The default wordpress image, while nice and vaguely science-fictional, had grown tiresome. This shiny new masthead is from a photo of a work of art made by my friend Skylar Fein, a rising star in the New Orleans art world.
A few years ago, Skylar and I went to New Orleans together for a couple months for an informal creative retreat. I came back to the East Coast, but Skylar stayed. A few months later, Katrina hit, and Skylar and his partner evacuated from a home they’d only just moved into. They came back to a decimated house and a city in the midst of a reconstruction. As they tried to rebuild their lives, Skylar started making art out of wreckage he found around the city. Like the piece above, the stuff Skylar made had a pop culture feel, but also had a political edge – several of his early pieces were profiles of U.S. presidents made out of the debris from Katrina’s wake. Some of his stuff is also fascinatingly surreal – e.g., historical tributes to gay bars of New Orleans’ past that may or may not have existed.
You can check out more of Skylar’s awesome work here.
Bread & Magic 