Houston arts council opens doors to New Orleans artists
Four New Orleans college students and their dogs piled into a Volkswagen compact at the onset of Hurricane Ida, headed for safer ground in Houston. They were all creatives — painters, fashion designers and musicians.
One of them — Lyrik Lazard, a 21-year-old senior at Dillard University in New Orleans — had a plan: to get the group to the Harris County Cultural Arts Council’s 20,000-square-foot cultural center for refuge. The council had launched Project Bridge Over Troubled Waters, an effort to provide temporary shelter and studio and rehearsal space for New Orleans artists affected by the hurricane. Lazard said her father, a musician from New Orleans living in Los Angeles, read about it on Facebook.
“I only brought four changes of clothes,” said Lazard, a musician and jewelry designer who sells her pieces in a vintage boutique in New Orleans and online. “I had never been in an hurricane before, and we packed as much as we could to get here.”
Their first few days in Houston, Lazard and the other students slept on a friend’s living room floor. Her service dog, Skye, who is always by Lazard’s side because of her challenges with hearing loss, had to sleep outside. That was especially tough, she said. While her friends secured other places for housing, Lazard found a place to sleep at a church-sponsored Airbnb rental. But at the council’s massive space, she found a place to create, at least until she could get back to New Orleans.
“Before all of this, we had planned on a jewelry art exhibit in New Orleans. We had rented a warehouse and decorated it. Things changed so quickly. I’m overwhelmed that there’s a place for creatives to go in an emergency and continue to create,” she said.
Many artists lost everything — their instruments, art supplies and paintings — all soaked or washed away in the flooding water.
That’s why the council’s effort is noble: a small way to take care of artists who help take care of our souls during tough times, like natural disasters and a pandemic. We’ve all watched the organic music performances from artists’ bedrooms on Instagram or Facebook and bought masks from fashion designers trying to make a living when few were buying fancy clothes.
Creating art has a way of healing.
Artists can stay up to 45 days at the council’s nearby housing facility, which was formerly a day care center, and up to several months in the studio space.
Founded in 2018 by Michelle Bonton, a retired educator, the nonprofit organization is strategically located in what Bonton calls an “arts desert,” an unincorporated part of east Harris County where there are few opportunities to take in art performances or exhibitions and even fewer for artists to create. More than 2 million residents live in unincorporated areas of Harris County; they have no municipal government. The council is located in a former church on Wallisville Road, about 15 minutes from downtown Houston.
It also provides art exhibit space, a theater and performance areas, and its walls are beautifully lined with the work of local talent, like environmental artist Charles Washington. His captivating series “What’s in a Door,” uses old doors as canvas for his stirring, colorful art. Bonton has curated an exhibit on display called “Crowns: A Celebration of Black Female Resiliency,” which showcases the majestic hats worn by Black women and inspired by her late grandmother.
“Houston loves the arts, but we live in an area that has little,” said Bonton, who was raised in Fifth Ward and had a father who was a professional singer. “I grew up around music and ran summer arts camps. I know how important arts are for a community to thrive.”
Houston artist Ted Ellis, a native of New Orleans, is on the council’s advisory board and is working to secure more funding for Project Bridge Over Troubled Waters. There’s currently a Go Fund Me campaign. He was in New Orleans after Hurricane Ida hit last month to help family and friends.
“You see resilience here because so many people still don’t have the means,” he said. “The entire functionality of creatives is to present their art. There are festivals regularly in New Orleans, and when something like this happens, the city is dead. It takes something out of you. But it’s also during times like this that artists speak to heal and to inform.”
Project Bridge Over Troubled Waters is a creative incubator with “so much potential,” Ellis said. “We have a whole campus centered around creatives to give them a place to land to create art works that speak, that help to heal and that document what is happening right now. This is a perfect fit and will benefit the entire community because we know artists revive our hope that everything will be OK.”
Ellis has worked to inspire and uplift with his own work. He created a series of murals in 2015 for the New Orleans’ Lower
Ninth Ward Living Museum in the neighborhood where he grew up. Among his many celebrated works, he created a mural for the Juneteenth celebration at the Wilmington Library in Delaware, where he also has a three-month exhibition of 15 of his paintings focused on social justice.
“The arts and artists play a vital role in the reparation and repairing of communities that are impacted by bad racial policies. It’s a way to right the wrongs through the arts,” he said.
In New Orleans, Prospect New Orleans, a citywide triennial contemporary art exhibition that has been in operation for decade, has been delayed due to hurricane and will open in November through January. It will feature 51 artists, including Houston artists Adriana Corral and Jamal Cyrus, who grew up in Third Ward. His “Levels and Layers” exhibit is on display at the University Museum at Texas Southern University.
At the council, Houston native Mark T. Williams II, a musician, author and tech educator at a New Orleans high school, said although he wasn’t affected by the hurricane, many of his friends lost so much. He’s helping to bring artists who need support to Houston.
“We have to take care of our artists because the artists take care of the community,” he said.
In a hallway standing in front of the “All that Jazz” quilt by Houstonian Mary Wheatley, Williams pulls out a harmonica and plays a melody. It was a rich, soulful sound that seemed so right for the space.
Later that day, two more New Orleans artists — Asia Palmer, a painter, and Shaquita Griffin, a spoken-word poet and tattoo artist — arrived at the council after their homes were flooded during Hurricane Ida. They will be at the council’s facilities for some months.
Lazard, who hopes to attend graduate school at New York University to become a music therapist, said this is how it should be.
“It’s important we stick together, no matter what,” she said.