Dead Outlaw

Theater Review

Dead Outlaw, a delightfully deadpan new musical at the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village is based on a bizarre, but true story of an inept cowboy bandit in the early 1900s who was gunned down in a shoot-out with police. Due to some weird circumstances, his body was embalmed and went through some unusual adventures as a side-show attraction in various carnivals and amusement parks (“Step right up an see an actual HUMAN MUMMY!! Just a nickel!”) before being discovered by a technician on location for an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man in 1976. No kidding, this really happened.

Elmer McCurdy, was born in 1880, the son of a teenage unwed mom and was raised by his aunt and uncle in rural Maine.  After a troubled youth he turned to drinking and rode the rails seeking work.  At one point he served in the army under Douglas MacArthur where he had some rudimentary explosives training, which he later put to use when he formed a gang to rob banks and trains.  Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t much good at it and after a number of bungled robberies, was killed when cornered by the law. Although not successful in life,  McCurdy achieved notoriety in death and continued his drifting from town to town as his mummified corpse entertained thousands in several traveling road shows until it was finally retired 65 years after he died. 

The show was conceived by David Yazbek, who was intrigued by this story for years, until he was able to find the right approach for bringing it to life.  The book was by Itamar Moses and the director was David Cromer, both of whom collaborated with Yazbek on The Band’s Visit, winner of 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical.  Dead Outlaw, with its equally ingenious and quirky story and outstanding music, as well as uniformly rave reviews, could very well follow in its “older brother’s” footsteps.  

The Dead Outlaw creative team (L to R): David Yazbek, Itamar Moses, David Cromer, Erik Della Penna, and musical supervisor, Dean Sharenow

Erik Della Pena (L) and David Yazbek (R) at a briefing and short preview for the press

Music and lyrics were by Yazbek and Erik Della Penna. The music was inventive, with a unique cowboy rock twist, thanks in part to Della Penna who also plays guitar, lap steel guitar and banjo as well as sings in the band (which is on stage front and center for the entire show).  We’ve been enjoying Della Penna’s music with our favorite band Hazmat Modine for years and his contributions to Dead Outlaw are both easy to discern and fun to hear.

Satirical lyrics were delivered with understated whimsy (e.g., in the songs “There’s Something About a Mummy!” and “Look at Me Dead”) and enhanced a finely sung and spoken narration by Jeb Brown that explored McCurdy’s life and “life” after death.  Andrew Durand’s (Spring Awakening) portrayals of the living and embalmed McCurdy were entertaining and equally riveting. It can’t be easy to remain upright and motionless as his cadaver is schlepped around for half the show. 

Andrew Durand as the very much alive Elmer McCurdy, with Jeb Brown (in hat as narrator in left photo) and as the corpse (right photo)

Julia Knitel as McCurdy’s fiancé

The supporting cast was uniformly solid and smoothly pulled off this truth is stranger-than-fiction Wild Bill Hickok farce.  Of particular note, was the zany crooning of Thom Sesma, playing one of the two doctors performing separate autopsies on McCurdy’s corpse, and breaking into a Frank Sinatra style ballad about his results. As was Julia Knitel playing McCurdy’s one-time fiancé before he splits to begin his life of crime and years later, as she’s called upon to identify his long-dead corpse and serenades us as she tenderly laments he’d always been “A Stranger.”

Services to celebrate the Dead Mummy are scheduled at the Minetta Lane Theater for the next three weeks with final internment on April 7… unless of course, the body is exhumed and shipped uptown on the A Train for yet another Broadway revival!

Click above for a brief preview

Linda and The Mockingbirds

Film Review

Linda and the Mockingbirds is a documentary film released in 2020 in which Linda Ronstadt meets a group of young Mexican American musicians and dancers from Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center in California who want to travel back and visit the homeland of their ancestors in Mexico. According to its founders, the name Los Cenzontles (which means The Mockingbirds in the indigenous Nahuati language) was chosen because despite its name, the mockingbird doesn’t “mock” other birds but listens to their sounds and incorporates them into its own voice. They strive to do the same by seeking out and assimilating the voices of their Mexican ancestors.

Linda is so moved by their desire to keep their culture and heritage alive, she agrees to help sponsor the trip and gets her long-time friend Jackson Browne to join them on this musical odyssey.

The movie is part travelogue, tracing their journey, with lots of interviews of the leaders and the kids themselves, and part concert, where we are treated to hearing and watching them perform.

Along the way we hear of the poverty, injustice, and fear that inspired many immigrants to flee and risk their lives trying for a chance at a better life in the United States. Many never made it… some were stopped at the border and sent back, still others lost their lives under the harsh conditions or due to mistreatment by gang-run human traffickers. Those who made it across the border still faced huge obstacles and many children were separated from their families and housed in cages. They worked hard to build a future for themselves and their families but never escaped the fear of deportation.

Although it’s sad that, due to illness Linda can no longer perform, it was great to see how dedicated she is to preserving her own Mexican roots. This was brought home by a number of legacy clips of her performing in her younger days, traditional Mexican music that will just knock your socks off – I kept turning up the volume! When she was listening to some of the incredibly talented young singers, it brought tears to my eyes to see her singing along to herself – at one point she talks about her sadness over no longer being able to sing.

And then, of course there’s Jackson Browne, who sang together with Los Cenzontles, several amazing and soulful tunes that focused on the fate of immigrants both today and throughout American history, including one tune he co-wrote with Eugene Rodriguez, Director of Los Cenzontles called The Dreamer and a great rendition of Woody Guthrie’s Deportees. He chatted about how cool it was for these kids to have a chance to discover their cultural history and strengthen connections.  

When asked how they got Jackson Browne to join them, Linda smiled and said simply, “We asked him.” Likewise, Jackson said, “When Linda Ronstadt asks you to go to Mexico, I don’t need anything more than that, it’s go!” As we saw firsthand on his recent tour, Jackson can still bring it…Hearing him perform, discuss his down to earth progressive views, and inspire young people, I was reminded of another of my heroes, Pete Seeger.  

Eugene Rodriguez

The Director of Los Cenzontles and a talented Mexican American folk singer in his own right, Eugene Rodriguez plays a central role in the project and in the film. He plays guitar, sings, arranges their music and serves as band leader. He also discusses the motivation felt by the members of the center and how important it is for them to preserve their culture.

We watched it on Amazon Prime which now has f*€king commercials set to air at specific times and the movie was crudely put on pause, often in mid sentence. They couldn’t be bothered to find natural breaks in the film to cut away. Very bush league and incredibly annoying. How much more $$$ does Bezos need anyway?  

In spite of this hassle, however, it’s definitely worth watching!

---

---

---

• 

  Slideshow: Click arrows to advance

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Joan Baez: I am a Noise

A Behind the Curtain Glimpse at Joan Baez’ Troubled Life

For many of us who grew up hearing her golden and powerful three-octave soprano voice, Joan Baez was almost a friend of the family.  I was raised in a household where folk music was revered and played morning, noon, and night and her albums (along with those of Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Woodie Guthrie, Odetta, Leadbelly, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and of course, Bob Dylan to name a few) were as familiar to me as the Dodgers’ lineup.  Many of our folk music heroes also shared our left-leaning political views and their music became synonymous with the battles for civil rights and workers’ rights, protests against the Viet Nam war and the draft, and struggles for justice and equality for all.

As I write in my book, “The Mystery Boy and Other Stories…“ [1]

“Lou and Zelda took me to my first folk concert to hear Joan Baez at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in August 1963. It was a pleasant evening under the stars, and it was exciting to be amongst the sellout crowd of almost 15,000 of her devoted followers. Since very few of my friends were even exposed to folk music, let alone considered themselves fans, it was reassuring and exhilarating to know that there were a lot more folks like us out there in the world beyond the shores of Long Beach.  

During the second half of the show, she introduced her friend, “Bobby” Dylan and showcased some of his new tunes sung by each in turn and then together. This was one year following release of Bob Dylan (his debut LP) which contained interpretations of classic folk tunes sung in his distinctive, scruffy but genuine style and just a few months after The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan album which was the first to contain mostly his own compositions.

Baez and Dylan at Forest Hills, August 1963

Baez, on the other hand, with her silky soprano voice had several hugely successful records under her belt and was enjoying immense popularity in the folk world.  So, the reception for Dylan’s appearance was a bit hesitant but polite (If Joan liked him, he couldn’t be that bad). Bootleg recordings of some of their appearance together at the show are available on line [2] and his poetic genius coupled with her masterfully powerful voice are brilliant. New York Times reviewer Robert Shelton called it an “unforgettable evening” and 58 years later I can attest to the veracity of his prediction. Twelve years after their appearance at Forest Hills, when Dylan was the superstar, he returned the favor and included Baez in his high-profile Rolling Thunder Review where they performed an encore of “Mama, You’ve Been On My Mind,” which they first sang together at that memorable evening I saw them in Queens.”

As it turns out, the Forest Hills concert was just over a week before the historic March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have a Dream speech and Baez and Dylan shared the stage.  When Joan Baez led a quarter million people singing We Shall Overcome, it sent shivers up my spine and brought a few tears to my young eyes. 

The recently release biopic, I am a Noise (currently in theaters, available soon on Netflix) , takes us back… it traces Baez’ extraordinary talent and meteoric rise to fame and her involvement in political causes through interviews, direct personal narrative, film and video clips, letters and audio tapes, etc. But that’s not really what the film is about.  These elements merely form the framework of the film, its foundation upon which her personal story is laid bare.

Without revealing significant spoilers, buried beneath the surface of success and fame, “Joanie” has had a troubled life from a very young age.  Her closets are overflowing with abuse, insecurities, strained family relationships, and failed personal relations.  What is particularly poignant is the fact that the pain Baez suffered was covered over by the veneer of being a hugely successful star and few knew what was really going on. 

There’s the relatively brief relationship she had with Dylan during those early years where she was clearly head over heels in love.  It was at the height of his insanely prolific and most creatively gifted songwriting period and most of the folk music world was madly in love with him.  But the times were a changing and Baez says,

“As Bob began to be more famous, he just moved away.  In some ways, he moved away from everybody. I think the shift came very quickly… I couldn’t have done the drugs and the boy’s club. I didn’t know it was going to be like that. We were just on another planet by then…I just didn’t belong.”  

So things didn’t end well between them and Dylan basically jilted her in a televised interview.  After that clip is shown in the film, Joan half-jokingly breaks the fourth wall and says, “Take that, Bob!”

Her younger sister Mimi Farina, a successful singer in her own right, suffered too – especially after her husband and singing partner Richard Farina was tragically killed in a motorcycle crash at just 29 years old. But once Joan was crowned the Queen of Folk Music before the age of 20, their relationship was strained and impacted by jealousy.  You can sense that Joan yearns to be able to go back in time and “fix” things with Mimi and to a lesser extent with her older sister, Pauline.

Her relationship with her parents however, is more complicated and at least partially at the root of the psychological trauma she continues to struggle with.  The film makers/directors Miri Navasky, Karen O’Connor, and Maeve O’Boyle were given free reign over a treasure trove of documentation including a storeroom of memorabilia, personal letters, audio tapes of therapy sessions, etc., much of which is revealed to the film audience in excruciating personal detail.

Clearly Joan Baez has come to terms with the many skeletons in her closet and her mental health struggles over her lifetime and is now comfortable making them public.  When asked what her motivation for doing the film was. she said,

“I really want to leave an honest legacy.  So that’s what we attempted to do…this certainly kind of says it all…it was just the right time to do it.”   

As a long-time fan, I was curious to know more about Joan Baez’ life and it’s always thrilling to get a behind the scenes look at the world of a celebrity.  But be prepared to squirm.  While it’s fascinating to understand what makes people in the public eye tick, and to realize that no level of fame or fortune brings happiness, the specificity and nature of the trauma is difficult to handle. 

In spite of these challenging moments, I think this is an important film that is worth seeing.  Any time a public figure allows themselves to be observed objectively, it helps dispel myths and puts the struggles of “ordinary” people in perspective.  And perhaps, if I listen closely, I’ll be able to discern some of her personal anguish hidden deep inside that golden voice. 

---

[1] Kalb, Paul, “The Mystery Boy and Other Stories” June 2023,

https://a.co/cfGDVaG

[2] Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, Forrest Hills Tennis Stadium, August 17, 1963, https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4oy3c1

Remembering Danny Kalb: He Lived the Life he Sang About in his Songs

My “almost famous” cousin Danny Kalb died yesterday following a protracted battle with cancer.  He was 80 years old and it was a tough ending to a life filled with highs and lows.  Danny was an incredibly accomplished blues guitar player and his music emanated from deep within his soul. I say “almost famous” because he never seemed to receive the recognition he earned and deserved for his musical contributions.

Danny enrolled in the University of Wisconsin in the early 1960s but was already playing the guitar in earnest and started performing folk music in local coffee houses.  There he met the scruffy and as yet unknown, Bob Dylan who had left Minnesota and was on his way east.  Dylan wound up crashing on Danny’s floor for a couple of weeks and they did some playing together.  They would later reconnect and perform together in NYC

Soon afterward, Danny dropped out and moved back to New York to pursue music as his full-time profession and lifelong passion.  He hung out in Greenwich Village, the center of the NYC folk scene and arguably the epicenter of the American folk revival. Here, Danny befriended and studied guitar under Dave Van Ronk and within folk music circles, soon became a well-renowned and sought-after folk/blues guitarist. He played and recorded with Van Ronk, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Judy Collins, John Sebastian, Bob Dylan and others. 

I can’t remember a time I didn’t see Danny with his guitar in hand or within reach.  When I was four in 1956, he made one of his earliest public appearances, playing a few numbers at my brother’s Bar Mitzvah.  At family gatherings either in Mt Vernon where Danny’s family hailed or his visits to our house in Long Beach, Danny would reach for his axe and serenade us with his latest tunes or a few of his old classics.  My favorite was his version of Alberta, a traditional love song which he sang in a rich soulful baritone voice and played with a sweet sadness that permeated deeply.  I was raised in a house that revered folk music and the fact that Danny was so talented that he played and recorded with some of the all-time greats, made me (and our whole family) kvell.

But when Danny temporarily put down his well-worn acoustic Gibson J-200 and plugged in his Les Paul model electric guitar, he helped spark a new era in American music. He founded The Blues Project in 1965 (along with Al Kooper, Andy Kulberg, Steve Katz, and Roy Blumenfeld) blazing new trails and injecting a healthy dose of blues into the rock scene.  One of the first all-Jewish rock bands, they were my Sandy Koufax of the music world.  Danny’s crisp and soulful lead guitar work was integral in the band’s sound and helped elevate them to the cusp of rock stardom. The Blues Project took New York by storm that year and quickly became the “house band” at the Café Au Go-Go on Bleecker St. 

I was an impressionable 13 yrs old at the time and relied on my brother to take me into the city to hear their shows. I remember those gigs in the subterranean Greenwich Village club to this day as a life changing electrifying experience.  The band quickly landed a record contract with Verve/Folkways and their first album was recorded live at the Au Go Go.  While it didn’t quite capture the magic of their live performances, it was groundbreaking nonetheless. 

They were heavily rooted in blues and played loud and earthy but were a quintessentially well-rounded band that could also deliver quiet ballads, jazz, psychedelic rock and even commercial pop tunes.  Since much of their music was improvisational and oftentimes tunes lasted 10 minutes or more, they were sometimes compared with The Grateful Dead.  Following the release of their first album, they began touring and started to develop a national fan base.

Their second album, Projections, released in November 1966 was a studio recording and contained some of their best work.  At 32 weeks on the Billboard album chart, it was also their most commercially successful effort.  Among the classic tunes on this album were Danny’s 10+ minute version of Muddy Waters’ classic, Two Trains Running and Al Kooper’s Flute Thing, featuring some excellent jazz flute by Andy Kulberg, Wake Me, Shake Me and I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes.

Around that time I started playing guitar and although I never took formal lessons from Danny, I was thrilled whenever he was able to spare the time to teach me a few basic blues licks.  When I was in the market for a new guitar Danny helped me select a suitable instrument.  The rock band I played with in high school proudly incorporated a few Blues Project tunes in our repertoire. 

After their meteoric rise, The Blues Project flamed out and disbanded in 1967 without having really broken through with a “hit” record and they never made much money.  Their last large concert was at the Monterey Pop Festival shortly after Al Kooper left the band to form Blood, Sweat and Tears.

There were sporadic reunions of the band over the years (Katz and Blumenfeld are still carrying the Blues Project torch) but mostly Danny played solo or with a few side musicians in small club dates for the remainder of his career. He released a number of solo albums and was ever hopeful about his latest musical project or recording.  But it was a struggle and as he says in one of his tunes, he truly “lived the life he sang about, in his songs.”  

Danny is no longer with us but his legacy and contributions to American roots music will live on.

Click on the arrows to see additional photos in a slide show:

__________________________________________________________________

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The Sherman Holmes Project: The Richmond Sessions

 

Just What the Doctor Ordered

 

My friend and State of Virginia Folklorist, Jon Lohman surprised me recently with a copy of a new CD he’s produced entitled, The Sherman Holmes Project: The Richmond Sessions. Devoted followers of Opinion8ed2 will recognize Jon as the multi-talented force behind Jonny and the Jambusters and organizer/producer of the Crooked Road series.   On first listen I realized it was something special… yet another exciting musical collaboration deserving of a review on these pages.

Extra Deluxe Supreme

Album Review

 

Hazmat Modine’s unique sound defies categorization. At the same time it is both familiar and foreign, both old and new, and sits on the tip of your musical tongue like a long-lost memory you just can’t seem to conjure up.  But unlike the frustration of being stuck in the mud of mental limbo, once you hop aboard their troubadour-packed street car you’re headed for a musical adventure.

Bernie, Are You Listening?

 

Not satisfied by the ill-gained obscene profits resulting from the wholesale rip-off of musicians and songwriters, the corporate bullies at Apple have now come after the likes of you and me. The paltry compensation of fractions of pennies to musicians and songwriters for digitally streaming their wares is well documented. For example, it takes over a million song plays per month for an artist signed to a major label to make minimum wage ($1,260/month) in royalties.

An Odd Couple

Chet Atkins

To all my guitar playing friends and music aficionados… file the following piece under “coming late to the party” since this all dates back to the late 1980s.   But I was totally unaware of the collaborations of this musical”Odd Couple” until recently when I stumbled upon a classic YouTube concert video.while wandering down the Interweb Highway (Route 499).  It is a live concert reminiscent of those super groups of the late 60s but of a much more cross-cutting nature featuring a super duet guitar coupling of Mark Knopfler (formerly of Dire Straits) and the late, great country music legend Chet Atkins.

Simon and Sting Experiment Rocks the Garden

Photo by Robert Altman

A colleague at work came in this past Wednesday afternoon – he took the morning off as he was out late the night before at the Paul Simon/Sting concert at Madison Square Garden. I overheard him raving about it in the hall and immediately joined the conversation to get the details. I had learned about the concert a while back from an old friend but honestly wasn’t very motivated. We had never seen Sting perform live and while I enjoy his music and admire his explorations into new genres I have not followed his career that closely. I guess you’d say he was not in my inner circle.

Sting’s Last Ship Sets Sail for Broadway

Sting’s new musical, The Last Ship

We recently saw a Sting concert on PBS Great Performances (keep an eye out for a repeat broadcast) in which he sang the tunes from his first musical “The Last Ship,” scheduled to open on Broadway this fall. It is set in his hometown of Wallsend, outside of Newcastle in northern England.

the new Folk Music revival

It’s January 1, 2014 and Folk Music is alive and well once again. Of course for devotees it never really went away but thanks to the energy of a new generation of folk artists and the fact that the world is a much smaller place, a new folk renaissance is upon us. Not since the early to mid-1960s have we seen such a confluence of traditional American roots music with new musical ideas and styles from across the globe to fuel a burgeoning revival that blurs the lines of musical genres and pushes through into the world of popular culture.

Re-imagining Traditional Art Form and Function

“Gigi Has a Visitor” by Lilibot Design

Liliwhat? Lilibot Design!

Decoupage – from the French word découper, meaning to cut out – is a craft or art form that entails pasting cut-outs (typically paper) to an object and then covering them with several coats of varnish or lacquer. [1]

“Fish Gotta Swim” by Lilibot Design

The art of decoupage has a long history that can be traced to many parts of the world – from Eastern Siberia where the tombs of nomads that date back to the times before Christ were decorated using the technique to more recently in Asia, Germany, Poland, and France. In the late 1600s it is thought to have evolved as a kind of “poor man’s art” in that expensive hand painted furniture could be closely imitated using decoupage techniques.[2]  When done skillfully, the process gives the appearance of depth and makes patterns and pictures look as though they are painted on the decoupaged object.

Designer/artist Sue Evans of South Orange NJ through her creations (aka Lilibot Design) has perfected this ancient craft and has taken the art of decoupage to new levels. Her techniques have

Interview with Lilibot Design Creator, Sue Evans

As is the custom on these pages I try to get some the back story behind the artist and their work by means of interviews… and we are fortunate to have connected with Sue Evans of Lilibot Design for a behind the scenes account.

Opinion8ed2: I guess a basic starter question is what first got you interested in the world of decoupage – was it the finished products that spoke to you or did you see someone decoupaging? (I figure if page can be a verb we can conjugate decoupage).

Sue: I don’t know that I started with “decoupage” but rather decorating with paper.  It goes back to my passion for designing my environment, and love of mixing color, pattern, texture in a way that is not what you see every day. I always liked the idea of taking something old and unloved, and transforming it into something new.  One of my early forays was using decorative paper on an old trunk to create a coffee table/plant table.  The sun faded the paper, and the plants (and my sloppy watering) scuffed it up, but I was hooked, and have tried since then to improve my techniques.

Hey Kids – Stop Eating the Artwork!

Artist/Sculptor Judith G. Klausner uses unique materials to explore provocative themes and the “small beauty lost to us through prejudice or oversight”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

They are so unusual, when you see Judith G. Klausner’s innovative sculptures for the first time it’s hard to determine which aspect is most appealing:

Artist/Sculptor Judith G. Klausner speaks with Opinion8ed2

Judith G. Klausner

Opinion8ed2:  So much of your work investigates the world at tiny scales that are not often examined or exploited in the art world.  On your website (jgklausner.com) you talk about a kind of epiphany following the reactions by some to your insect sculptures:

I first began working with insects in 2005, and was startled by the strong reactions of disgust I received. It struck me as tragic that our cultural phobia could blind us so effectively to such exquisite delicacy. From there I became interested in examining what other small beauty was lost to us through prejudice or oversight.

D.N.R. Roll at the Morgue

Leftovers from dinner at Angelo’s Pizza, W.57th St.  Great brick oven pizza, beet salad, and oh yeah fresh anthropomorphic sour dough rolls.  Stop, advane or reverse by placing cursor on the photo and  clicking as needed.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Will the Real Bob Dylan Please Stand Up?

If you saw Martin Scorsese’s classic documentary No Direction Home on the virtually overnight transformation of Robert Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan, from average American folksinger to poetic musical genius you can probably imagine the sequel, which chronicles his equally meteoric fall to mediocrity and beyond. We can debate and quibble over just when that slide occurred – personally I place it somewhere as far back as Blood on the Tracks – perhaps that’s a bit harsh especially considering the quality of what Dylan is pedaling these days.

Three City Magical Musical Tour

 

New York: A Celebration of Kate McGarrigle

Kate McGarrigle

Every once in a great while a rare live musical experience comes your way – one in which a collective emotional thread weaves performers and audience together into a single energy. Finding the words to describe the magic is difficult, but the excitement is palpable, it hangs heavy in the air. You could tell  from the moment you walked into NYC’s Town Hall on May 12 that the sold-out gathering of 1500 people for A Celebration of Kate McGarrigle were feeling it. The mood was both somber and celebratory. The audience had descended upon one of New York’s oldest and most storied concert venues to pay their respects, to honor, and remember the Canadian folk singer, who died of cancer at age 63 last year. Kate, along with her sister Anna, was a creative force on the folk scene for more than 50 years.

Magical Musical Tour Sampler

 Kate McGarrigle, Eric Lindell, and Jenny Scheinman

Sandals Only at the Big Bunny Fine Art Gallery

The French Quarter in New Orleans is a veritable mecca for the arts. There are more galleries, music clubs, and free-lance artists and musicians hawking their wares in the streets per square inch than any other city in America. So if you’re looking for a place to open an art gallery, beware the competition is thick. This did not discourage Martha’s Vineyard sculptor/artist/craftsman Steve Lohman and his partner Jenifer Strachan, an artist in her own right, however when they decided to do just that. In fact, their love for this city and its rich cultural heritage drew them straight to the heart of the Quarter where they recently opened the Big Bunny Fine Art Gallery.