March Gulf Coast Trip

Monday March 23, 2009
Left Houston with Elia Arce at 12:00pm towards New Orleans, LA. We arrived at Anita Powell's house where we ate diner and slept. Anita Powell is a hat designer originally from Los Angeles, CA. She has been living in New Orleans since 1994, and has been making church hats ever since. She currently volunteers at Common Ground free health clinic created for under served communities after hurricane Katrina. She has implemented the Art Therapy program. Elia Arce commissioned Anita Powell to offer three workshops throughout the Gulf Coast region.

Tuesday March 24, 2009
Mrs. Powell, Elia Arce, and I left to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. We arrived at the Hattiesburg cultural center near downtown, where Patty Hall, head of the City of Hattiesburg Arts Council. They had prepared a few tables for the workshop, and signed up ten senior citizens that belong to a church. The ladies had an amazing amount of fun. I took photographs and video footage. I interviewed a few seniors, as well as Patty Hall. Everyone seemed very content with the project, as it allowed the city to keep seniors in the community active through the arts. The women also talked about having tea parties with their new hats. Patty Hall paid for the ten women to take the workshop with money from the City of Hattiesburg Arts Council, and she assured these types of activities would continue, and that she would definitely contact Anita Powell again.
We spent the night at Susan Fitzsimmons's home. Susan is an Assistant Professor at the School of Art in University of Southern Mississippi and the Director of the Arts Incubator.  She has an MFA in painting/drawing, and worked in sculpture and other media for years. She would say, that she is an artifact-having been around long enough by now. She was an exceptional host. Elia Arce, Anita Powell and I are very grateful she opened her home to us.

Hat Workshop Hattiesburg, Mississippi (click on the photo for slideshow)

Wednesday March 25, 2009
We left Hattiesburg, MS after a nice breakfast in a coffee shop called Boheme. It seems like every town has one of those. Susan Fitzsimmons had some of her paintings in exhibit there. We drove towards Biloxi, MS. We greeted by Rosa Herrin, Community Outreach Program Coordinator at El Pueblo/The Village and Anne Kotleba, Community based art coordinator at the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum. The women taking this workshop were the most diverse, coming from all different communities and ages. I met Trihn Le, one of Elia’s New Voices co-fellow. She is a community organizer at the Hope Coordination Center in Biloxi, where the Vietnamese community which is very large due to this community's contribution to the national shrimp industry. I also met Annette Hollowell, community organizer at the Mississippi Center for Justice and other community organizers that work with the Katrina Research Center in the area. This workshop seemed very valuable in uniting people from different communities and in making new connections within themselves.

We stayed at a casino, of the many in Biloxi, called the IP. It was very interesting to find out that government spending in this area has focused on casino construction and remodeling. Apparently casinos are what people want and need to boost up the economy in the area. Apparently people from Mobile, Alabama frequent here because it very close.

Hat Workshop  Biloxi, Mississippi (click on the photo for slideshow)

Thursday March 26, 2009
We left Biloxi, MS and drove to Mobile, Alabama. Surprisingly this was the shortest trip of all, less than an hour. We arrived at the Housing First organization. Emile Wilson works there and is also a New Voices fellow along with Simone Washington who helped with the logistics of the workshop in Mobile. They prepared lunch for us, and also a workroom for the hat workshop. The Housing First organization was very helpful in hosting the hat workshop. They were all very excited to participate, and even made posters for the event. Elia and I were finally able to make our hats, since two of the ladies had cancelled. I was able to shoot some photographs of the whole process. The women taking this workshop were there for different reasons. Two of them had been previously homeless, and had gotten a home through this organization. Others were friends of the event organizers and some of the staff in the office also participated. I was glad to make a hat and felt very lucky to have the opportunity. Later that night we ate at a seafood restaurant and had the best, award winning, Gumbo in the whole Gulf Coast. That night we stayed at the Ramada inn in downtown Mobile. It is such a beautiful city, I was amazed of the immense trees in the front lawns of the beautiful southern homes with large columns and wraparound porches.

Hat Workshop  Mobile, Alabama (click on the photo for slideshow)

Friday March 27, 2009
We left Mobile, Alabama in the early morning and drove to Anita Powell’s home in New Orleans, LA. On our way back home we stopped in Baton Rouge, LA to find an authentic place to eat. After a while of driving around and asking from suggestions from people in the area, we found a huge thrift shop/coffee shop/art gallery. There was an old man playing the mandolin, and Elia and I froze in awe of our new treasure. We spent 3 hours talking to this man, and found he is the Italian professor at LSU and has been living in Baton Rouge for about 30 years. Elia naturally bought his CD and exchanged contact information. Unluckily the coffee shop was closed, so after the long talk with Garret we went on our way to find food. We were finally directed to the most authentic place to eat boudin in Baton Rouge. This grocery store/ fast food restaurant had a huge pool filled with fish at the entrance. I had never tried boudin and specially seafood sausage. It was amazing! We were so hungry!

Elia Arce was able to pay and provide the opportunity of creating a hat for 10 women from Biloxi and 10 women from Mobile, including me. I was able to give a presentation on a short history of hats, and through this presentation educate some women about the famous church hat and its origins.

I learned through Elia Arce’s project that anthropological fieldwork is necessary in creating a thesis for a social action that results in the creation of art and culture.

I am very grateful to have taken this journey with Elia Arce and Anita Powell. I met wonderful people and realized the thirst for community and art in the cities we visited. I am sure this project has touched many lives in positive ways, and it will continue to do so. I am also eager to work towards the next project that will continue the connection of people in the Gulf Coast Region through the Arts.

Aisen Chacin
Intern: Media Production