Projects

Commuters. Commutants

I spent 9 happy years in New Orleans. My community there was made up almost entirely of transplants. People needing something that where they came from couldn’t offer them (I’m sure that’s true for many from New Orleans as well). New Orleans felt like an alternate universe to me. One where people could speak their minds. A million miles from the protestant avoidance of conflict. A community where people could make a joke about difference rather than pretend it didn’t exist. A place where people made their own clothes, music, and of course food. A place where people bought you a drink. Experienced regular tragedies and shared the sorrow that followed. Sipped a Drink and Danced in the street. At some point a friend referred to it as the Island of Misfit Orphans and that resonated and stuck with me. 

I’m just as susceptible to watching a reel of sports highlights and getting emotional about it as the average person. I’ve watched Steph Curry videos past my bedtime, in bathrooms, waiting in line, and at work. But being from a place where sports, family, and religion were the only inputs shaping consciousness I was drawn to art and weird. There’s was a lot of both in my small Bywater Community in New Orleans (2004-09)

I supposed none of this would have ever happened if I had differentiated from my parents at 13 when most do.