American Craft Forums
American Craft Forums are a dynamic series of programs, presented in conjunction with American Craft magazine, that brings together the past, present, and future of craft through artist spotlights, deep dives into creative practices, archival explorations, and timely conversations that connect contemporary issues with the handmade world.
Vibrant & Vivacious
Conversations in Craft from New Orleans
This Craft Forum took place January 25, 2024.
Presented in conjunction with the Winter 2024 issue of American Craft.
Watch the Forum below or visit our YouTube channel.
What comes to mind when you think of New Orleans? Mardi Gras? Bourbon Street and the French Quarter? The birthplace of jazz? The Garden District and stunning architecture? Hurricanes and rising water levels? All of the above?
A vibrant and complex city, New Orleans, Louisiana, is abundant in creativity. There’s an energy to the city like few other places in the country. The art—the craft—seems to burst forth from gallery and museum walls to strut its stuff in the streets. As New Orleans native Charles DuVernay puts it, “It comes to life.” There’s a flamboyance, freedom, passion, and verve embodied by the artists who call this place home.
Our Winter 2024 Forum is inspired by the latest installment of The Scene in the Winter 2024 issue of American Craft. We invite you to join ceramist and educator MaPó Kinnord, Mardi Gras suit maker and visual artist Charles DuVernay, installation artist and printmaker Pippin Frisbie-Calder, and master plasterer Jeff Poree for a broad conversation around the multifaceted arts community in New Orleans, exploring what it’s like to live and practice there, and reflecting on the joys and hardships intrinsic to a city with so much individuality, culture, and history.
Participants
MaPó Kinnord
Moderator
MaPó Kinnord grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and began her clay commitment in a Quaker high school arts program. She apprenticed with several production potters before receiving a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and MFA from Ohio State University. Moving to New Orleans in 1994, MaPó is now professor of art and chair of Art and Performance Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana. MaPó has taught workshops at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Penland School of Crafts and overseas in Matsue, Japan.
Charles DuVernay
Speaker
Charles DuVernay is a Mardi Gras suit maker and visual artist who grew up in the 7th Ward in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. DuVernay serves as the Flag Boy under his uncle, Big Chief Tyrone “Pie” Stevenson, and masks as part of the Monogram Hunters, one of the many tribes of Black Masking Indian communities in New Orleans.
Pippin Frisbie-Calder
Speaker
Pippin Frisbie-Calder is an installation artist and printmaker living and working in New Orleans. Her large-scale work deftly navigates and explores issues of climate change, species extinction, and environmental stewardship. Her prints and installations have been shown widely around New Orleans, most prominently as a solo show at the New Orleans Contemporary Art Center. She has also exhibited at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Michigan, Denver, Maine, South Carolina and Rhode Island in the United States, as well as internationally in Indonesia and as a part of the Biennale Internationale d’estampe contemporaine in Canada.
Jeffrey M. Poree, Sr.
Speaker
Jeffrey M. Poree, Sr., a fifth-generation plasterer and patriarch of the legendary Poree family of plasterers, is the owner of Jeff Poree Plastering in New Orleans. The Poree family is legendary for their exceptional skills in ornamental exterior and interior plaster, artistic molds and specialty finishes, including old-world Venetian and exotic finishes. Jeff Poree Plastering maintains a full-time art department and can restore almost any mold by working from fragments, photographs, or drawings. Mr. Poree is the plasterer of record for many of the region’s most important restorations of historic sites, including the historic New Orleans Collection Williams Research Center in the French Quarter and the Peristyle in City Park.
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