Plein air artists capture the landscape on their canvasses 11am – 4pm, May 20,2022 at Crevasse 22.
The Creative Alliance of New Orleans and Torres | Burns Trust welcome artist Sabrina Schmidt and a cohort of artists to launch a 5 month journey of plein air painting throughout St. Bernard parish, to reveal the little know natural landscape of a parish most think of in terms of the two main traffic arteries through the area, St. Bernard Highway, and Judge Perez Drive.
“Plein air, a french term which means out of doors, allows artists to paint from life. Creating art in this way allows both the artist and the audience to experience so much more than what a photograph can offer,” says Schmidt.
“A full sensory experience, reflected in the art, creates an intimate relationship between the artist and the landscape,” says Schmidt
20 artists have been invited to participate in this plein air experience, painting throughout St. Bernard to capture its culture, life, and landscape. Through the summer and early fall, these artists will take part in paint-out days, culminating in an exhibit in the fall at Crevasse 22 | River House.
“Summer Sundays offer special events, family activities, snacks and refreshments to draw visitors to the sculpture garden and art center that present art works themed to the “beauty and risks of nature”, said Jeanne Nathan, Executive Director of Creative Alliance of New Orleans.
“Visitors often remark on how beautiful and peaceful the site is with its expansive natural setting adjacent to the original Bayou Terre a la Boeuf that became a small lake when a Crevasse in the levee carved the bayou deeper in the surrounding classic Louisiana landscape with live oak trees and shorebirds,” said Nathan
Scheduled at least once a month, the Summer Sundays attract visitors from around St. Bernard Parish, but well beyond, from the North Shore, Jefferson Parish, uptown and downtown New Orleans, nationally and internationally. Visitors often linger in the kitchen area of the River House where refreshments are served, exchanging ideas and impressions of the sculpture, art and setting, or just swapping stories as might happen in a classic “general store” setting.
An early model of Robert Tannen and Frank Gehry’s Modgun house, designed as a post disaster, affordable, one room house that can be added onto with additional rooms like cars on a train, is also on site, as well as an interpretation of the original pontoon boats used by the Houma Nation Native Americans who reside in the parish and region to this day. Collaborators Monique Verdin, Nick Slie and Jeff Becker, working with Mondo Bizarro, designed the boat, known as the Float Lab, to be a staging area for educational and entertaining presentations relating to the environment and culture of our region. The Float Lab will be travelling from its home port at the Crevasse 22 site to other arts venues around the nation.
Visitors will also experience the last months of the present Earth-Works exhibition in the River House, including ceramic sculptures by Lucia Aquino, Ma Po Kinnord, Kristen Larson, Kevin O’Keefe, Sandra Pulitzer and Robert Tannen. Working drawings by Walter Anderson, carved wild fowl by regional carvers, works by Pippin Frisbee Calder and Michelle Varisco are also on view.
Sculptors now included in the Crevasse 22 sculpture garden include Luis Cruz Azaceta, Raine Bedsole, Hannah Chalew, Luis Colmenares, Clifton Faust, Mitchell Gaudet, Erika Larkin, Gene Koss, Anastacia Pelias, Robert Tannen, and Robin Tanner.
“Roberta Burns and I have been so thrilled with the wide-ranging support and appreciation for our creative arts site in St. Bernard, the first to focus on contemporary art by living artists in the parish,” said Sidney Torres.
“We are working to expand the works on exhibit in the area and continue welcoming visitors, families, and artists, both mature and emerging,” said Torres.