Beyond Katrina

Louisiana Artwork Presents Art Sessions: A Series of Discussions on Contemporary Visual Art

New Orleans artist Elizabeth Underwood  will be a panelist at this event. You can download the flier, below...

Download LouisianaArtWorkspresents.doc

Elizabeth also sends the link to the new ArtInAction website - http://artinaction-nola.blogspot.com/

Photograph from ArtinAction website.

Site #20 "Today" Maxime Demetrio/Naftali Rutter: Charbonnet b'w Burgundy and Dauphine, Holy Cross

 

"The intention of the "Today" Project, which will consist of two installations in New York and New Orleans, is to express love and hope, and forge a bond between the people who call each city home. Both installations are designed to create a visual portal where two communities can metaphorically gaze into each other's worlds.

"Today" in New Orleans is a mixed media mural comprised of wheat-paste photo of two doors and stoops of NYC brownstones. This is a symbol of life in Brooklyn. The word "enter" is spray painted around the wheat-paste mural and integrated into it. This piece was installed in the Holy Cross area of the Lower 9th Ward. The process of visiting the city, finding a site, and connecting with the people who live there has been unforgettable and highly influential. Including the people in the process took the graffitti, which is generally considered "art vandalism", to a deeper level.

The Brooklyn sister piece will be a wheat-paste and graffiti mural of a Lower 9th Ward stoop leading to an absent house - a symbol of the struggle of New Orleans." Maxime Demetrio

See more ArtinAction installations at http://artinaction-nola.blogspot.com/

A Studio in the Woods

Elizabeth Underwood (New Orleans artist and friend of the Beyond Katrina community)   was featured in an article by Gambit Weekly for her role in the AMAZING Tulane University environmental art project,  A Studio in the Woods. Check it out!

"Positive Thoughts"

By Margaret Saizan

(Click on image to enlarge)

There is a new art installation by New Orleans artist Terence Sanders posted at the Art in Action Blog. Sanders writes, "I created this installation for the displaced and disenfranchised citizens of New Orleans. I believe that positive thoughts can create positive results and so have made this wall of positive statements. They can serve as a catalyst for evoking potential greatness in everyone". As a life/organizational coach I couldn't agree more with Sanders perspective. I have witnessed how point of view can positively or negatively shape one's outcomes and destiny. So for more positive words by Terence Sanders and to view photographs of his installation, go here.

Also coming soon to "Art in Action" are Installations by Erin Caskey, Courtney Egan, Beth Dary, Shawn Hall and others including a tree filled with Polaroids, a weedy canal decorated with polka dots, a gutted house strung with tin can phones, and a day of storytelling in an empty field. Also be on the lookout for news about a limited edition screen-printed sign (text top secret!) on telephone poles throughout the city.

“Art In Action” is a long-term, collaborative, community art project taking place in New Orleans. Multi-media artist Elizabeth Underwood is spearheading this project with sponsorship from University of New Orleans’ anthropology department. Ms. Underwood will be contributing as well as curating, organizing, and promoting all "Art In Action" actions.

Believing the creative process to be a powerful tool for affecting social change and healing from trauma, the core agenda of “Art In Action” is to re-animate New Orleans with positive, progressive energy and to support the community’s ongoing efforts at renewal. Put another way: action creates connection and connection heals, encourages dialogue, and fertilizes "the environment" with the seeds of change.

Anyone interested in contributing/participating to "Art In Action" is invited to email Ms. Underwood with any questions or for further information: artinaction@elizabethunderwood.net

New Orleans Now: Can Art Help Heal a Broken City?

New Orleans artist, Elizabeth Underwood was profiled on MAKING CONTACT - a weekly international radio program.  Regarding the show, Underwood says  "the women who produce this program are deeply invested in New Orleans, as well as human rights issues world-wide.  I'm honored to have been chosen for a profile, especially when there is so much amazing art happening in N.O. right now, as well as so many worthy stories needing attention. They spent the entire day w/me, visting sites, interviewing locals & other  participating artists - it is a very well-rounded piece. I hope you can listen in  & if so, they'd love feedback.  Me too!"

Link to listen to the show:

http://www.radioproject.org/archive/2007/0707.html

Links to Elizabeth's Projects:

www.artinaction-nola.blogspot.com
www.elizabethunderwood.net

Elizabeth Underwood Talks Back!

I honestly don't believe I've seen a single news article affect so many New Orleans residents and supporters  as this recent article  in the New York Times.  No one directly complained to me for  posting a link to it here - instead folks chose to make their points by sending me links of a positive slant along with a request  to post them as a follow up.

Truthfully, at times I find it difficult not to get bogged down in the negativity--- It's a difficult line we all have to walk. If you don't acknowledge the reality people will start to  wonder what planet you're on. Then there is the very real need to raise awareness so that folks from elsewhere understand the  challenges we face along the Gulf Coast. At the same time we want people to understand what's  worth preserving here. It's a constant challenge to maintain the tension between all the opposites.

So scroll below to see  some positive content from New Orleans artist, survivor, activist, and quintessential positive thinker, Elizabeth Underwood. 

Dear Friends of New Orleans:

Please visit this site & see this amazing forum for supporting New Orleans:
http://www.friendsofneworleans.org/
And pass it on!

And check out  this video:  http://www.nolahopeandheritage.org/nola/video.cfm?id=LoveBurn.wmv

--it is just sweet!

Thanks, love,
Elizabeth
www.artinaction-nola.blogspot.com

Excerpt from Frommer's

"Today, recovery is ongoing, and the process goes slowly. All manner of  important things are, maddeningly, no closer to being resolved than in the  early days after the storm, while the fate of many citizens and  establishments remains in question. Which prompts a question of your own,
probably: Should you go?  Oh, yes.

Go, because everything in life is fragile and precarious, and we can take  nothing for granted, and some day, it really will all be gone. Go, because it's not gone, not at all. Go, because the things you wanted-the beautiful  architecture, the majestic oaks, the river wind, the quality of light that
gives even the most mundane just a little bit magic-all remain. Go, because  people are there, and as long as they are, there will be music, and food, and it will be some of the best of your life. Go, because perhaps you've wanted to help in any way you can, and now the best way you can is to help a
historic city regain its economic feet. Go, because every brick in the  French Quarter has a story to tell, and so does the damaged ground of the 9th Ward, and you should bear witness. Go, because there is much to celebrate, and this is still the best place there is to do so".

"I want to be in that number," goes the song. I do indeed. I hope you do,too."

Art in Action Radio Interview

89.9  WWNO presents an interview with Artist and Activist Elizabeth Underwood

Art in Action! A community art project designed to re-animate the devastated New Orleans
landscape through site  specific installation.
http://www.artinaction-nola.blogspot.com

Wednesday  January 31@ 4:50  PM
89.9  WWNO or online _www.wwno.org_ ( http://www.wwno.org/)

For past  interviews with the local and national art community click  (http://www.wwno.org/)  and Audio  Archives

Revised: “Art In Action” - time is now/place is here

Art In Action” is a long-term, collaborative, community  art project to beginning in New Orleans this October. Multi-media artist Elizabeth Underwood is spearheading this project with sponsorship from University of New Orleans’ anthropology department. Believing the creative process to be a powerful tool for affecting social change and healing from trauma, the underlying agenda of “Art In Action” is to re-animate the New Orleans landscape with positive, progressive energy and to support the community's ongoing efforts at renewal. 

Art In Action’s” primary focus is to galvanize a wide variety of creative artists and community groups to create an on-going interactive treasure hunt of site-specific art and performance throughout the city. A corresponding downloadable map with accompanying audio narrative will be available on an "Art-in Action" blog;   the map will also be available in printed brochure form, making the treasure hunt upen to everyone. All participants will be encourage to share their treasure hunt experiences via the "Art In Action" blog, which will then function as a library for this documentation. Plans for a corresponding book and exhibit are currently underway. 

With New Orleans at such an archetypal crossroads, there is a deep need for personal involvement in its personal, physical, and political landscape. Given the crucial phase of the preservation and redefinition of the New Orleanian identity, engaging with New Orleans via work of this nature (as a "builder", "seeker", or "documentarian") is vital on many levels. Every aspect of this treasure hunt will connect this valiant community to a worldwide audience in what can be a radically constructive way. "Art in Action can also function as a model for how communities can respond to the long-term challenges of future catastrophic man-made/natural disasters. "Art in Action" will motivate empowered regeneration and set in motion an inspired  process that can perform itself under multiple guises for many years to come.

Contact:Elizabeth Underwood / croweau@hotmail.com / 512-964-8870

www.elizabethunderwood.net

Download ArtInAction_GeneralPRelease2.doc