and cause controversy. Not just in America but around the world. I design silly and serious t-shirts and sell them over the web. Here is a partial list of shirts available from the company I work with. Stop in and see what I mean, a t-shirt is more than apparel it is a cultural icon.

New Orleans
Jazz Fest
Hurricane
Adult Humor
Aids
Air Force
Animals
Aniti-Bush
Army
Art
Arts and Crafts
Audio
Automotive
Baby Gifts
Black History
Bunny
Camp Cupcake
Cancer Survivor
Cats
Chinese New Year
Clinton
Comics
Conservative
Country
Cult Movies
Dad
Daisy Duke
Data
Dean
Delay
Democrat
Dogs
Downing Street Memo
Duke
Entertainment
Fantasy
Father's Day
Firefly - Serenity
Food
Fourth of July
Games
Geeks
Guiliani
GLBT
Hillary Clinton
Hitchhikers Guide
Hobbies
Home and Garden
Hoodies
Horoscope
Horse
Humor
Hurricanes
Insects
iPod
Jeb
Jesus
Karl Rove
Katie
Kerry
Kwanzaa
Lesbian
Liberal
Linux
Local Politics
Locations
Marines
McCain
Michael Jackson
Military
Mother's Day
Music
Nader
Navy
Ninja
NonProfit
Not Afraid
Obama
Occupations
Outdoors
Peace
Pets
Pirate
Politics
Pope
Pro-Bush
ProChoice
ProLife
Religion
Relious Satire
Republican
Rice
Science Fiction
Shoes
Solstice
Sorry
Sports
St Patricks Day
Tom
Unique Gifts
Urban Chic
Poker

Tags:
T-Shirt, Fig Street Studio

Fame?

2006-02-15T07:28:00.000-08:00

A friend once said when some media outlet reviews your art you will become famous. I assumed that he meant my art was good but lately it seems people just need someone else to tell them that a certain art work is good or worthy of attention. Take the little Christmas Tree Ornament I made this year for my yearly collection. Without my studio I just used some computer graphics and a little creativity to come up with a colorful statement to return and rebuild New Orleans after the storm. It ended up in the newspaper and I sold a few hundred. Generally I like to paint a New Orleans landmark and add it to the yearly Christmas Ornament collection. A way of introducing people to my paintings using a nice ceramic gift item. I always felt the more people saw my paintings the more I would become a recognized artist. Recognition is my goal, fame may be too dangerous. None of my paintings on ornaments ever got as much recognition as that little ornament after the storm, but because of it I have more people looking at my art. Even sold a few of those, I assume to people who do not need their art validated by a newspaper article. So take some time and look at my art and see if it merits your recognition?

Fig Street Studio

Rebuild The Gulf Coast States

2006-02-15T06:46:00.000-08:00

Getting past the trauma of the storm and moving toward recovery I have done a series of 'Rebuild' designs. Doing the designs is a respite from the cleanup work and sadness of seeing all the destruction. I hope I can cover each community with a design that reflects their desire to rebuild. If I left someplace out and you need a design just e-mail me and I will see what I can do. Take a look at the designs that I already have made here: http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/866061

Many new bumper stickers added like the one below.

Many I Love New Orleans, DA PARISH, and Mardi Gras designs on different style shirts and stickersNew Shirts.

FEMA Trailer Trash

2006-01-04T07:37:00.000-08:00

Those lovely white FEMA trailers are popping up all over my neighborhood. So I designed this wonderful new neighbor gift, A FEMA Trailer Trash Framed Tile. Hang it up in the new living space. Or if you want get the new FEMA Trailer Trash Wall Clock, and the Tile Coaster. See more FEMA Trailer Trash gifts at http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/1102052

Another funny FEMA Shirt: FEMA Pays My Rent

Wild Watermelons From Katrina

2005-12-25T04:59:00.000-08:00

Among the many strange things that happened as a result of the hurricane, Watermelons are growing wild in some areas. I found sunflowers and tomatoes growing wild in the backyard of a friend's home in Metairie where I stay pending repairs to my place. As always we in the New Orleans area enjoy unique things and celebrate anything that can come back after this storm. We can laugh at most things around us so I created the 'Wild Melons of Katrina' t-shirt. Mostly for a laugh and stress relief, so I share it with you in the same light.

See http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/1080444

Mardi Gras Trees

2005-12-13T11:46:00.000-08:00

Many of us are too busy to take down the Christmas Tree, so why not add some beads and Mardi Gras Tree Ornaments and just leave it up as a Mardi Gras Tree? Lots of cool Mardi Gras designs to choose from at this link-http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/1054635

Shirts for dogs to wear at Mardi Gras are here; http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/456674

Build Stronger Levees

2005-12-11T18:46:00.000-08:00

The flooding of New Orleans was caused from the failure of the levees to hold in a storm smaller than they were intended to protect from. The storm did not cause the damage directly but the failed levees did. The failure is now believed to be design flaws and hidden defects in construction. We as Americans can do a lot better. Had a dam broke in another area causing hundreds of thousands to be displaced all Americans would have demanded an investigation and hold someone accountable. Instead we in the disaster area hear some Americans say why rebuild? We ask why would anyone consider not rebuilding?
For hundreds of years we have had the City of New Orleans and now that there is the probability that the flooding was caused by faulty designs and failed inspections all America should want to rebuild the levees stronger. We all should want to protect our heritage. And what American City is not worth protecting? I created the above t-shirt design, 'Stronger Levees', to support the effort to rebuild stronger and better levees. See it at http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/1050278

A Post Script- I was e-mailed this link to pictures that portray the lack of any effective levee system to protect New Orleans see this blog: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0112-15.htm

Christmas Ornaments Featured In Times Picayune

2005-11-26T07:22:00.000-08:00

Ceramic Art Tiles

2005-11-25T07:14:00.000-08:00

I realized reading the Blog of Bingo this morning all my posts are Katrina related art. I assume that is because I am so busy with cleaning up my studio, home, and helping friends clean up storm related debris. I do have many art pieces not related to the storm, including many different ceramic tiles. I had these made from my paintings and graphic designs so some friends could have copies of my paintings at a reasonable price and something useful. Some have made table tops, kitchen backsplaches, and other unique things from the tiles. I have mine just displayed on the table and used as coasters. Featured above is my painting "Piano and Chair". As an exercise I painted my actual piano and chair in my studio trying to capture a "Van Gogh" style. I remember a painting of Vincent's , a chair and shoes. Those were my shoes too, sitting by the chair. All as I let them the day before.
You can visit the framed prints on my web page or the ceramic tile. One of my favorite paintings.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast

2005-11-23T07:14:00.000-08:00

Since a young child my family would visit the Mississippi Gulf Coast for the beaches and food. Although I have only seen the damage in pictures I know how devastated it is from my visits after Camille. My favorite little restaurant in Bay St. Louis is washed away so we need to support our friends and neighbors and rebuild the Gulf Coast. As soon as I have settled down with my personal clean up I will go and try to help there too. I hope to continue my efforts at painting those little spots from the pictures I took before the storm. All I need is to get my studio up and running so I can paint. I did this Christmas Card at Zazzle to show my support.

My Fridge Survived Katrina

2005-11-22T16:13:00.000-08:00

Few things survived the storm but for some it was good news to discover that their refrigerator actually worked after being cleaned up. For those fortunate few there is a bumper sticker available at http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio.38473113

Fig Street Studio

2005-11-22T07:10:00.000-08:00

It will be months before Fig Street Studio is repaired from the storm. In the mean time several new graphic designs have been added to the Cafe Press Shop. Christmas Ornaments and Christmas Cards from New Orleans are selling well. The affiliate members are making commissions as Christmas is the best time to join and help sell the art. Stop in and see all the new designs and help a New Orleans artist. http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio

New Orleans Artist

2005-10-25T16:43:00.000-07:00

Help a New Orleans Artist! A New Orleans artist is selling his art over the web to help rebuild his art studio damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The good news is if you join the Cafe Press affiliate program you can help him sell his art and make a commission. His art sells well so chances are you will make some change while helping out. See http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio for details.