Thomas Mann and Hillary

New Orleans icon and Friend of the Arts Council Thomas Mann scored a nice commission this year, creating holiday gifts for Hillary Clinton. Full story here. Nice job, Tom!

The other thing to note, is though Tom has been in NOLA forever, he came here from PA one year to do Jazz Fest and stayed. We talk about the changes in technology allowing artists to live anywhere, (hopefully here!), but it's important to remember that Tom came here in the 1970's, and made a go of it. New Orleans has been a haven for artists since shortly after Bienville landed, and Tom's just one example.

Local Company Made Good

New Digital Media Group, headed by Tim Ryan and friend of the Arts Council, has been tapped to create a national commercial for Google. Very exciting, and another example of how you can be based in New Orleans and work from anywhere. With no real traffic, relatively cheap rents, mild winters, and 24 hour bars with killer music, NOLA's pretty nice when you can grab a job for the Googles of the world.

St Claude Ave Art Scene

Unlike the other raving reviews, this article focuses on P1 as re-developing the city, esp St. Claude Ave, obviously a big thing for this (now back in action) blog! We really are watching something impressive happen with St. Claude Ave. All this new action makes me wonder if this was what it was like in the late 1970's for those people involved with developing the CAC and Julia St.

It should be fun to be a part of. We all know that St. Claude's the future of contemporary art in NOLA. The foot traffic on the ave since P1 opened is dramatic, and assuming Colton keeps rolling, it should have long term benefits.