Newcomb Art Museum

Family Day: Story Making, World Building
2021-03-20 10:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago) | LA
Cave paintings are the first art we know of, but they were created to be stories. Stories serve many purposes – they remind us of who we are, where we have been, and where we are headed – connecting us across time and place. We invite you to join us as we make art that tells stories, communicates ideas, and opens our imaginations through age appropriate artist-led virtual workshops. Gather your family and friends virtually for a unique day of visual storytelling and creation! Click the links below to explore our virtual family day!

These programs are funded in part under a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. They are also supported in part by a New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation Community Partnership Grant and by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans.

Virtual Family Day, Story Making, World Building Materials List and Activity Links

Make Your Own Cave Art (click here) with:

One or more brown paper grocery bags
Crayons or chalk, or both
Scissors

Goat in the Road Play/Write lessons One (click here) and Two (click here) Materials:

Paper
Pencil
Your imagination!

Make Your Own Paper (click here) and learn more about paper-making in Transcommunality (click here):

Lots of scrap paper
A large broiler pan (disposable/recyclable aluminum works well)
A blender
Water
A mesh screen – one from the cooking & baking department in a grocery store is ideal
In the video, we’ll show how to make one with a window screen and old coat hanger or picture frame and duct tape. It’s a little more work, but turns out great!

Helpful but not required:
Some paint stir sticks
Fun things to add into the paper, like string, leaves, glitter, paint; anything small and lightweight you can think of!

Make a Moko Jumbie Stilt Dancer (click here) with:

A piece of white paper
2 straws
Yarn (less than 12 inches needed)
Scissors
Clear tape
Construction or printed paper
Air dry clay OR aluminum foil
Markers or crayons or colored pencils

And learn more about the Red Flame Hunters All Youth Mardi Gras Indian Tribe (click here)

Uncommon Exchanges
2021-04-21 18:00 - 19:00 | LA
Newcomb Art Museum in partnership with A Studio in the Woods, The ByWater Institute at Tulane University, and New Orleans Center for the Gulf South presents Uncommon Exchanges: Indigo, a unique dialogue between unlikely pairings of Tulane and Gulf South experts. LaChaun Moore and Dr. Sabia McCoy-Torres will use the museum’s current exhibition, Transcommunality by Laura Anderson Barbata, as a catalyst for conversation to remedy missing narratives and provide paths forward –through creative means – to a more equitable and just future. Moderated by Jeffery Darensbourg, Uncommon Exchanges will premiere at 6 pm on April 21 followed by a live Q&A with panelists and exhibiting artist, Laura Anderson Barbata. Register for the Zoom event on April 21 at 6 pm via the link here.

These programs are funded in part under a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. They are also supported in part by a New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation Community Partnership Grant and by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans.

About the panelists:
Sabia McCoy-Torres is an Assistant Professor jointly appointed in the Department of Anthropology and Program in Africana Studies. She has a Ph.D. in social and cultural anthropology from Cornell University. Her research focuses on the English and Spanish speaking African Diaspora, race, gender/sexuality, transnationalism, and Black popular music and performance. Dr. McCoy-Torres’ current book project uses reggae culture as an ethnographic lens to interpret these dynamics within the West Indian Diaspora in Costa Rica and Brooklyn, New York. Her work has been published in Popular Music & Society; Black Music Research Journal; and Transforming Anthropology, for which she is a Contributing Editor. She has a forthcoming article in The Global South. Dr. McCoy-Torres’ course offerings include: The Anthropology of Race; Urban Music: Race, Class, and Sexuality; Blackness in Latin America; Black Transnational Culture; and Race and Migration.
LaChaun Moore is an interdisciplinary artist who engages the public with her ethnographic fiber making and research practice. Her practice focuses on plant species that are linked specifically to Black and Indigenous farmers who have been systematically exploited for their agricultural ingenuity. She earned her BFA in Integrated Design at Parsons, The New School for Design with a focus on Alternative Fashion Strategies and Social Practice. There she began her grant-funded research “Perceptions of Cotton and Agriculture within the African American Community.” She has since built a small-scale farm growing naturally-colored green and brown cotton as well as ancestral indigo sourced from a Low Country plantation. As part of her research LaChaun co-hosts the WEAVE podcast. Her work envisions investigating, documenting, and implementing ancestral knowledge as the start to chipping away at the inequalities within the fiber system.
About the moderator:

Jeffery Darensbourg is interested in the knowledge of flora, fauna, and people his Atakapa-Ishak ancestors carried with them and wishes to connect this sort of Louisiana-specific knowledge to the knowledge urban Natives such as himself have in negotiating Indigeneity, within the contemporary milieu of city life in our current social and economic climate. Jeffery U. Darensbourg is an enrolled member and tribal councilperson of the Atakapa-Ishak Nation of mixed Native and Louisiana Creole ancestry. His work explores the intersections of cultural studies, mixed ethnicity, and Indigeneity.

About the artist:
I am a bicultural, transdisciplinary artist. Since 1992 I have developed sustainable art-centered projects that integrate collaborative and participatory work that addresses issues of social justice and the environment. As a Mexican born, New York based artist, it is my belief that a shared artistic social practice can serve as a platform on which we connect, learn, exchange, create, and transcend borders in order to activate our sense of belonging to a global community. My work seeks to further the expectations of socially-engaged art by involving collaborators such as archives, scientists, activists, musicians, street dancers, and artisans to create works that operate both inside and outside of the art world. Since 2001 I began to work with stilt dancers in Trinidad and Tobago, and since 2007 have consistently collaborated with the Brooklyn Jumbies, and in 2012 with the Zancudos de Zaachila from Oaxaca, Mexico. The work combines character and narrative development with numerous collaborators in addition to textile arts, sculpture, dance, masking, music, procession, improvisation, ritual and protest.
– Laura Anderson Barbata

Engage with the work of the artists and scholars more:

Virtual Screening and Director's Talk: The Veil
2021-05-20 18:00 - 19:30 | LA
Newcomb Art Museum is excited to screen “The Veil”, a brave documentary film shot in New Orleans by Raven Ancar (’22), a current student at Tulane majoring in Sociology and Digital Media Practices. Ancar is also President of Tulane Black Student Union, a founding member of Les Griots Violets, and a College Track Scholar. In January of 2019, during her first year at Tulane, Ancar filmed several sit-down interviews with fellow Black students about their experiences on campus to interrogate W. E. B. Du Bois’ notions of “the veil” and “double-consciousness”, as presented in his 1903 book “The Souls of Black Folks.” Created from an activist point of view, this first feature-length film by Ancar candidly probes topics of diversity, inclusion, racism and white supremacy culture in our region. Thursday, May 20th, 6pm CST screening followed by live talkback between director and audience at 7:15pm CST
Read more about Ancar’s inspiration for creating the film and RSVP for the virtual screening!

Reciprocal Exchanges
2021-06-01 | LA
DATES TBA
Local artists and culture bearers will exchange techniques and practices in the spirit of Laura Anderson Barbata’s Transcommunality and an economy of sharing. Each exchange –centered on wearable art – will be released as a short film presented to the public, showcasing the artists’ practices and opening new creative possibilities through engagement.Zoom registration link coming shortly, in the meantime sign up for our e-newsletter to stay up to date with all things Newcomb!

These programs are funded in part under a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. They are also supported in part by a New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation Community Partnership Grant and by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans.

Louisiana Reimagines: High Culture Below Sea Level - Part 1
2021-06-12 | LA
Behind the Scenes with Laura Anderson Barbata and Shaka Zulu
“Louisiana Reimagines: High Culture Below Sea Level” is an exchange between Laura Anderson Barbata and local tradition bearers from the Black Masking Indian tradition that responds to the garments and stilt dancing projects presented in the Newcomb Art Museum’s 2021 exhibition “Transcommunality”. Offering a look into the cultural world of Big Chief Shaka Zulu of the Golden Feather Hunters, this program is centered on Shaka Zulu’s distinct yet ever-evolving New Orleans practice which combines procession, drumming, elaborate 3d suits, and West African stilt dancing.
In March and April 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, the two artists conducted a series of conversations via Zoom. Together they explored many topics related to creativity and stilt-dancing, such as the ancestral origins of Shaka’s practices and the healing power of the arts. They also discussed Shaka’s role as a youth mentor, the production of his suits and some of the spiritual philosophies guiding his work. Highlights of this cross-cultural dialog are presented as a series of video clips and offer an informal behind-the-scenes impression of the artists’ online exchange.
A work for camera by Shaka Zulu shot in Tremé and directed by Abdul Aziz will premiere at the museum June 26 and features local performers on stilts and percussion who represent four generations of Zulu’s family. Later in July, a virtual roundtable conversation led by Dr. Joyce Marie Jackson will also consider the processional art form’s power to foster diverse, intergenerational community relationships and Super Sunday’s historical connections to protests for social justice.
Using the “Transcommunality” exhibit and Shaka Zulu’s work for camera as touchstones, the roundtable in July gathers voices from the stilt dancing community – Najja Codrington of the Brooklyn Jumbies and Sarauniya Zulu of Zulu Connection – as well as three legendary figures of masking culture in New Orleans: Big Queen Rita Dollis of the Wild Magnolias; Big Chief Derrick Hulin of the Golden Blades; and Big Chief Darryl Montana of the Yellow Pocahontas Hunters.
Explore these behind the scenes exchanges below!

These programs are funded in part under a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. They are also supported in part by a New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation Community Partnership Grant and by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans.

About Shaka Zulu:
Based in downtown New Orleans, Big Chief Shaka Zulu is the multi-talented leader of the Golden Feather Hunters, a tribe of Black masking Indians whose spiritual traditions of song and pageantry are known globally. Chief Shaka is a culture bearer involved with many aspects of Louisiana’s street culture and performance scene – including African and Haitian music, to which he was introduced as a child by his father, Zohar Israel. A versatile and frequent collaborator, Chief Shaka has worked with the Kumbuka African Drum & Dance Collective since the early 1980s; played drums with Big Chief Smiley Ricks and his band Indians of the Nation; and toured internationally with Donald Harrison Jr. as a percussionist and vocalist for his band Congo Nation. Chief Shaka is a master of the African djun-jun drum and also plays many other percussive instruments.
Chief Shaka began stilt dancing at a young age performing with the company Free Spirit of New Orleans. Since 1986 he has performed around the world as a featured solo stilt dancer as well as with his own performing arts company, Zulu Connection. He is known for spellbinding audiences with his colorful and elaborate costumes, tremendous heights, extraordinary acrobatics, and dance moves. His work as a stilt dancer has been presented at festivals and events in New Orleans as well as in China; Germany, the Netherlands, Jamaica, Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, Tanzania, and Morocco, among other places.
Chief Shaka is initiated into the secret and sacred art form of stilt dancing and also educates youth in his community on the culture, discipline, and need for preservation of this guarded ancient custom. He is committed to the growth and educational prosperity of local youth; and also manages and teaches for the New Orleans chapter of Better Family Life, a youth summer cultural enrichment camp.
As a Black masking Indian, Chief Shaka has exhibited his suits nationally and internationally at museums and festivals – including the 2015 exhibit “New Orleans – The Sound of a City” in Berlin which was supported by the US Embassy; the 2017 exhibit “Carnival Around the World” at the Afrika Museum in Berg en Dal, The Netherlands; on Martha’s Vineyard in 2019; and for nearly two decades in Asheville, North Carolina, each year with the LEAF International festival, where he is also a youth educator and involved with LEAF’s programming in Tanzania and Haiti. Locally, Chief Shaka’s suits have been exhibited at The Presbytère, part of the Louisiana State Museum; at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts; and in his own Golden Feather Mardi Gras Indian Gallery which was previously located on Rampart Street.
Recently Chief Shaka and Naimah Zulu, his artistic partner to whom he is married, also produced the vibrant and historical stage production “New Orleans Voices of Congo Square” at the OrpheumTheater which featured an array of magical music, colorful dance, and mysterious masking Indian culture.

About Laura Anderson Barbata:
I am a bicultural, transdisciplinary artist. Since 1992 I have developed sustainable art-centered projects that integrate collaborative and participatory work that addresses issues of social justice and the environment. As a Mexican born, New York based artist, it is my belief that a shared artistic social practice can serve as a platform on which we connect, learn, exchange, create, and transcend borders in order to activate our sense of belonging to a global community. My work seeks to further the expectations of socially-engaged art by involving collaborators such as archives, scientists, activists, musicians, street dancers, and artisans to create works that operate both inside and outside of the art world. Since 2001 I began to work with stilt dancers in Trinidad and Tobago, and since 2007 have consistently collaborated with the Brooklyn Jumbies, and in 2012 with the Zancudos de Zaachila from Oaxaca, Mexico. The work combines character and narrative development with numerous collaborators in addition to textile arts, sculpture, dance, masking, music, procession, improvisation, ritual and protest.
– Laura Anderson Barbata

Additional Resources:
Transcribed Copies of the Videos
2019 interview with Shaka Zulu at Xavier University of Louisiana; Produced and directed by Kim Vaz- Deville, Filmed and edited by Lexcie Thomas. https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/masked/7/
2016 interview with Shaka Zulu at the Golden Feather Restaurant & Gallery https://vimeo.com/180939157
2008 educational project with Shaka Zulu at Higher Ground in Oakland, California
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkJVHOhfDFE&feature=youtu.be
2013 video documentation of Zulu Connection performance in Knoxville, Tennessee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSI_6-vo-5M&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8zz5TP_5wo
2018 “Voices of Congo Square” stage production trailer https://vimeo.com/292132231
2015 Shaka Zulu exhibition in Berlin
https://www.offbeat.com/news/sound-city-exhibit-makes-waves-berlin/
Dec 2020 memorial for 1900 mass lynching site in New Orleans https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/article_ca7abefc-4171-11eb-a3aa- c35babfbe7de.html
Click to learn more about Laura Anderson Barbata’s exhibition at Newcomb!

Louisiana Reimagines: Live Performance by Chief Shaka Zulu and Free Spirit
2021-06-26 12:30 - 15:30 | LA
This event is free, but tickets are required, click here to reserve your spot: https://www.eventbrite.com/…/louisiana-reimagines-live…
Join the Newcomb Art Museum on Saturday, June 26 for Part Two of Louisiana Reimagines: High Culture Below Sea Level.

As part of the Louisiana Reimagines series at the Newcomb Art Museum, on Saturday, June 26 at 12:30 pm a new work for camera by Big Chief Shaka Zulu of the Golden Feathers, shot in Tremé, and directed by Abdul Aziz featuring local performers on stilts and percussion who represent four generations of Zulu’s family will premiere in Freeman Auditorium located in Woldenberg Art Center (next to the museum). The film will be followed by a live performance in the galleries by Chief Shaka Zulu and Free Spirit representing drumming traditions from Africa and the African diaspora. A second screening of the short film will take place at 2 pm in Freeman Auditorium.

“Louisiana Reimagines: High Culture Below Sea Level” is an exchange between Laura Anderson Barbata and local tradition bearers from the Black Masking Indian tradition that responds to the garments and stilt dancing projects presented in the Newcomb Art Museum’s 2021 exhibition “Transcommunality”. Offering a look into the cultural world of Big Chief Shaka Zulu of the Golden Feather Hunters, this program is centered on Shaka Zulu’s distinct yet ever-evolving New Orleans practice which combines procession, drumming, elaborate 3d suits, and West African stilt dancing.

Part One, a series of short digital behind-the-scenes conversations between Shaka Zulu and Laura Anderson Barbata was released on June 11 and can be accessed via the link here: https://vimeo.com/user95586704. Part Three of the series, a virtual roundtable conversation led by Dr. Joyce Marie Jackson considering the processional art form’s power to foster diverse, intergenerational community relationships and historical connections to protests for social justice, will take place in July. Using the “Transcommunality” exhibit and Shaka Zulu’s work for camera as touchstones, the July roundtable will gather voices from the stilt dancing community – Najja Codrington of the Brooklyn Jumbies and Sarauniya Zulu of Zulu Connection – as well as three legendary figures of masking culture in New Orleans: Big Queen Rita Dollis of the Wild Magnolias; Big Chief Derrick Hulin of the Golden Blades; and Big Chief Darryl Montana of the Yellow Pocahontas Hunters.

Louisiana Reimagines: High Culture Below Sea Level – Part 3
2021-07-08 | LA
Join Newcomb online for part three of this multi-part series. Save the date for July 8 when the museum will release a new virtual roundtable conversation led by Dr. Joyce Marie Jackson that uses Laura Anderson Barbata: Transcommunality and Shaka Zulu’s work for camera (as seen here) as touchstones to consider the power of procession to foster diverse, intergenerational community relationships. Panelists will include stilt dancers Najja Codrington of the Brooklyn Jumbies and Sarauniya Zulu of Zulu Connection as well as three legendary figures of masking culture in New Orleans: Big Queen Laurita Dollis of the Wild Magnolias; Big Chief Derrick Hulin of the Golden Blades; and Big Chief Darryl Montana of the Yellow Pocahontas Hunters. The video will be released on July 8 on this web page, the museum’s Vimeo account, Facebook page, and via the museum’s e-newsletter.

These programs are funded in part under a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. They are also supported in part by a New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation Community Partnership Grant and by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans.

About the moderator:
Joyce Marie Jackson, Ph.D. is chair of the Department of Geography & Anthropology and former Director of African & African American Studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Dr. Jackson also holds the James J. Parsons Endowed Professorship at LSU. She earned her Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington in folklore and ethnomusicology and her core research centers on African and African diaspora performance-centered studies, sacred and secular rituals, carnivalesque identities and cultural and community sustainability. As a cultural ethnographer, her research and publications have spanned the genres of gospel, blues and traditional jazz. Dr. Jackson has been instrumental in the production of several documentary recordings and authored their interpretive liner note booklets published by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Capitol Records, Inc. and Louisiana Folklife Recording Series. She has also authored many scholarly works including, Life in the Village: A Cultural Memory of the Fazendeville Community, and curated numerous art and historical exhibitions along with J. Nash Porter, the documentary photographer. One of their most notable exhibitions was for the Smithsonian Institution titled, New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians: Exploring a Community Tradition from an Insider’s View. Most recently, Dr. Jackson produced a documentary film titled, Easter Rock which was premiered at the Ethnografilm Festival in Paris, France.
About the panelists:
Based in New York, Najja Codrington is a co-founder of the Brooklyn Jumbies along with Ali Sylvester and is also Musical Director of the KowTeff School of African Dance. Najja was born into a family that is deeply rooted in both African and African-Caribbean culture. At the age of 10, under the guidance of Obara Wali Rahman, he received his first formal training of the Sabar orchestra as a member of Sabar Ak-Ru-Afrique. Najja’s studies encompass music and dance from both the Caribbean and West Africa. Najja has traveled abroad to Senegal, West Africa where he studied under the tutelage of the Drame/Diabate griot family. As a result, he was exposed to an extensive amount of lore. As Najja has studied African dance and drumming intensively for many years, several people have contributed to his learning, such as Sewaa Codrington, Aissatou Diop, Wilhemina Taylor, Gregory Ince, Karim Braithway, Kissima Diabate, and Souleyman Diop, to name just a few. Currently, Najja is involved in many cultural activities such as Cultural Youth International’s Brooklyn Jumbies, Adlib Steel Pan Orchestra KowTeff African Dance Company, Bakh Yaye and A Touch of Folklore & More.
Laurita Dollis has served as Big Queen of the Wild Magnolias for over 25 years and grew up in New Orleans. Widow of Big Chief Theodore Emile “Bo” Dollis, she began working on suits in the mid 1970s with her husband. In the 1980s Rita began masking with the family’s tribe, with whom she is also a musician. More recently, Laurita became founder and president of the Queens of the Nation Indian Council which advocates to create space for women within the Black masking Indian tradition and to share their knowledge with younger generations. She has received numerous honors, including the “Crystal Feather” award from the Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame.
Derrick Hulin has led the Golden Blades as Big Chief since 1998, when he revived the Uptown tribe with many community blessings, bringing it back to the New Orleans streets for the first time since 1970. As a tradition bearer for one of the oldest Mardi Gras Indian tribes, Hulin is a keeper of the Golden Blades’ history and its founding in 1936 in a saloon on the corner of Third & North Rocheblave, near the Calliope Projects, as a spin off from the Creole Wild West tribe. The Golden Blades’ first Big Chief was Ben Clark (1936-1943) followed by Leon “Happy Peanut” Robinson (1944-1946), Robert “Robbie” Lee (1948-1949), Leon “Happy Peanut” Robinson (1949-1950) and Paul “Red” Longpre (1950-1970). Hulin officially started masking as a Spy Boy with the Wild Magnolias at age 16 in Hollygrove, and created his first suit unofficially at age 4 with his father Irving Hullin. He is also a musician.
Darryl Montana is the Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas Hunters Black Masking Indian Tribe. According to the Chief, the New Orleans indigenous Black Indian movement of “masking Indian” on Carnival Day began in the late 1800’s in the Montana family. Hailing from a prominent family of Black Masking Indians and son of the Chief of Chiefs Allison “Big Chief Tootie” Montana, he uses sequins, beads, pearls, marabou, feathers and stones to create multi-dimensional Mardi Gras costumes for each year’s carnival in New Orleans. The techniques and use of materials have been passed down to him from his father. He began learning how to string beads at age six and made his first suit when he was eleven using a used vinyl raincoat as his canvas. His suits can take up to 5,000 hours to complete and they are created in response to themes like metamorphosis and evolution. He says that on Carnival day, “he is in full regalia representing a culture that unites the community around the tradition of masking and simply being the prettiest.” In addition to creating these massive pieces, Montana passes his techniques on to children and teaches them how to construct sculptural costumes. Montana’s work is in the public collections of the International Folk Art Museum and the Joan Mitchell Foundation and private collections of the late John Scott, Diego Cortez, Ron Bechet, and Mapo Kinnord-Payton, to name a few.
Sarauniya Zulu is a versatile stilt dancer, musician and educator based in New Orleans who has performed traditional African arts internationally with her family since she was a child. Niya’s many performing credits include the historical stage production “New Orleans Voices of Congo Square” at the Orpheum Theater, produced by Zulu Connection and created by her parents Big Chief Shaka Zulu and Naimah Zulu. She is fluent in French and studied Anthropology at the University of New Orleans.

Artist Talk with Laura Anderson Barbata
2021-09-30 18:30 - 19:30 | LA
Join the Newcomb Art Museum for a virtual lecture by artist Laura Anderson Barbata, whose wearable sculptures are featured in the museum’s current exhibition Transcommunality. Anderson Barbata will discuss her development as a socially engaged artist and her work with multiple stilt dancing communities across the Americas.
Register for the virtual talk now.
The exhibition Laura Anderson Barbata: Transcommunality runs through Saturday, October 2 and is free and open for all to attend. Click here to learn more about the artist and the show.

Janie Verret Luster: Coiled Half-Hitch Revival
2022-03-26 13:00 - 15:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
A master palmetto basket weaver and cultural preservationist of the United Houma Nation, Janie Verret Luster is widely recognized for her coiled half-hitch baskets, made using an intricate weaving technique lost to the Houma for a generation. Luster will discuss palmetto basket weaving using examples currently on view in “Core Memory: Louisiana Native American Basketry” exhibition at the Newcomb Art Musem, followed by a hands-on workshop where participants will learn techniques of this unique process. This event is free to the public and all materials are included, but the workshop requires advanced registration, as space is limited to 12 workshop participants. Weather permitting, the workshop will be outdoors — please bring a hat and/or sunglasses. Water will be provided.
The workshop will immediately follow an artist talk by Ms. Luster about her cultural and artistic practice. There is no registration required for the artist talk, only for the workshop.
Register now for the workshop!

Objects in Focus: Jesús Rafael Soto
2022-09-02 12:00 - 13:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Join us on the first Friday of each month at 12 Noon for short presentations on select artists from our permanent exhibition Metamorphoses.
September 2, 12pm
Jesús Rafael Soto by Museum Director Maurita Poole.
Image caption:

Fall 2022 Opening Reception
2022-09-17 12:00 - 17:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Celebrate the opening of two exhibitions, Metamorphoses: Highlights from the Permanent Collection and To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults by Jess T. Dugan and Vanessa Fabbre, on Saturday September 17 from 12 p.m to 5 p.m.
Program schedule:
12pm: Drop in family art activities & scavenger hunt
2p.m. – Metamorphoses Exhibition Tour

Walk through the exhibition with the curators and several artists featured in Metamorphoses including Jan Gilbert, Cynthia Scott, Melissa Turner Drumm, and Michel Varisco.
3p.m. – Jess T. Dugan Artist Talk
Learn about Jess T. Dugan’s portraits featured in To Survive on This Shore, created in collaboration with Vanessa Fabbre. Dugan will discuss how the years-long project took shape, the impetus behind it, and how it continues to have impact today.
4 p.m. – Reception continues with food and refreshments.

Image credits:
Pictured left: Jess T. Dugan. Duchess Milan, 69, Los Angeles, CA, (detail) 2017. Pigment Print. Courtesy of Barrett Barrera Projects and the artist
Pictured right: Michel Varisco. Trôleuse, (detail) 2019, from the series King Tides. Dye-sublimated photographic print on aluminum. Gift of an anonymous donor.

Jess T. Dugan Artist Talk
2022-09-17 15:00 - 16:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
An artist talk by Jess T. Dugan on the exhibition To Survive on This Shore.

Objects in Focus: Carrie Mae Weems
2022-10-20 12:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Join us each month for short presentations on select artists from our permanent exhibition Metamorphoses.
October 20, 12pm
Carrie Mae Weems by Curator Laura Blereau.
Image caption: Carrie Mae Weems, Approaching Time, 2003, gelatin silver print, gift of the artist.

Homecoming Open House
2022-10-21 11:00 - 15:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Enjoy Tulane’s Homecoming with free tours of the exhibition, a sneak peek at our permanent collection of Newcomb Pottery, art activities for kids, refreshments, and a book sale.
Please note: Permanent Collection access is limited from 12-2pm. On-campus parking is not available this day.

Monotype Workshop
2022-11-05 12:00 - 14:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Monotypes are unique one-of-a-kind prints that encourage improvisation and play. In this artist-led workshop for adults and kids, participants will make their own prints inspired by the work of John T. Scott in Metamorphoses.
Advance registration is required, as space is limited. To register, visit newcombartmuseum.tulane.edu.
Image caption: John T. Scott, Window Moth, Sunshine, 1997, monotype print, Collection of Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University.

Objects in Focus: Betsy Packard
2022-11-18 12:00 - 13:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Join us on the first Friday of each month at 12 Noon for short presentations on select artists from our permanent exhibition Metamorphoses.
November 18, 12pm
Betsy Packard by Curatorial Assistant Alex Landry.
Image caption: Betsy Packard, Clothes, 1978, natural and synthetic fibers, acrylic gel medium, gift of the artist.

Objects in Focus: Newcomb Pottery
2022-12-02 12:00 - 13:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Join us on the first Friday of each month at 12 Noon for short presentations on select artists from our permanent exhibition Metamorphoses.
December 2, 12pm
The Newcomb Pottery Enterprise by Collections Manager Sierra Polisar.
Image caption: Harriet “Hattie” Coulter Joor, Artist, Joseph Fortune Meyer, Potter, Tyg with Pine Grove Design, 1902, glazed ceramics, gift of Mrs. Marshall B. Stewart.

Artists in Focus
2023-02-02 18:00 - 19:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Activist, muralist, and artist Langston Allston will discuss the collaborative mural Together, Towards Freedom. The artwork was created with twelve young artists from the Youth Artist Movement (YAM). The mural depicts the harm of incarceration and the reimagining of a brighter future. Seen throughout the mural are messages of youth experiences in their day to day lives, and the history from which these issues are rooted.

Baby ArtsPlay
2023-02-04 10:30 - 11:00, 2023-02-11 10:30 - 11:00, 2023-02-25 10:30 - 11:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Engage your early learner with this series of 30-minute classes in the museum. Each stand-alone class involves music, movement and socialization for infants, toddlers and caregivers. Register at ya4la.org/programs.

Newcomb Pottery Tour
2023-03-03 12:00 - 13:00 | LA
Take a guided tour of the museum’s collection of Newcomb Pottery with our Collections Manager Sierra Polisar. Advance registration for this event is required as space is limited. Sign-up available soon.

When I heard hope, they got scared
2023-03-23 18:00 - 19:00 | LA
Hip-hop artists Mickey Factz and Mac Phipps in conversation with Tulane professors Dr. Corey Miles and Dr. Sabia McCoy-Torres of the Africana Studies Department discuss how hip-hop is used to legitimate anti-Black violence.
artwork pictured: Robert Jones, Why Me, 2022, acrylic paint on canvas.

Responding to the Juvenile Justice Crisis
2023-03-25 12:00 - 14:00 | LA
A panel of experts including members of the steering committee for exhibition “Unthinkable Imagination” will discuss critical concerns to policy and advocacy centered on the juvenile justice system.
artwork pictured: Pat Phillips I Am My Brother’s Keeper / Matter Of Fact, You Going To Have Your Business… 2022-2023 acrylic, pencil, airbrush, aerosol paint on canvas stretched on wood panel; concrete and brick rubble.

Closing Reception for "Unthinkable Imagination"
2023-06-10 14:00 - 16:00 | LA
A final celebration of youth empowerment featuring a film by the Dance for Social Change Teen Company, a talk by artist Ivy Mathis, snacks, and a youth creative showcase (8th to 12th grade).
