FORESTival: A Celebration of Art and Nature!
2011-05-15 11:00 - 17:00 UTC | A Studio in the Woods, 13401 Patterson Rd, New Orleans, LA, 70131, United States
Come enjoy works from former A Studio in the Woods artists in residence including Jane Hill (clay artist), Monique Moss (performing artist), Tory Tepp (living installation) and Bernard Williams (sculpture). Environmentalists will have the opportunity to experience the tranquility of the woods through tours with our botanist David Baker. Adults and children can take home a work of art from our silent auction or hands-on activity area. We will have music and readings by local musicians and authors, details TBA. Food and beverages will be available for purchase.

Give NOLA Day
2014-05-06 00:00 - 2014-05-07 00:00 | LA
Give NOLA Day is an event hosted by the Greater New Orleans Foundation to support non profit organizations within the region. The event, from midnight on May 6 to midnight on May 7, allows any one wishing to donate funds to any of the over 300 non profits involved, including A Studio In The Woods, to do so during this time.

This event is unique because in addition to money donated directly additional “lagniappe” dollars will be donated by the GNOF and their sponsors.

This event is in coordination with a national event called Give Local America, where foundations across America are asking communities to give back.

We encourage you to support the Studio as well as any other organizations involved on May 6.

Update: Here is the link for the donation page which will be active on May 6.

DONATE

Update: Today is the day! Click the link above to donate to the Studio or the other non profits involved in Give NOLA Day. Thanks for your support.

More information about the event and how you can become involved can be found on their website givenola.org

Greater New Orleans Foundation: Facebook and Twitter (@GNOFoundation)

Megan Singleton Artist Exhibition
2014-05-10 18:00 - 21:00 | Byrdies Gallery, 2402 St. Claude Ave, New Orleans, LA, United States
On May 10th, resident artist Megan Singleton will be participating in the first annual Wetlands Art Tour, a daylong event in the St. Claude Arts District showcasing art, performance and activism related to coastal erosion and wetlands restoration in Louisiana. Be sure to check out her show at Byrdies Pottery at 2402 St. Claude Avenue from 6-9 pm!

More information about the Wetlands Art Tour, including events and schedules, can be found on its website.

The Depth Procession, Go Low Go Light
2014-06-07 | LA
On Saturday, June 7th Cauleen Smith, joined by Rebecca Snedeker (co-author of Unfathomable City with Rebecca Solnit) and Jewel Marie Bush ( journalist and founder of Melanated Writers Collective) embarked on a procession through space and time, across rivers and back, down low and underneath. THE DEPTH PROCESSION: Go Low Go Light New Orleans was a cinematic adventure – a film shoot happening in real time with real people and imagined circumstances. Guests joined them on the DJ CLUB WHATEVER PARTY BUS for a ride across the Mississippi in search of intergalactic musical signals from down deep created by musicians Greg Shatz on Bass, Charlie Joseph on Trombone, and Monica McIntyre on Cello. Conversation, sounds and light refreshments offered the bus. Parasols, sounds and contemplation offered on the river. Go Low and Go Light with The Depth Procession.
Caution: There will be moments of intense bass vibration.
Depth Procession: Go Low Go Light New Orleans and H-E-L-L-O was commissioned by En Mas’: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean curated by Claire Tancons and Krista Thompson for CAC New Orleans in collaboration with Independent Curators International. En Mas’ is made possible by an Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award. Additional support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The exhibition will debut at CAC New Orleans in Spring 2015, and will tour through to 2018.

Depth Procession: Go Low Go Light New Orleans and H-E-L-L-O was, in part, inspired by the map “Bass Lines: Deep Sounds and Soils” in Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas and is part of the Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas Printing and Public Project series. This series was created in partnership between the New Orleans Museum of Art, A Studio in the Woods, and coauthors Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker, with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Dawn DeDeaux's MotherShip Lands on Two Sites for P3+
2014-10-25 - 2015-01-25 | LA
ACCORDING TO ASTROPHYSICIST
STEPHEN HAWKING WE HAVE 100 YEARS LEFT
NOT TO SAVE EARTH BUT TO LEAVE HER
A Studio In The Woods welcomes Dawn DeDeaux as an Artist in Residence presenting Selections from the MotherShip Series as a P3+ Host Site.
DeDeaux’s work will be on view at two locations from October 25, 2014 – January 25, 2015, Closed Holidays.
LOCATION A: Tulane’s School of Public Health, Collins C. Diboll Gallery, 1440 Canal Street, First Floor, New Orleans, LA 70112Friday – Sunday / Noon to 5pm & By Appointment.
LOCATION B:Arts Estuary, 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70119Thursday – Sunday / 2 to 5pm, Weather Permitting, & By Appointment.Closing weekend extended hours:
2-9pm Friday 1/23 *weather permitting
12-9pm Saturday & Sunday, 1/24-25 with the Gallatin Street Brass Knuckle Marching Band from 12-5pm
EVENTS:
LOCATION A Opening Reception: Thursday November 20, 2014, 4-7pm at the School of Public Health
LOCATION B Closing Reception Sunday, January 25th 4-8pmThe sculptures and drawings on view are postulations of the future – influenced by collective mythologies that foretell of the future and the hard mathematical and scientific equations foretelling a future not so dissimilar from myth. Also considered is the work of Carl Jung, Will​iam Blake and others who have turned to dreams and symbols belonging to the collective subconscious as roadmaps toward the unknown.DeDeaux is a professional New Orleans-based artist of national stature who can translate the complexities of science and sociology, turning data driven theories into iconic visual forms that speak to public audiences. DeDeaux’s work extends into community engagement and programming to further the outcome of public education and participation in challenges of the day. Her work is supported both through traditional art foundations and through other underwriters in the fields of science and mental health.This exhibition is presented by A Studio in the Woods, Tulane/Xavier Center for BioEnvironmental Research, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. The exhibition is sponsored in part by CC Imaging Inc, Centre for Living Arts, Fertel Foundation, Julian Mutter, Piedmont Plastics Inc, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, SGPS ShowRig, Surdna Foundation, Catherine Tremaine, Wayne Troyer Architects. THE RING in collaboration with Michael Krevitt.2014 Interview by Acadiana Center for the Arts:
AcA: What is the history behind MotherShip, the body of work you are currently exploring?
DeDEAUX: MotherShip is Earth or a means to leave her. The MotherShip series is prompted by the Katrina – BP Oil Spill wake up call: one’s comprehension of future challenges is heightened when viewing the global battlefront from your own back yard – a yard soon to slip into the Gulf [of Mexico].
Such biographical upheaval is combined with my longtime interest in mathematical equations that calculate the future. For example, by 2045 Earth will host 9 billion human inhabitants. Suddenly you realize that this planet of ours is rather small: Where are the resources to sustain 9 billion people? Historically, wars, viruses, natural disasters and now terrorism can deliver huge reductions in the population, but who among us is cheering for this as a solution? Instead we turn to our scientists who are busy trying to make the numbers add up by calculating land mass in relationship to rising seas; identifying zones viable for agricultural growth that will not be impacted by global warming; engineering massive aquaculture farming on epic scale to offset the ever-increasing ocean dead zones and wildlife specie extinctions occurring in record number; envisioning the divisions of fresh water, soon more valuable than gold, measured by the ounce and distributed by the drop to the masses…and so the future unfolds.
To encapsulate these challenges I chose MotherShip as the series unifying title and core icon. MotherShip is both a metaphor for Earth in need of stewardship; and if we fail, MotherShip becomes our constructed lifeline vessel to transport us to new frontiers beyond. If you share the projections of astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, we have 100 years left – not to save the Earth but to leave her. In either outcome, MotherShip is the link to our survival.
AcA: A reoccuring theme in your work is the concept of collective mytholgy that bridges cultures as well as time. How does this manifest itself within MotherShip?
DeDEAUX: Mythology: I am very interested in looking at the mathematical forecasts for the future alongside historical, collective myths that foretell of the end of time.
A centerpiece for the series is a life-size shimmering pale horse that gazes into his own reflected image. This emerged both from my own reoccurring Jungian-like dreams and my research of early-recorded mythological histories where such a white or pale horse appears. I was surprised to learn that such a horse is referenced in a sweeping diversity of cultures as a near-universal symbol for the ‘end of (Earthly) time’ – including Babylonian, Persian, Hindu, Saxon, Asian, Slavic, Native American and Biblical texts such as The Book of Revelations – and as a signifier of triumph over evil, even amidst our predicted annihilation.
I also turn to the rich body of mythic literature that identifies the Ring as a symbol representing the union of people and time – the alpha and omega. The Ring seems mandated to embody the best and worst of mankind–forged not only of metal but also of desire that both creates and destroys in equal measure. For example the ‘desire’ for greater oil profits has led in part to the death of our wetlands.
In my own MotherShip narrative my ring is not like the small gold ring that prompts the Hobbits to risk their lives to save the world, but instead it is an industrial-scaled Ring, modeled after those used to build the early Zeppelins – still the largest air ships built to date. This Zeppelin construction Ring represents for me the dysfunctional marriage of man and technology.
We allowed our uncontrolled use of technology to bring us to this place of potential peril; but ironically we can no longer divorce ourselves from technology, as without it we are certainly doomed.
AcA: Is there a sliver of hope that we can collectively rewrite a strategic script to outwit both myth and math’s gloomy forecast of what the future holds?
DeDEAUX: The Odds of Hope: It is difficult for rational folk to dispute the mathematical equations of Steven Hawking that prompt his 100-year theory. But to abandon hope is equally unreasonable. There are David and Goliath stories and ‘to hope’ for good outcome is at the core of humanness and a go-to-script of myth.
It is heartening to see the changing habits of younger generations in terms of energy consumption, alternative energy, organic foods, recycling and the ability to utilize social media to proactively stand up for important issues. There are worldwide efforts but I am specifically proud of the environmental leadership in south Louisiana and how individual groups such as Bucket Brigade, Gulf Restoration Network, Restore Louisiana Now and Levees.org are now working together behind the banner of The Green Army. It seems as though a line has been drawn in the sand, punctuated by the recent Louisiana Legislative effort to kill the lawsuit against oil and gas companies asking for the restoration of dredged canals that contributed to coastal erosion. The effort led by historian and writer John Barry was heroic and it has pushed hope across the threshold.
Coastal Louisiana is Earth’s youngest land mass, and will be among the first lands to disappear. In spite of knowing this, I don’t find myself fraught with an all consuming fatalism – I would rather say I feel a sense of urgency.
Is there a sliver of hope? Every so often the small horse wins against all odds. If not I will ride out on the pale horse into the big ring and leave my losses behind. Of course I will first teach the horse to swim.
Sharon Litwin interview with Dawn DeDeaux for NolaVie
Prospect 3 interview with Dawn DeDeaux
New York Times On Location with Dawn Dedeaux
Linda Yablonsky at the opening of Prospect on ARTFORUM.com
American Theater Magazine with Mark Blankenship and Stephanie Coen
Six Questions for Dawn DeDeaux on www.theind.com
DeDeaux’s FaceBook page
BIOGRAPHY
DawnDeDEAUX is a conceptual artist working in a wide array of media selected as needed to best deliver core ideas. She is one of the first artists in Louisiana to utilize electronic technology, and is considered a pioneer in the creation of fully immersive (in-the-round) synchronized, digital-multi-screen-environments and for sculptures that embed digitized imagery.
Works by DeDeaux have been widely exhibited nationally, including New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, Armand Hammer Museum of Los Angeles, Baltimore’s Contemporary, the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Connecticut, Chicago’s Peace Museum, Seattle Center on Contemporary Art, Dallas McKinney Contemporary Art Center, Delfina Studio Trust of London, Thread Waxing Space of New York, Canadian Film Society PleasureDome in Toronto, Austin’s Blanton Museum of Art, and Ballroom Marfa of Marfa, Texas.
DeDeaux is honorary member of Tau Sigma Delta and exhibited winner of Montage 93 International Competition for work to best merge art and technology. She is the recipient of the 1997 American Academy in Rome Prize as McKnight Foundation Visiting Southern Artist and selected among the eight most significant contemporary southern artists by the 1996 Olympics Cultural Committee that premiered her immersive media work The Face of God, In Search of. She is recent 2013 Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artist in Residence / Fellow where she produced works for her MotherShip series; and the 2014 New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center Silver Circle Artist of the Year.
DeDeaux is the winner of the 1976 Demolition Derby in the Louisiana SuperDome as the only female contestant in a field of 35 drivers.

Maria Möller's "CBD (Chinese Business District)" Installation and Opening Reception
2015-03-07 13:00 - 15:00 | The Saratoga, 212 Loyola Ave, New Orleans, LA, United States
Opening reception with a presentation and tour about the history of New Orleans’ Chinatown
By geographer Richard Campanella
Saturday, March 7, 2015 from 1pm-3pm:
The Saratoga, 212 Loyola Avenue
The work will be on view from the street through March 29th as a storefront installation.

CBD (Chinese Business District) inserts visual memory into the built environment of what was once New Orleans’ Chinatown. From the 1880s through the 1930s, the largest Chinatown in the southeastern United States was scattered over several blocks in what became New Orleans’ Central Business District (CBD). Almost all the buildings from this time are gone and no photographs of them exist. Most New Orleanians have no idea what was once there.
For CBD (Chinese Business District), artist Maria Möller partnered with geographer Richard Campanella as part of A Studio in the Woods’ Flint and Steel Residency. Using Campanella’s research as a guide, Möller created Lunar New Year installations on sites that were once part of Chinatown. The installations and the photographs created of them reference the layers of lived experience that form the bedrock of a city: a unique cultural enclave, urban development, urban decay, and then urban development once again.

The exhibit’s opening reception will include a presentation by Richard Campanella on the historical geography of this area, a short walking tour of the places that once were part of New Orleans’ Chinatown, and a presentation by the artist about the project’s process, which included time spent with the close-knit community that is descended from the immigrants who built this early Chinese American business district.
Articles:
“The lost history of New Orleans’ two Chinatowns” by Rich Campanella for the Times Picayune
“In New Orleans, Reviving the Memory of a Forgotten Chinatown” by Tanvi Misra for The Atlantic’s Citylab
Many thanks to Wisznia | Architecture + Development for hosting the exhibit at The Saratoga. Maria is one of four artists awarded a Flint and Steel Residency at A Studio in the Woods this Spring. These residencies match artists with faculty members to create risk-taking new works designed to ignite social change. Flint and Steel Residencies are sponsored in part by The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation and Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research.

Does lead in New Orleans have mockingbirds singing the blues?
2015-03-24 09:00 - 13:00 | Crescent City Farmers Market, 200 Broadway St, Suite 107, New Orleans, LA, United States
Artist Jessica Levine, in collaboration with Karubian Lab, will create an interactive, mixed media visual art installation to bring the study titled,”Does lead in New Orleans have mockingbirds singing the blues?” to wide-spectrum public attention. The installation will be designed as an impromptu art spectacle within a 10 x 10 foot pop-up tent, to be staged where people gather: festivals, parks, schools, farmers markets. The installation hopes to enroll city dwellers in citizen science as it engages the viewer in artful wonderment and delight, to celebrate and appreciate the mockingbird as a beloved New Orleans icon of resilience, musicality, and thriving urban nature.
You can see the installation in person here:
Tuesday, March 24th, 2015 from 9am-1pm
Crescent City Farmers Market
Friday, May 8th, 2015 from 6-8pm
Ashé Cultural Arts Center
Jessica Levine inhabits a niche as a multidisciplinary environmental artist, making interactive, kinetic sculptural installations that engage by delight, as they deliver science content. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the West Virginia Governors Award for Arts Leadership. Her work has been exhibited widely, and recently at the Asheville Art Museum and the Thoreau Center for Sustainability at The Presidio, San Francisco, and is in the West Virginia State Museum Collection. She has completed many community-engaged projects, in the Appalachian region and Haiti and the Virgin Islands.

Half Shell
2015-04-22 18:00 - 21:00 | LA
Come Celebrate the Art, Science and Culinary Tradition of the Oyster!
An evening benefiting A Studio in the Woods hosted by Lee Ledbetter and Doug Meffert in their 1963 Historic Registered modernist home designed by Nathaniel “Buster”Curtis, Jr.
For photos from the event visit NOLA.com and theneworleansadvocate.com
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
6:00-9:00 in the evening
6161 Marquette Place
Patron tasting and tour at 5:00
To buy tickets online via EventBrite, please click HERE.
Oysters, seafood and more by Peche Chef Ryan Prewitt
Current and former resident artists Dr. Michael White, Sarah Quintana, and Pippin Frisbie-Calder
Oyster experts Dr. Tom Soniat from UNO and Sal Sunseri from P&J Oysters
Music by Panorama Jazz Band
Auction of oyster-inspired artworks by Mignon Faget and more!
Dress: Break out of your shell with pearls and seaworthy cocktail attire
Complimentary parking via shuttle from Holy Name of Jesus lot opposite 1923 Calhoun Street
Space is limited so purchase your tickets today!
To buy tickets online via EventBrite, please click HERE.

Ticket Levels
$5,000+ Pearl Patron
Tickets for 12

Private tasting with Chef Prewitt and house tour with Lee Ledbetter, AIA at 5:00 p.m.
Hand tinted print by Pippin Frisbie-Calder
Sponsors are listed in all promotional materials

$2,500 Bivalve Benefactor
Tickets for 6

Private tasting with Chef Prewitt and house tour with Lee Ledbetter, AIA at 5:00 p.m.
Hand tinted print by Pippin Frisbie-Calder
Sponsors are listed in all promotional materials

$1,000 Reef Rockefeller
Tickets for 4

Hand tinted print by Pippin Frisbie-Calder
Sponsors are listed in all promotional materials

$500 Spat* Supporter
Tickets for 2

Hand tinted print by Pippin Frisbie-Calder
Sponsors are listed in all promotional materials

$200 Filter Feeder Philanthropist
Ticket for 1

Microscopic Sirens by Pippin Frisbie-Calder
2015-05-09 18:00 - 21:00 | Tigermen Den, 3113 Royal Street, New Orleans, LA, United States
Tigermen Den, 3113 Royal Street
Opening Reception May 9th 6:00-9:00pm
On view through August 1
Part of the Wetlands Art Tour
Printmaker and current artist in residence Pippin Frisbie-Calder will be collaborating with Dr. Tim McLean of Tulane University to create a body of work around wetland micro algae awareness. In a public display their projections of phytoplankton, glowing sculptures, woodcuts and drawings will act as large-scale representations of the aquatic micro-organisms of the wetlands and oceans and demonstrate their importance (functions and roles) within the larger ecosystem. This project aims to serve as an educational tool, hoping to draw all members of the public, independent of wetland awareness and appreciation, since few people (even among researchers) are aware of and recognize the microbial presence, diversity, beauty, and roles within the waters of the wetlands.
Listen to a story about Pippin and Tim on WWNO: An Art/Science Mashup Births ‘Microscopic Sirens’ By Laine Kaplan-Levenson

The second annual Wetlands Art Tour on Saturday, May 9th is a FREE, daylong event in the St. Claude Arts District showcasing art, performance and activism related to coastal erosion and wetlands restoration in Louisiana. More than 15 venues and many artists, performers, activists and scientists will be presenting visual art, photography, fashion, sculpture, music, poetry, puppetry, comedy, theater, film, dance, science and activism.

Trees Talk
2015-08-13 18:00 | Old U.S. Mint, 400 Esplanade Avenue, New Orleans, LA, United States
Don’t miss our very own David Baker, Environmental Curator at A Studio in the Woods, as he tells the inspiring story of resilience and recovery of our forest with scientific research from pre and post-Katrina.
A forest ecologist, Baker studies long term changes to Louisiana’s bottomland hardwood forests with a particular emphasis on how hurricanes and invasive species change these ecosystems.
August 13th, 6pm
Old U.S. Mint, 400 Esplanade Avenue
Free
Sponsored by Friends of the Cabildo in support of the Louisiana State Museum

Listening to the River
2015-08-23 15:00 - 17:00 | LA
Previous ASITW residents, Monica Haller and Sebastian Muellauer are traveling down river for the month of July, mapping the sounds of the river from headwaters to the delta.
They are using an underwater microphone (hydrophone), a robot buoy that records the sounds, documents the route, sights and observations along the way. The culmination of the trip is New Orleans where they are planning small actions of “listening to the river.” This articulates itself as an informal “listening station” where residents are invited to specific points of the waterfront to listen. There, they settle down next to the river to hear the water passing by. The buoy suspends the hydrophone in the river. Listeners sit, lie, “plug in” to the water. It’s a simple action that people often find quite powerful. The sound streams live for anyone listening from afar.
You are invited to the river’s bank to participate.
Join us at the Audubon Park “Fly” by the old riverboat dock on Sunday, August 23rd from 3-5pm*
*Please check back here in case of rain.

FORESTival Returns October 10th!
2015-10-10 11:00 - 17:00 | A Studio in the Woods, 13401 Patterson Rd, New Orleans, LA, 70131, United States
FORESTival: a celebration of art and nature at A Studio in the Woods
Saturday, October 10th, 2015, 11am-5pm
13401 Patterson Road, New Orleans, LA
Suggested Donation $5 at Gate
Musical performances by
Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Review, Rory Danger and the Danger Dangers, and more!
Artist presentations by current and former residents
Jebney Lewis, Shay Nichols, Cry You One, Pippin Frisbie-Calder, Jessica Levine and Renata Ribeiro’s Mockingbird Project, Roy Staab, Laurel True, Monique Verdin
How to Build a Forest
Preview an excerpt of Shawn Hall, Katie Pearl and Lisa D’Amour’sinterdisciplinary project
Art Activities in the Kids in the Woods Studio
Adventures in Clay with Jane Hill
Drawing with Debris with Jackie Ehle Inglefield and Elizabeth Larose

Walks in the Woods with Scientists
Including botanist David Baker, entomologist Mark Fox, and ornithologist Samantha Lantz
Special guests Audubon Louisiana will also be on site

Food and Beverage for purchase
Silent Auction and Raffle
Audubon Nature Institute, Audubon Louisiana, Penny Baker, Baskerville Letterpress, The Bead Shop, Lucianne Carmichael, Teresa Cole, Cry You One, Contemporary Art Center, CURE, Defend New Orleans, The Foundation Gallery, Friends of City Park, Claudia Garofalo, Kayak-ity-yat, LeMieux Gallery, Loews New Orleans Hotel, Louisiana Children’s Museum, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Love Swimming, Maypop Community Herb Shop, Mignon Faget, Mini Art Center, Benjamin Morris, New Orleans Akido, New Orleans Ballet Association, New Orleans Film Society, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans Steamboat, New Orleans Ballet Association, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Peche Seafood Grill, Potsalot Pottery, Frances Rodriguez, Rebecca Snedeker, Craig Taylor, Sarah Quintana, Wild Lotus Yoga, and more!

Patron Brunch, 10 – 11am
Music and light refreshments in the Stewards’ Cottage exclusively for FORESTival donors at $100 and above
Check out these interviews with Dianne Mack on WWNO and Kathryn Hobgood on Tulane’s The Green Room!
To support FORESTival and all of our programs, please visit our Support Page.
Support FORESTival 2015 at any level and your name will be at will call.
Parking is limited, save gas and carpool with a friend.
Event Sponsors include:
AOS, Brooke Anderson, Dawn Barrios, Jane Boettcher, Suzanne Chabaud, Ray Chin, Jackie Clarkson, Mary Len & Lou Costa, Judith Darensbourg, Julie Denslow, Doerr Furniture, Lee Dupont, Jane Eyrich, Bill Fagaly, Elaine Garvey, Susan & Bill Hess, Gail & Barry Kohl, Elizabeth Larose, Anthony Laska, Cathy Lazarus & Eric Simon, Sharon Litwin, Meltdown Popsicles, Joan Mitchell Center, NOLA Brewing Company, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Postlethwaite & Netterville, Purveyors of Fine Wine Ltd, Valerie Robinson, Jackie Sullivan, Valero Energy Foundation, Woody’s Fish Tacos
FORESTival Commitee:
Lynne Burkart, Jacquelyn Clarkson, Mary Len Costa, Andrea Dewenter, Luann Dozier, Elaine Garvey, Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, Elizabeth Larose, Doug Meffert, Valerie Robinson, Jackie Sullivan

How to Build a Forest
2015-10-23 - 2015-10-29 | Contemporary Art Center, 900 Camp Street, New Orleans, LA, United States
How to Build a Forest is a polysynthetic, interdisciplinary hybrid of a project. Part visual art installation and part theater performance, this durational event unfolds over eight hours.
Beginning in an empty space, visual artist Shawn Hall and theater/performance artists Katie Pearl and Lisa D’Amour—along with a four-person crew—work meticulously to construct, dismantle, and remove an elaborately fabricated forest. Inspired by 100 trees lost at a Louisiana family home following Hurricane Katrina, How to Build a Forest is also strongly informed by the ecological consequences of the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Contemporary Art Center
900 Camp Street, New Orleans
There are a number of How to Build a Forest performances and talks!
How to Build a Forest – Friday, October 23 – Thursday, October 29

Forest and Water in Dialogue: Artists and Scientists Contemplate the Gulf Coast, October 27th at 7pm
Panel discussion with How to Build a Forest artists, ecologist Dave Baker, artist Monique Verdin, and coastal geologist Alex Kokler about the current pressing environmental issues facing Louisiana.

Trees Talk: 10 Years of Recovery Research in a Louisiana Bottomland Hardwood Forest 2005-2015, October 28th at 3pm
David Baker, Environmental Curator at A Studio in the Woods, tells the inspiring story of resilience and recovery of the Studio 8-acre forest with scientific research from pre- and post-Katrina. A forest ecologist, Baker studies long term changes to Louisiana’s bottomland hardwood forests with a particular emphasis on how hurricanes and invasive species change these ecosystems.
On performance days, audience members can visit the forest at any time during its 8-hour life cycle, viewing it from afar, or up close, or side by side with the builders.

Listening and Singing in Nature with Resident Shay Nichols
2015-10-29 09:30 - 11:00 | LA
How can singing deepen our connection to the natural world and each other? Listening to the sounds and stillness of nature, we will tune ourselves to the natural environment. How can we listen to nature as music? Using long tones and simple patterns, we will explore the many possibilities of creating spontaneous soundscapes together.
Thursday, October 29th, 9:30-11am A Studio in the Woods
Click here for map and directions: MAP
Space is limited, please sign up HERE. This event is primarily geared towards adults, but teens and youth may attend with a guardian. No musical experience required.* Check out this nice write up from Mary Rickard for Nolavie.com
Deeply inspired by the wisdom of nature, Shay Nichols is a recording artist, performer, and teacher. Her first CD “Wildflower,” features voice-only compositions born out of her time in natural settings. A graduate of the California Institute of Integral Studies Voice/Sound Healing program and Open Ear Center, Shay loves helping people experience the power of listening and creating music in nature. She is creating the Natural Music Institute, an international organization which fosters collaborations between ecologists and musicians to produce recordings inspired by natural environments. As a part of her Flint and Steel Residency at A Studio in the Woods, Shay is collaborating with Dr. Thomas Sherry who specializes in Bird Population Ecology and Conservation Biology at Tulane University.

Sunday Dinner on the Bayou
2016-02-21 15:00 - 18:00 | LA
Join WWNO, A Studio in the Woods & The Land Memory Bank in historic St. Bernard Parish as we celebrate coastal food and culture, down Bayou Terre-aux Bouefs at Los Islenos Museum and Cultural Complex, 1357 Bayou Road, Saint Bernard, LA 70085.
Family-style local foodways feast, foraged by Blaise Pezold, prepared by award winning Chef Michael Gulotta (formerly of Restaurant August and current owner of Mopho Mid-City,) paired with Louisiana rhythm & bluesman Guitar Lightnin’ Lee and His Thunder Band and a St. Bernard photo exhibit “Honoring our Ancestors” by Monique Verdin.
Saint Bernard, a sister Parish of New Orleans located just down river from the old city, has significantly contributed to the rich history and culture of Louisiana. Indigenous peoples once lived along the parish bayous and prairies, and in cypress swamp forest that were once so thick one could not see the sun. Early colonial journals note that the “boeuf savage,” buffalo, roamed along the historic distributary now known as Bayou Terre-aux-Boeufs. The Islenos, Canary Islanders, were settled along the historic bayou in the seventeen hundreds, when the Spanish had possession of the Louisiana territory. Italians, Creoles, Africans, American Indians, Acadians, Spaniards, former Yugoslavians and many others have called these fertile lands and bountiful waters home.
Across south Louisiana, there once was a thriving dancehall tradition. Just about every small community had a dancehall, sometime two or more even. These were sacred places, where community would gather to dance and eat and talk and celebrate. Unfortunately, like our coastal wetlands, the dancehall culture is disappearing in St. Bernard.
In an attempt to resurrect the old community rituals, WWNO, A Studio in the Woods and The Land Memory Bank have partnered to present a Sunday Dancehall down Bayou Terre-aux-Boeufs. Join us as we celebrate coastal food and culture and converse about southeast Louisiana’s hopes, challenges and adaptations.
Coastal converstation facilitated by A Studio in the Woods artist in resident Christy George and Tulane University faculty partner Laura Murphy, PhD, Carnegie Corporation of New York Professor of Social Entrepreneurship (Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences and the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking.)

Resident Jebney Lewis' Songs of Home Songs of Change
2016-05-02 17:30 - 19:30 | Tulane City Center, 1725 Baronne Street, New Orleans, LA, United States
Two presentations of the collaborative project featuring current resident Jebney Lewis and Tulane faculty member Rick Snow.
Monday, May 2nd , 5:30pm-7:30pm
Tulane City Center, 1725 Baronne Street
Friday, May 20th-Friday June 26th
Opening on May 20th, 6pm-9pm
Creative Alliance of New Orleans (CANO)
1307 OC Haley Boulevard, 3rd Floor Myrtle Banks Building
Songs of Home Songs of Change is a cartographic audio installation piece collaboratively created by sculptor, Jebney Lewis, composer and electronic music artist, Rick Snow, writer, Christopher Staudinger, and a host of New Orleans high school students from Big Class, Si Academy, The Net Charter High School, Bard Early College of New Orleans, and Lusher Charter School. This installation features a map of the wards of New Orleans, rendered in steel plates and sonified by electric transducers. The plates play fundamental resonant tones and an array of field recordings. These recordings, and the writings that accompany them, have been gathered and written by over 40 area high school students in response to the prompt: “What does home sound like, and what are the sounds of its changing?”
On May 2nd, at 5:30pm, Locating New Orleans (at Tulane City Center) will host a showing of the sonified map and other student work that bears connection with the map exhibit. Students will be in attendance and will engage in a public dialogue with Tulane faculty about the themes of the work and about doing the writing and filed recordings involved in the creation process.
A more comprehensive presentation of the map and of other student artwork, writing, and photography will be hosted by Creative Alliance of New Orleans in the 3rd Floor exhibition space of the Myrtle Banks Building. There will be an opening for the show on Friday, May 20th from 6pm-9pm.

Give NOLA Day
2016-05-03 08:00 - 17:00 | NOLA Brewery, 3001 Tchoupitoulas Street, New Orleans, LA, United States
Sarah Quintana & ASITW at Give NOLA Day Event

Join us at the NOLA Brewery for live music and more on
Tuesday, May 3rd, 5-9pm!
3001 Tchoupitoulas Street

Visit A Studio in the Woods’ page on Give NOLA’s site to donate and for more information!

Join us at the NOLA Brewery for live music and more on Tuesday, May 3rd, 5-9pm!
3001 Tchoupitoulas Street
ASITW’s former resident Sarah Quintana and representatives from Birdfoot Music Festival and Make Music Nola will be performing.

Donate $10 or more to one of the participating organizations and get a FREE BEER!

FORESTival Returns November 12th!
2016-11-12 11:00 - 17:00 | A Studio in the Woods, 13401 Patterson Rd, New Orleans, LA, 70131, United States
FORESTival: a celebration of art and nature at A Studio in the Woods
Saturday, November 12th, 2016, 11am-5pm
13401 Patterson Road, New Orleans, LA
Suggested Donation $5 at Gate
Musical performances by:
Sweet Crude
Johnny Angel and Helldorado
and Aaron Cohen

Artist presentations by current and former residents
Jackie Ehle Inglefield, Pippin Frisbie-Calder, E. Oscar Maynard, Benjamin Morris, and Megan Singleton
Special Guest Artists
Calliope Puppets, Ana Hernandez/Joan Mitchell Center Emerging Artist-in-Residence, and Pop Up Poets: Stacey Balkun, Gina Ferrara, Cassie Pruyn, and more!
Art Activities in the Kids in the Woods Studio
Walks in the Woods with Scientists
David Baker, botanist and ASITW Environmental Curator, and Ryan Moore, entomologist

Food and Beverage for purchase
Please no outside food or drink
Silent Auction and Raffle
Special Thanks to Our FORESTival Sponsors!
Valero Energy Foundation, Ellen & Mac Ball, Susan & Ralph Brennan, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph C. Canizaro, Phillips 66, Power Systems Specialists, Regions Bank, Whitney Bank, Richard Colton, Crescent Vodka, The Crepe Cart, Postlethwaite & Netterville, NOLA Brewing Company, Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, Quintin’s Ice Cream, Small Town Brewery, Slice Pizzeria, Catherine & David Edwards, Karen & Ollie Edmunds, Mr. & Mrs. Milton G. Scheuermann, Shalett Family, Jacqueline Sullivan, Jason Berry, Raymond Chin, Roy & Sacha Clay, Mary Len & Lou Costa, Richard & Janice Faust, Jon Stebbins, Julie Denslow, Rose Drill Peterson, Sarah Wallace, Robert Perez

And we couldn’t do it without our amazing FORESTival Committee
Jason Berry, Mary Len Costa, Mark Davis, Luann Dozier, Melanie Merz, Benjamin Morris, Libra LaGrone Pealer, Laura Rostad, Monte Shalett, Jackie Sullivan

Skrontch Music, a new work by Byron Asher
2017-04-19 18:30 - 20:30 | Blanche M. Francis Music Building, Xavier University, New Orleans, LA
Byron Asher and guests will perform “Skrontch Music”, a new major piece of music for clarinet and large ensemble that explores and is in service to the New Orleanian Creole traditions of clarinet virtuosity and political radicalism, created during Asher’s time in residence at A Studio in the Woods. His writing process was aided by deep research, including an oral history project of collaborative design with his faculty partner, Sharlene Sinegal DeCuir (Xavier, History), which documents the experiences of the older generation of Creole and New Orleans musicians still performing today.
Asher will be accompanied in this performance by Reagan Mitchell, Ricardo Pascal, Aurora Nealand, Shaye Cohn, Emily Frederickson, Oscar Rossignoli, Steve Glenn, James Singleton, and Paul Thibodeaux. The performance will be followed by a panel discussion.
Wednesday, April 19, 6:30pm
2nd Floor Recital Hall
Blanche M. Francis Music Building
Xavier University
1 Drexel Dr. New Orleans, LA 70125

Studio on the Half Shell
2017-04-25 18:00 - 21:00 | LA
An evening benefiting A Studio in the Woods hosted by Ellen Johnson and Ronnie Swartz in their 1958 modernist home in the historic Lake Vista neighborhood.
Tuesday, April 25th
6:00-9:00 in the evening
Patron tasting and tour at 5:00
Oysters, seafood and more by Peche Chef Ryan Prewitt
Whet your whistle with a cocktail by Cane & Table
Current and former resident artists Byron Asher, Sarah Dahnke, Jackie Ehle Inglefield, and Monique Verdin.
Oyster experts Albert “Rusty” Gaude from LSU AgCenter/Louisiana Sea Grant Program and Dr. Deb Abibou from Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana
Music by Helen Gillet
Silent Auction with items from Mignon Faget Ltd., Jefferson Performing Arts Society, Wortman Pottery, Boscoli Foods, Cajun Spirits, Rowan Jacobsen, Neal Auction House, Jeremy Sewall & Marion Lear, Sal Sunseri/P&J Oysters, Kit Wohl, and mini masterpieces from former residents and friends of ASITW!
Dress: Break out of your shell with pearls and seaworthy cocktail attire

Space is limited so purchase your tickets today!
For more information and to purchase tickets, please click HERE.
Thanks to our generous sponsors: Bernard & Franks, Bittersweet Confections, Susan Brennan, Bronco Wine Company, Lynne Burkart, Catering by Laura Arrowood, Sacha Clay, CURE/Cane & Table, Mary Len & Lou Costa, John Fischbach, Ellen Johnson & Ronnie Swartz, Kevin McCaffrey, MPress, Peche Seafood Grill, Postlewaite & Netterville.

Slave Trail of Tears: The Forgotten Journey of a Million
2017-10-10 19:00 - 20:30 | Freeman Auditorium, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
A Studio in the Woods and the New Orleans Center for the Gulf (Nola Gulf South) welcome you to Slave Trail of Tears: The Forgotten Journey of a Million. Edward Ball tells the story of a migration twice as large as the wagon train journey that would carry half a million whites west, a movement twenty times bigger than the Native American “Trail of Tears” that led into Oklahoma. During the fifty years before the Civil War, close to one million people, enslaved African Americans, were pushed out of the Upper South and forced to journey to the Deep South to work the cotton and sugar plantations. On the “Slave Trail of Tears,” people marched 1000 miles in chained “coffles” of 20 to 100 from the Chesapeake to Louisiana. Or, they were herded onto ships that sailed from near Washington, DC, around Florida, and up the Mississippi River to be sold in New Orleans. Ball asserts that the “Slave Trail of Tears,” and not the African slave trade, is the reason why most black people have roots in the Delta South. This is a migration that changed 500,000 families, populated the Southeast, and reshaped America.
This lecture is the second public event in the inaugural Gulf South Writer in the Woods program, a two-year study with Edward Ball. The Gulf South Writer in the Woods program is co-sponsored by A Studio in the Woods and the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South (Nola Gulf South) and includes a residency, public lectures and a workshop exploring race, family and place.
Edward Ball was born in Savannah, Georgia and raised in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida. He is an author who has written about the legacies of slavery in the Deep South. Edward’s book “Slaves in the Family” tells the story of his father’s family in South Carolina, the Balls, who were major slaveholders for 170 years, as well as the stories of ten of the African American families the Balls once enslaved. Slaves in the Family won the National Book Award for nonfiction, became a New York Times bestseller, was featured on Oprah and is widely translated. Edward Ball lives in New Haven, Connecticut, where he taught for five years at Yale University. He is working on a book about New Orleans during the years after the Civil War.
For more information, contact Regina Cairns at the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at 504-314-2854 or rcairns@tulane.edu and visit our website: tulane.edu/NOCGS.

FORESTival is 11/11/17!
2017-11-11 | A Studio in the Woods, 13401 Patterson Rd, New Orleans, LA, 70131, United States
FORESTival
A Celebration of Art and Nature
Saturday, November 11, 11am – 5pm
Get Tickets Here

Music and Performances!

The Asylum Chorus
With seven singers and a full backing band, The Asylum Chorus resonates with audiences in unique ways. Their complex vocal harmonies merge with modern arrangements, to drive the music to higher places. In every performance, they showcase their prodigious talents as vocalists, songwriters, and instrumentalists, with songs that range from quiet acapella originals to funky, full-throttle burners.

Byron Asher’s Skrontch Music
Skrontch Music is a new work for 10-piece ensemble that explores and is in service to the New Orleanian Creole traditions of clarinet virtuosity and political radicalism, created during Byron Asher’s 2016/17 residency at ASITW. The writing process was aided by deep research, including an oral history project of collaborative design with Xavier University historian and project partner, Professor Sharlene Sinegal DeCuir, which documents the experiences of the older generation of Creole and New Orleans clarinetists still performing today.

Confetti Park Players
Katy Hobgood Ray & the Confetti Park Players are a new kind of musical team! Katy leads a fun mashup of kids choir and fabulous, well-established adult New Orleans musicians. They perform catchy originals and familiar folk songs, jump rope jingles and clapping chants, and a few rock ‘n roll surprises.

Make Music NOLA
Make Music NOLA is an intensive music-for-social-change program. MMN provides focused, tuition-free, in-school and after-school music training to students who are eligible for free or reduced lunch at six charter schools and three community centers in East New Orleans, Central City, the 9th Ward, Mid-City, and the Riverbend.

Punica Granatum Collective
Punica Granatum Collective is a group of artists who make work specific to the space they are in. Their performances pull from improvisation and play to weave a sometimes unpredictable tale set in a world handmade from found materials. They will use a combination of storytelling elements including dance, music, puppets, props, and installations to create an interactive experience for the audience as they bring a folk tale to life.

Art and Artists!

ISeeChange
Current Adaptations Residents, Julia Kumari Drapkin and Lindsey Wagner of ISeeChange will display their mobile art exhibit featuring stories, photos, and reflections on a Gentilly neighborhood’s present, past and future with flooding. The art exhibit is co-curated with neighborhood residents and will debut the day before in the St. Bernard / Pilotland neighborhood of Gentilly.

John Kleinschmidt
Inside the levee protection system, seasonal fluctuations of the Mississippi River’s water level are a mystery. John Kleinschmidt will trace a line marking the river’s 2017 high water mark in the trees around the pond at A Studio In The Woods – a landscape that once depended on seasonal flooding to sustain its ecology.

Fallen Fruit
Learn more about our current project with artists Fallen Fruit! In partnership with Pelican Bomb, Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University, and the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development, this project will plant 300 fruit trees in New Orleans this spring. Learn more about how to get involved in the project and apply to adopt a tree! You can also donate to the project’s Kickstarter.

Antenna’s Draw-A-Thon
Local visual and literary arts nonprofit Antenna will be doing a special Draw-A-Thon pop-up at FORESTival! Antenna’s 24-hour Draw-A-Thon is an art experience in which people are active participants, encouraged to create for the sake of creating. It is an all-ages, free event that is open to the public with all art materials provided. The 12th annual Draw-A-Thon, will be held November 25th at The Green Project. Draw-A-Thon activities will include:
Make Your Own Recycled Sketchbook!
Put a Bird on It!

Benjamin Morris
Former Resident Benjamin Morris will present a reading from his recently published collection of poetry, Ecotone, which was written largely during his time in residence at A Studio in the Woods. Following the reading, Morris will lead a walking tour through the woods, highlighting the places that inspired his poems.

Jane Hill
Former resident Jane Hill will be creating a sculpture on-site throughout the day! Watch her creative process, molding clay and natural materials, as she brings an ephemeral piece of art into existence.

Building a Clay Forest
Inspired by Jane Hill’s process, Building a Clay Forest is a FORESTival favorite. Kids and adults alike can enjoy using their hands to mold clay and natural materials into a collaborative sculpture, creating a whimsical forest of our visitors’ invention.

FORESTival is made possible with the generous support of Valero Energy Foundation, Arbors Estates of Orleans, Lynne Burkart, Power Systems Specialists, Ellen and Tom Prewitt, Regions Bank, New Orleans Hash House Harriers Red Dress Run, Waggonner and Ball Architects, Troy Scroggins, Mary and Larry Antonini, Dawn Barrios, Richard Colton, Karen Edmunds, Mereaux Foundation, Mary Len and Lou Costa, Catherine and Hunter Pierson, Linda Usdin, Martie and Art Waterman, and Pelican Bomb.

A Studio in the Woods is dedicated to providing a protected wooded retreat where artists and scholars can work uninterrupted. We appreciate your support as we honor more than 15 years in service of this mission. You too can support all of A Studio in the Woods’ programs by clicking HERE.

Art Salon with Aubrey Edwards and Gretchen Faust
2017-12-04 18:30 | A Studio in the Woods, 13401 Patterson Rd, New Orleans, LA, 70131, United States
Artist Salon with Aubrey Edwards and Gretchen Faust
Please join us for dinner at A Studio in the Woods
Monday, December 4, 6:30pm
You are cordially invited to meet A Studio in the Woods’ newest resident artists, Aubrey Edwards and Gretchen Faust. Aubrey and Gretchen have been awarded one of five Adaptations Residencies at A Studio in the Woods this season. These residencies invite artists to examine how climate driven adaptations – large and small, historic and contemporary, cultural and scientific – are shaping our future.
This is a potluck, we will provide the main dish but ask that everyone pitch in a little something – drinks, salad, appetizer, dessert…
Please RSVP here by December 1st, 2017 and let us know what you plan to bring. Click here for map and directions: MAP. Please note that parking is limited, save on gas and carpool with a friend!
About the work – While in residence, Aubrey and Gretchen will work on their collaborative project, Holding Space: Female Voices on Body, Land and Healing in South Louisiana. The project is comprised of a short observational film exploring an array of healing practices and a contextualizing, accompanying oral herstory book featuring over fifty regional collaborators and healers. The ensemble of female identified voices share wisdom, while providing readers with tools and practices to engage in self healing in a time where body / spirit / land healing is crucial. Gathered voices speak to: ancestral connections, trauma and retraumatization, emotional health, gender, community, environmental racism, Louisiana herstory, geological treasures, land use, coastal land loss, climate change, traditional knowledge, herbal medicine, feminine divine, and magic.
About the Artists – Aubrey Edwards and Gretchen Faust met in a Visual Anthropology class at the University of New Orleans in 2014 where they discovered their shared passion for the natural world, participatory community documentation, and creating space for female voice. Aubrey is a professional photographer and educator. Gretchen is an installation artist and student of herbal medicine. They are women, and work in partnership with all forms of women. When not living and working in New Orleans, they can be found in the wild. Holding Space is their first collaborative project.

Crude Life Portable Museum: A Citizen Art and Science Investigation of Gulf of Mexico Biodiversity after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
2017-12-14 17:30 - 18:30 | Tulane River and Coastal Center, 1370 Port of New Orleans Place, New Orleans, LA, United States
Join artist/biologist Dr. Brandon Ballengée for a pop-up exhibition and reception of Crude Life December 14, 5:30 – 6:30 at the Tulane River and Coastal Center, 1370 Port of New Orleans Place1370 Port of New Orleans Place (behind the Convention Center) organized by Studio in the Woods during the 2017 American Geophysical Union Meeting. Open to the public and free.
Crude Life is an interdisciplinary art, science and outreach project focused on gathering data on endemic fishes affected by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. This portable art- science museum of Gulf of Mexico regional biodiversity seeks to raise public awareness of local species, ecosystems, and regional environmental challenges through temporary “pop-up” exhibitions along community “citizen science” surveys of Gulf species.

The art-science museum’s “galleries” were created from repurposed sea chests/ steamer trunks retrofitted with handcrafted wood interiors for easy transport. As the museum travels, the collaborators lead public and youth “Eco-Action” educational and research field trips, to sample local fishes and other aquatic species while encouraging participants to make their own art about the discovered animals. Data on these species will be utilized for a scientific study and participant artworks will be included in the museum. The combination of the curiosity of a mobile museum, interactivity of citizen science, and one-on-one discussions occurring as a result of the project stimulates ongoing dialogues, education, data gathering, and to create valuable lasting partnerships throughout the Gulf region. The scientific focus of the project seeks to find 14 missing species of endemic Gulf fishes that have not been found following the spill. With the help of Gulf residents, we hope to find them!

Investigators: Dr. Brandon Ballengée (PI, Louisiana State University) Dr. Prosanta Chakrabarty (Co-PI, Louisiana State University) Sean Owen Miller (Co-PI, University of Florida) Rachel Mayeri (Co-PI, Harvey Mudd College)Collaborators: Dr. Suzanne Fredericq (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) Aurore Ballengée (Atelier de la Nature) Monique Michelle Verdin (My Louisiana Love) Dr. Benjamin Dubansky (University of Texas Denton)
Participants: Senator Norbert ‘Norby’ Nolty Chabert (Louisiana State Senate) Cherri Foytlin (Bold Louisiana) Josh Baumgardener (Haliburton) Dr. Edward Chesney (Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium/ LUMCON) Dr. Alexander Kolker (Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium/ LUMCON) Dr. Linda Hooper Bui (Louisiana State University) Blaise Daniel Pezold (Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry’s Coastal ReVegetation Project) Randon Dufrene (Tee Jug’s Shrimp Company) Bob Chateaulin (Private horticulturalist) Keith Broussard (Fish and Wildlife Manager of Cypremort State Park) Jonathan Foret (Executive Director South Louisiana Wetlands Discover Center) Members of the Pointe-Aux-Chenes Tribe + Students and residents of the Louisiana coast regions
Support Received: Interdisciplinary Projects Grant Award, National Academies Keck Futures Initiative (NAKFI), a project of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Washington D.C.; Artspark Grant, Acadiana Center for the Arts (ACA) and Lafayette Economic Development Authority (LEDA), Lafayette, LA.; and University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.

Holding Space: A Free Day of Drop in Workshops
2017-12-16 | A Studio in the Woods, 13401 Patterson Rd, New Orleans, LA, 70131, United States
Saturday, December 16
A Studio in the Woods, 13401 Patterson Road, New Orleans, LA
RSVP on Facebook

This event is a part of an ongoing oral herstory project called,
“Holding Space: Female Voices on Body, Land and Healing in Southern Louisiana”, featuring over fifty regional collaborators and healers.
9am – 9:50am – Jessi Donley – “Sacred Embodiment”
A visceral journey from the ground-up and from the inside-out through movement and meditation.
10am – 11am – Sula Janet Evans – “Power of the Orisha”
Learn about the Orisha through song.
11:10am – 12:10pm – Gyspi Lewis – “Herbal Smoke Blends”
A hands-on workshop exploring the healing properties of botanicals through medicinal smoking – we’ll smell, touch, and discuss a few different herbs as well as how to pair them with each other.
12:20pm – 1:20pm – Olivia Moran & Amber Dawn – “Grow Your Own Medicine”
An introduction to growing medicinal herbs and flowers in an urban setting, specific to the unique climate of New Orleans
1:30pm – 2:30pm – Kristal “M2daE” Jones and Laura Stein – “Dancing Grounds Movement”
Explore the unique ways that your body moves in a joyful, community-centered exploration – Prepared to move and get sweaty!
2:40pm – 3:40pm – Ellenie Cruz – “Essences of Resurrection; an introduction to Flower Essences”
Learning the energetic medicine of flowers and how to make a flower essence
4pm – 5pm – Andiaye Alimayu – “Alchemical Transformation: Soap & The Soul”
Talk on the alchemical spiritual properties of soap making and spiritual self transformation
5:10pm – 6:10pm – Jen Stovall – “Pay it Forward Medicine Making Class”
In this class you will learn how to make an expectorant syrup using local plants. All medicine will be donated to unhoused folks.
6:20 – 7:20pm – Kathleen Currie – “Breathwork for Health”
Using scent and the power of breath to connect deeper to self, spirit and wellness

Please park on the road and walk into ASITW.
Contact HoldingSpace.Louisiana@gmail.com for questions.

À Propos with A Studio in the Woods
2018-01-25 18:00 - 19:30 | The Stacks, 900 Camp Street, New Orleans, LA
À Propos is a series of event produced by The Stacks Bookstore that features each month a different non-profit organization based in the New Orleans metro-area. During that evening, an organization shares with the audience their history, milestones, anecdotes, and upcoming projects.
Join us Thursday January 25 from 6:00 until 7:30pm for a conversation with the team of A Studio and the Woods.
Then, after the talk, head to the performance at 7:30pm of Urban Bush Women: Hair & Other Stories! More info @ cacno.org
A Studio in the Woods is dedicated to preserving the endangered bottomland hardwood forest and providing within it a peaceful retreat where visual, literary and performing artists can work uninterrupted. Learn more about ASITW’s current call for proposals and the Adaptations Residency series.
More info at http://www.astudiointhewoods.org/
Drinks and snacks will be served.

Artist Salon with John Kleinschmidt
2018-02-01 | A Studio in the Woods, 13401 Patterson Rd, New Orleans, LA, 70131, United States
You are cordially invited to meet A Studio in the Woods’ newest resident artist, John Kleinschmidt. John has been awarded one of five Adaptations Residencies at A Studio in the Woods this season. These residencies invite artists to examine how climate driven adaptations – large and small, historic and contemporary, cultural and scientific – are shaping our future.
This is a potluck, we will provide the main dish but ask that everyone pitch in a little something – drinks, salad, appetizer, dessert…
Please RSVP here by January 30th, 2018 and let us know what you plan to bring. Click here for map and directions: MAP. Please note that parking is limited, save on gas and carpool with a friend!
About the Work – While in residence, John will use drawing and installations to explore prehistoric and present-day environmental change and project what plants and animals might thrive in the distant future environment of New Orleans. John, in collaboration with evolutionary biologists, geologists, and experts in ecological change, will work with a group of elementary students to cut a cross-section through time on a site in New Orleans. John and the students will use drawing as a tool to explore New Orlean’s deep geological past, observe its precarious condition today, and speculate about its future environment. John will adapt student drawings into “design documents” for a site-specific installation revealing clues about imagined future plants and animals of New Orleans. John’s primary collaborator is Claire Anderson, science teacher and co-director of Ripple Effect, a non-profit working to build water literacy in New Orleans schools.
About the Artist – John is an architect and artist in New Orleans, Louisiana. By day, he works at Waggonner & Ball Architecture/Environment on buildings and urban design projects focused on water management and adaptations to climate change. By night, he draws, makes prints, and is a partner in Shallow Studio, an art and architecture practice that works to uncover hidden stories in strange sites through interactive installations.

LEAVINGS: Presentation and Discussion
2018-02-20 19:00 | Carrara Marble & Granite, 912 Julia St, New Orleans, LA, United States
Please join us for an evening of presentations around the issues of plastic garbage and its impact on our environment. LEAVINGS: A Rachel David & Shawn Hall Collaboration in partnership with A Studio in the Woods and the ByWater Institute presents an evening of talks by LSU biological oceanographer, Mark Benfield, and Teaching Responsible Earth Education (T.R.E.E.) educator, Elyria Grote.
Tuesday, February 20th. Light refreshments at 7pm, presentations at 7:30pm, questions/discussion to follow. Carrara Marble & Granite, 912 Julia St. More information here.

Uncommon Exchanges: Clay
2018-02-21 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, United States
In this new speaker series presented by Newcomb Art Museum in partnership with A Studio in the Woods, The ByWater Institute at Tulane University, and Nola Gulf South, unlikely pairings of Tulane and Gulf South experts use an aspect of Newcomb’s latest exhibition as the catalyst for interdisciplinary dialogue. In this edition, Professor Emilia Oddo of the classics department at Tulane and Professor Mead Allison of The Water Institute of The Gulf will use clay as the launching point for a deeper look into their own research and how they may, no matter unlikely, overlap.
In the inaugural program, Rebecca Snedeker, Clark Executive Director, New Orleans Center for the Gulf South will moderate an exchange between Prof. Oddo and Prof. Allison. The discussion will last around 45 minutes with 15 minutes of Q&A time at the end for audience engagement.
Both New Orleans and Tulane communities are encouraged to attend and take advantage of this opportunity to engage with academics, artists, and activists in a variety of fields.
Wednesday, February 21 at the Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University

Artist Salon with Tia-Simone Gardner
2018-02-28 08:00 - 17:00 | A Studio in the Woods, 13401 Patterson Rd, New Orleans, LA, 70131, United States
You are cordially invited to meet A Studio in the Woods’ newest resident artist, Tia-Simone Gardner. Tia-Simone has been awarded one of five Adaptations Residencies at A Studio in the Woods this season. These residencies invite artists to examine how climate driven adaptations – large and small, historic and contemporary, cultural and scientific – are shaping our future.
This is a potluck, we will provide the main dish but ask that everyone pitch in a little something – drinks, salad, appetizer, dessert…
Please RSVP here by February 26th, 2018 and let us know what you plan to bring. Click here for map and directions: MAP. Please note that parking is limited, save on gas and carpool with a friend!
About the Work – While in residence, Tia-Simone Gardner will begin a new project, Reading the River, Yemaya and Oshun, which uses the Mississippi River, as a space to understand mobility, stasis, and change over time. Using remote controlled video cameras and live-stream technology she proposes to create a seven channel video installation that documents seven sites along the Mississippi River, chosen because of their relationship to the social, racial, and geographic formation of the United States. Working with faculty, students and community members from New Orleans, she will use her time at A Studio in the Woods to do archival research, conduct reading and writing groups that will produce the text for the video installation and to hold a community design workshop to prototype the floating modules that will capture footage of the River.
About the Artist – Tia-Simone is a mixed media artist working in methods of appropriation and installation. She investigates place-based knowledge through personal and collective experiences of space and time. Tia is interested in psychological relationships to locations and the idea of home. She has held residencies in the Netherlands, Sweden and Woodstock, NY and will add New Orleans to that list during her residency. She holds an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She currently lives in Minneapolis, MN.
