Another Kind of Carnival - Part 1

 May 4, 2024

A couple of notes - first, I'll stop posting these as "Pandemic Diaries."  Not that Covid is gone, but we're not really in that pandemic phase.  I'm still masking up, given my lungs, but I know most people are back to normal.  

Second, I'm dating these blogs back to the approximate time they happened, even if the posting date is months later.  It's been a busy summer, as always.  So I'm playing catch-up.

We left off in New Orleans.  After Carnival there, culminating in that amazing Mardi Gras parade, Richard and I knew we had to go back to St. Thomas and celebrate another Carnival there.  It was always our favorite event of the year, as it is for most Virgin Islanders.  At the end of April, we flew on south.

Now, Carnival in the Caribbean happens at various times, because each island or island nation will have their own Carnival.  Trinidad celebrates a pre-Lenten Carnival.  But the Virgin Islands, with three major islands, celebrates three Carnivals each year.  We're most used to the Carnival on St. Thomas, though we've attended events on both St. John and St. Croix.

We booked a hotel right in town, in Charlotte Amalie, so that we could walk to all the events.  Perfect location, even if it was a bit loud most nights due to the festivities which can continue until sunrise.  Or close to sunrise, anyway.

 

Carnival really begins a month earlier than we arrived, with weekly events such as Battle of the Bands.  Battle of the Steel Pan Bands.  Battle of the Brass Bands.  Queen competition.  King competition.  Prince and Princess competitions.  Calypso competitions at various age levels.  It goes on and on.

 

We arrived in time for Food Fair, which is always on Wednesday of the last week for Carnival.  Ended up not going, the site changed and was not in walking distance.  We tried waiting for the provided van or bus, but there was a huge crowd, and one tiny van showed up.  Oh well.  On to the next activity.

 

Thursday (May 2) was J'ouvert, which translates to "I open."  I guess as in the opening of the culminating Carnival activities.  J'ouvert is the huge road march with bands on flatbed trucks, going down the main road along the waterfront.  Crazy and crowded, people in just about anything you could imagine, lots of music pulsating and throbbingly loud - it's kind of controlled chaos and so much fun!  

 

It turned out one of my former students and her partner put together their wedding for J'ouvert morning!  The first band and crowd that went by our hotel was the wedding group, guests, families, and the happy couple.  One of the most creative and undoubtedly cool wedding celebrations ever!!!  Just a brilliant idea!

 

Richard and I went down to the street when the other bands began to come by, and hung outside for a while.  J'ouvert does move a bit slowly, and after the sun was getting bright and hot we went for breakfast.  We both had fun watching people, though, and looking for friends, former colleagues, and just anyone we knew.

 

Friday is the Children's Parade, always adorable.  There are six different kinds of troupes, or maybe just six different components of the troupes.  There are mocko jumbies, the stilt dancers.  Floats, though usually there are only a few floats.  Twirlers (baton twirlers).  Marchers/dancers (without batons).  Steel pan bands, on trolleys because the bass pans are huge.  And Carnival clowns, sort of masked dancers in a specific one-piece kind of costume.

Some of these are school groups, some are social or neighborhood troupes.  Some are even community groups, such as those sponsored by a sorority or fraternity, or the territorial court.  Fun ways for children and teens to participate in Carnival.

My policy is usually to walk the parade.  It's slow and boring to sit in one spot and watch the parade go by, because there are stands set up along the parade route.  The judges sit in the stands and each troupe or section of a troupe will perform their routine right in front of the judges.  And then move on.  While it's fun to watch each routine, it's really crowded right there.  Further down the parade route means spending a lot of time waiting.  So I just walk along the parade route, stopping periodically to watch the participants, talk to friends, whatever.

I walked out of our hotel and up one block to Main Street, the route for the parades.  I saw a mocko jumbie talking to a child on its mother's shoulders.  Took some photos, and started back toward the street.  Except this mocko jumbie said, "Hello, Ms. Schwartz."

Well!  Mocko jumbies are covered head to toe, including faces covered.  They represent spiritual or ethereal beings, so we're really not supposed to know which human is playing this role.  But hey, this was obviously one of my students, grown into a tall man on six foot stilts!  So I asked, we chatted, and yes, he was one of my students from who knows how long ago.  As is usual in the VI, I know his mother.  I know his father.  His younger brother was also one of my students.  I probably spent fifteen minutes or so chatting with this mocko jumbie as he stepped and balanced on those stilts that are taller than I am!

That was kind of how the Children's Parade went for me.  Seeing colleagues across the street and waving madly at each other.  Passing by a former student who is now grown into an adult and has their own children, or is manning a secure area for VIPs.  Running into a colleague with whom I worked on a committee, and giving each other big hugs in the crowd before catching up on the past ten years or so.  

Of course, also watching the adorable children as they performed or walked by, so serious as they concentrated on the steps of their routine.  Or the really little ones being carried by a parent, because a mile or two is a long trek for the preschooler littles.

I walked about a mile, from our hotel to Fort Christian, the big red fort built in 1671.  The man selling drinks didn't have bottled water, he was making smoothies.  But this is the VI, it was Carnival, everyone was happy and friendly.  So he poured me a cup of water over ice and refused payment of any kind.  Is it any wonder we love this place?

I turned around and walked back along the parade route, saying hi again to some of the people I'd run into, recognizing others and copying the same routine.  

I probably didn't see the entire parade, but I did see my former school's steel pan band.  The principals have changed, as have the steel pan band director, so I knew no one in the group.  Oh well, time moves on, waits for no one, all that stuff.

It was great fun, and a wonderful way to return to a place that was our home for over twenty years.

Pandemic Diaries - Year 4 - New Orleans - Art!

28 April 2024

 

I spent some of the coldest weeks in New Orleans crocheting scarves for people who might need them.  We encountered record lows, or at least record lows in recent years.  Homes in this area aren't built for below freezing temperatures, and we were wearing double layers of clothing with the heat on.  I could only imagine how it would be living in one of the many tent encampments we saw.  There is a huge housing shortage in many parts of the US, so some indigent people have ended up living in tents.  NOT good when the temperature hits 19º F!!!

 

The scarves ranged in color from neutral greys and browns, to cheerful pinks and oranges.  Lots of blues, aquas, greens.  Just because someone is homeless doesn't mean they need ugly scarves, right?

 

I also joined the local UrbanSketchers group.  For people who haven't heard of UrbanSketchers, this is a worldwide movement to create art in urban spaces, and show others the beauty in the world's cities, towns, villages.  Life isn't all pastoral vistas.  And even within the largest cities, there are green spaces.  

 

So UrbanSketchers meet up, usually once a month, and people go off to draw, paint, whatever.  Then the artists come back together to admire each other's work.  We also post our work at the group Facebook page if there is one, as well as on our personal UrbanSketchers page or blog.  That's it, just artists doing their creating and putting the images in a public place.

 

The first meetup I attended was outside a gorgeous old home, now used by the Women's Guild of the New Orleans Opera.  We couldn't go in, but most people brought chairs and sat around the building.  Some drew detailed architectural renderings, some more casual sketches of the beautiful and stately house full of porches and turrets.

 

But it was a somewhat foggy and mysterious morning.  We were in the Garden District, full of huge old live oak trees with overhanging branches creating partial tunnels out of the streets.  I stood at the corner and sketched two trees framing a smaller house, surrounded by the ubiquitous wrought iron fence.  I tried to capture the calm and somewhat mystical feeling of the morning in my sketch.  True to form, I was the sole person who did not draw the building at which we met.  I guess I somehow missed that part of the memo!

My second meet up, in April, was at a place called The Fly.  It's also known as the Audubon Riverview Park, which better describes it.  This is a large park along the Mississippi, south of Audubon Park, built on top of the levee.  There are little pavilions, benches along a path, plenty of parking, even restrooms.  It's a great place to sketch.

I said hi to my artist friend, and wandered down to the far end from the group.  There was a gangway leading to a floating dock, and some kind of lookout structure.  But what I really liked were the cormorants stretched out along the top tier, drying off in the sunshine, and watching
the river float by.

I was so busy painting my little individual cormorants, I somehow missed the time for the meet up.  My friend came by to let me know everyone else had left.  Yeah, I may not be cut out for group activities.  But I really like the sunlight and shadows on the white tower, the dark cormorants mere silhouettes against the muddy river, and the industrial activity just a blur on the opposite shore.  I think this painting really works.  (Just a note - I used the tiny pocket-sized paint kit I bought in Italy two years ago - all those colors from just six colors of paint!)

My artist friend and I went to the New Orleans Museum of Art, NOMA, up at City Park.  There was an exhibit of artwork by Wangechi Mutu, a Kenyan-American artist.  I had seen some of her work at the New Museum in New York City last May, but that was more of a quick overview.  It was great to see more of her work and have time to really look at all the intricate details, as well as reading the information placards.

These are huge and heavy sculptures, cast metal and enameled.  Each must weigh at least a ton if not more.  I would guess cranes or pulleys were used to move each piece - and one semi trailer per sculpture!  Just moving these sculptures from place to place would need the logistics and tactics of engineers as well as art curators!

 

My favorites are her sculptures, three of which were in the museum's extensive sculpture gardens.  I think "Crocodylus" is my favorite, a fierce warrior woman riding on the back of the crocodile, and sort of merging into the crocodile, becoming one.  The other two are "The Seated III" and "In Two Canoe."

Mutu's humans are often like that, part human, part animal or plant or object.  Maybe a combination of all of those.  Some of her artwork seems like Native American legends, that we humans are merely part of the animal and plant kingdom, just one part of the entire world, working together symbiotically.  Or maybe humans need to embrace that part of ourselves.  I don't know.  But her artwork definitely makes us THINK.  And think BIG THOUGHTS.  Those big important philosophical issues dating back to Plato and Socrates, the meaning of life, the meaning of self.

Or maybe that's just how I relate to her artwork and sculpture.

I had three other trips to the museum/sculpture gardens - once with my sister-in-law, once with my sister and my niece, and one last time with my nephew and another niece.  Lots of family visits.  And lots of interesting artwork.

Some that caught my attention: 

"History of the Conquest" by Hank Willis Thomas.  I love the whimsical nature of the person riding a snail!

"Mississippi Meanders" by Elyn Zimmerman - this is a glass bridge across one of the various streams or creeks that wanders through the sculpture gardens.  Really, people walk across this beautiful glass bridge!

 

 

 

 

"Mirror Labyrinth" by Jeppe Hein is a series of mirrored planks standing upright, set in a spiralling pattern.  Sort of Stonehenge with mirrors or something!  Fun to walk into - and somehow, I came out at a different place than where I entered.  There may have been three entrance/exit spots, I don't know.  (I could be really bad and say it was all done with smoke and mirrors, but that's too obvious.)

 

 

 

 

"Alu Truss Star" by Frank Stella is deceptively simple.  From one view, it looks like a flat six-pointed star.  Take a few steps left or right, it becomes an eight-pointed star.  Walk a bit further, it changes from two- to three-dimensional.  It was almost like one of those folded paper fortune things we made as children, folding in and out of itself in a variety of directions.

"Viñales (Mayombe Mississippi)" by Teresita Fernandez is a huge mosaic mural.  HUGE.  The size given is 182" x 624", or 15.17 feet high by 52 feet long.  That's roughly 5 yards or meters high, and just over 17 yards or meets long.  That's 780 square feet, or 85 square meters.  HUGE!  The tiles are just a bit over 1" square, each one made of ceramic and glazed to whatever color the artist needed for that particular part of the mosaic.  I have no idea if the artist made the tiles herself, or if she had an entire atelier of assistants working with her.  I just know this magnificent mural was a major undertaking!  You can see more photos and read about this mural here:  https://mosaika.com/project/teresita-fernandez-vinales-mayombe-mississippi-en/

There are other sculptures, but my camera battery died.  Yaacov Agam.  Isamu Noguchi.  Frank Stella.  Frank Gehry.  Pierre-Auguste Renoir.  Auguste Rodin.  Augustus Saint-Gaudens.  (Makes you wonder about all these sculptors named Auguste or Augustus, doesn't it?)  Claes Oldenburg.  Robert Indiana.  Henry Moore.  Deborah Butterworth.  George Rickey.

 

I kept looking for an Andy Goldsworthy, he's best known for his sculptures that merge into the landscape, but I didn't see any.

Artist heaven.  The sculpture gardens are free, and are open even on Mondays, when the museum is closed.  Absolutely worth a visit!