New Orleans ~ its a complicated place

Today, my first in New Orleans, was a very busy and intense day. I came away from the day with a lot of confusion. This is an incredibly complicated situation down here that didn't start with the hurricane--the hurricane added another layer.

Many here, volunteers and residents, feel the city used the hurricane to evict an undesirable population.




what's been left behind remind me of grave sites




stairs and paths that lead nowhere anymore.



Common Ground Relief in L9



Zeraph (aka Brandon) my escort and wetlands
project coordinator at Common Ground.

On visiting the Lower Ninth Ward one can only stare and wonder what is going on here. Vast flat fields resembling long neglected graveyards, driveways that go nowhere and slabs of cement with steps for no one. There is a strange beauty. The large trees that have survived dominate the landscape.

A wildwest quality vibrates in the energy there. One can feel a tension and law-less-ness and an anything could happen feeling. This has attracted scores of mostly young people to volunteer in the lower 9th for what appears to be a loosely organized agency called Common Ground Relief. I got to hang with a couple of the volunteers today while working on a water collection system. Of the group I met, all have been on and off, long term, volunteers and were not into living any kind of mainstream lifestyle.

The Common Ground area in the Lower 9th is comprised of about 7 or so buildings that are leased by the agency and house the volunteers, as well as a dining area, a donated clothing area, a small tree farm and plant nursery. There are numerous projects going on at any given time.

One of the wierd-er things is seeing the tour buses go through the area. Some stop, people get off and briefly look around while others just roll slowly through.




Volunteers at Common Ground getting
ready to assemble a rainwater collection system







Three completely destroyed houses that are inexplicably
left standing while perfectly good homes have been demolished.

Its hard to describe all the destruction here. In the Holy Cross neighborhood which is also a part of the lower 9th, there are more houses still left standing whereas on the other side of the lower 9th there are very very few.

Holy cross is also the site of the Global Green Housing development. We stopped by and had a visit with one of the workers who was a friend of Brandon's. I was under the impression that this was a great project but now I am not so certain. He pointed out that while it sounded good, the up keep on the house was so beyond what anyone from that area would be able to keep afford. He also pointed out this is a million dollar home going up in the most dangerous area of any place in the US. It started to seem like less of a good idea to me. I will try to follow-up on this latter.



Finishing construction on the Global Green House
in the Holy Cross neighborhood .

WETLANDS PRESENTATION



School children listen to a wetlands presentation

Today we also visited the John Dibert school in mid-city. Brandon assisted while Colleen made a presentation to groups of 2nd, 3rd and 4 th graders on what a wetlands is and the importance of the wetlands. The kids LOVED IT! It was so fun and I loved it too! The kids were really funny. Its so important that the wetlands are preserved.



Thats all for now folks.

I will try to have some stuff posted here tomorrow from paintings sites.

Best always, Suzanne

NOLA Project Update

The NOLA Project Update

I have been passionately and personally involved in the struggle of the lower ninth ward in New Orleans to recover their land, and keep their culture intact. I knew I wanted to visit the area, but not as a tourist. Then it came to me like a vision, I knew I had to go there as an artist, paint and document, and bring something of this place and time back with me to share with others.

My daughter has been volunteering for the past 5 months in the lower 9th. Through her I have become very connected to the tragedy that continues to befall these folk 2 years after the levees broke. Having this personal connection has been the catalyst for me and I will be creating a body of work that will hopefully help other people connect with what is happening and what should be happening there.

I will be in New Orleans Oct. 10-17. While there I will be creating artwork, blogging and uploading photos daily here. My daughter will be my escort. Below is an outline the areas we will be visiting and painting:

Outline of the Painting and Blogging Locations

Lower 9th Landscape–painting and trying to get a sense of the area–what has been and what the future might hold. Plan to paint at the site of a levee breach

Survivors Village–Survivor's Village is a tent city erected on June 3, 2006 by the residents of New Orleans public housing. Joined by other public housing residents, the residents of St. Bernard Public Housing Development initiated the tent city as a response to the federal government's continued undermining of the residents' rights to return to their homes and resume their leases, which is guaranteed by the UN International Policy on Internally Displaced Persons. www.survivorsvillage.com

The Wetlands Restoration Project–a project of Common Ground Relief Organization. This project seeks to rebuild the destroyed wetlands that are crucial to absorbing storm surge. www.commongroundrelief.org

Common Ground Relief Headquarters–a grassroots organization that has been there from day one. Many college age people flocked to Common Ground and offered immense help in gutting and mold abatement for example. www.commongroundrelief.org

Bayou Communities–though not part of the lower 9th, this is an impoverished area that little is heard about. They are struggling to survive post hurricane. Painting site.

The Eco Green House and Habitat For Humanity home sites–painting at the construction sites and finding out about the reconstruction that is going on through volunteer and philanthropic efforts. Painting site.

Holy Cross Neighborhood Association–a very active area in the lower 9th. I have been contacted through my blog by another blogger from Kansas who is a volunteer for Holy Cross. Making a connection through the online community is another important part of this project.
Displaying the Work. http://www.helpholycross.org


After returning from New Orleans, the work created will be displayed online at www.bluezeppelin.com/gallery/yikesstudio. The blog will be ongoing and will also contain photos and links for more information.

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful support I have received!!
Its not too late to buy a bracelet if you haven’t already as many expenses have yet to be covered)

Next I will be talking to you from New Orleans!

Best Wishes,
Suzanne

Almost There-Getting Ready

YEAH!

Hello to all who have been checking this blog and are supporting this project. Sorry to have been lax in my blogging of late. So much to do and trying to get caught up with work before leaving for New Orleans.

Last weekend we (my husband Anthony and myself) attended an end the war rally/ bring home the troops etc. event in Bangor. It was a good rally and there were some really great speeches but I was a little disapointed by the turn out. There weren't that many more people attending then had been at the rally in March. With all the dissatisfaction and frustration I hear from everyone everyday I thought there would be more in attendance. There was lots of support from people passing by in cars. Everyone needs to get involved however they can.

I don't really want to move the discussion here beyond New Orleans though its hard not to when everything is so related. As a country we should focus on what is needed right here like fixing failing infrastructures instead of spending billions of dollars on an unjust war.

Well, so long till I post my first blog from New Orleans. You should expect to see something from me Oct 10 in the evening as that will be my first full day. I will be jumping right in and will have lots to show you.

Till then,

Best wishes,

Suzanne

Wetlands and the importance of saving them

PROGRESS REPORT
I can't thank everyone enough for their support of my project. It has been so great to see the "HOME" bracelets selling! Not only because they will help finance this project but I know that this blog will been read by even more people! It is my hope that this will be a sort of viral thing that takes off on its own. I am truly grateful for the response.

THE WETLANDS
As part of my painting trip to New Orleans I will be spending time at the Wetland Restoration Project. I have received a lot of information regarding the importance in maintaining a healthy wetland as protection against storm surge.

What I have Learned

• Louisiana is losing wetlands at an incredible rate- one football-field sized area every thirty minutes.
  
  
• Wetlands are a natural levee and our best protection against storm surges and flooding. During Katrina and Rita, levees with healthy wetlands on their sides did not breach, but those next to open water did.
  
  
• One to four acres of wetlands can reduce a storm surge by one foot. In addition, wetlands act like a giant sponge, soaking up billions of gallons of floodwater.
  
  
• The entire country relies on the Gulf of Mexico, so any obstacles to rebuilding a sustainable coast and New Orleans should be met with the full force of a national commitment. A stable New Orleans is predicated on a sustainable coast, and that will be achieved through massive river diversions, closing man-made channels, and holding oil and gas companies accountable for past destruction. There is still a lot of work to do, but with the help of all Americans, we can restore and protect Louisiana's coast, and we must.
  
  
• Natural storm defenses -barrier islands, wetlands, and coastal forests- that once existed had suffered at the hand of humans, and their demise left coastal communities exposed. The storm surge Katrina created destroyed southern Louisiana, obliterated the coast of Mississippi, and toppled levees causing catastrophic flooding in New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish. People drowned in their houses, billions of dollars of property were destroyed, and cracks in American government and society were exposed.

On September 15, 2005, the President pledged
to rebuild the Gulf Coast and do whatever it takes
to make New Orleans and the region rise again.

As the recovery continues two years later, an honest federal commitment to effective storm protection that incorporates coastal restoration and conservation, along with the proper levee alignments, is essential to rebuilding a sustainable Gulf Coast.

KUDOS to WAL-MART Wal-Mart has decided that, as of January 1, 2007, the company will no longer accept cypress mulch that is harvested, bagged, or manufactured in Louisiana. It's a tremendous step that Wal-Mart has recognized cypress sustainability as an important concern.
__________________________________________________________________

I am posting here a rather lengthy (please forgive me) exerpt from Our Coast to Fix -- or Lose By John M. Barry, author of “Rising Tide” and secretary of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East.

Saturday, May 12, 2007; A15
There has been much debate in the past 20 months over protecting Louisiana from another lethal hurricane, but nearly all of it has been conducted without any real understanding of the geological context. Congress and the Bush administration need to recognize six facts that define the national interest.

Fact 1: The Gulf of Mexico once reached north to Cape Girardeau, Mo. But the Mississippi River carries such an enormous sediment load that, combined with a falling sea level, it deposited enough sediment to create 35,000 square miles of land from Cape Girardeau to the present mouth of the river. This river-created land includes the entire coast, complete with barrier islands, stretching from Mississippi to Texas. But four human interventions have interfered with this natural process; three of them that benefit the rest of the country have dramatically increased the hurricane threat to the Gulf Coast.

Fact 2: Acres of riverbank at a time used to collapse into the river system providing a main source of sediment. To prevent this and to protect lives and property, engineers stopped such collapses by paving hundreds of miles of the river with riprap and even concrete, beginning more than 1,000 miles upriver -- including on the Ohio, Missouri and other tributaries -- from New Orleans. Reservoirs for flood protection also impound sediment. These and other actions deprive the Mississippi of 60 to 70 percent of its natural sediment load, starving the coast.

Fact 3: To stop sandbars from blocking shipping at the mouth of the Mississippi, engineers built jetties extending more than two miles out into the Gulf of Mexico. This engineering makes Tulsa, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and other cities into ports with direct access to the ocean, greatly enhancing the nation’s economy. The river carries 20 percent of the nation’s exports, including 60 percent of its grain exports, and the river at New Orleans is the busiest port in the world. But the jetties prevent any of the sediment remaining in the river from replenishing the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts and barrier islands; instead, the jetties drop the sediment off the continental shelf.

Fact 4: Levees that prevent river flooding in Louisiana and Mississippi interfere with the replenishment of the land locally as well.

Fact 5: Roughly 30 percent of the country’s domestic oil and gas production comes from offshore Louisiana, and to service that production the industry created more than 10,000 miles of canals and pipelines through the marsh. Every inch of those 10,000-plus miles lets saltwater penetrate, and eat away at the coast. So energy production has enormously accelerated what was a slow degradation, transforming a long-term problem into an immediate crisis. The deprivation of sediment is like moving a block of ice from the freezer to the sink, where it begins to melt; the effect of the canals and pipelines is like attacking that ice with an ice pick, breaking it up. As a result, 2,100 square miles of coastal land and barrier islands have melted into the Gulf of Mexico. This land once served as a buffer between the ocean and populated areas in Louisiana and part of Mississippi, protecting them during hurricanes. Each land mile over which a hurricane travels absorbs roughly a foot of storm surge. The nation as a whole gets nearly all the benefits of engineering the river. Louisiana and some of coastal Mississippi get 100 percent of the costs. Eastern New Orleans (including the lower Ninth Ward) and St. Bernard Parish -- nearly all of which, incidentally, is at or above sea level -- exemplify this allocation of costs and benefits. Three man-made shipping canals pass through them, creating almost no jobs there but benefiting commerce throughout the country. Yet nearly all the 175,000 people living there saw their homes flooded not because of any natural vulnerability but because of levee breaks.

Fact 6: Without action, land loss will continue, and it will increasingly jeopardize populated areas, the port system and energy production. This would be catastrophic for America. Scientists say the problem can be solved, even with rising sea levels, but that we have only a decade to begin addressing it in a serious way or the damage may be irreversible. Despite all this and President Bush’s pledge from New Orleans in September 2005 that “we will do what it takes” to help people rebuild, a draft White House cuts its own recommendation of $2 billion for coastal restoration to $1 billion while calling for an increase in the state’s contribution from the usual 35 percent to 50 percent. Generating benefits to the nation is what created the problem, and the nation needs to solve it. Put simply: Why should a cab driver in Pittsburgh or Tulsa pay to fix Louisiana’s coast? Because he gets a stronger economy and lower energy costs from it, and because his benefits created the problem. The failure of Congress and the president to act aggressively to repair the coastline at the mouth of the Mississippi River could threaten the economic vitality of the nation. Louisiana, one of the poorest states, can no longer afford to underwrite benefits for the rest of the nation.

John M. Barry is the author of “Rising Tide” and secretary of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East. This article was published in the Washington Post on line.

Till next time--Suzanne

Two year Anniversary

As some houses are rebulit and repaired, some remain in
the same state of disrepair. Ninth Ward, August 2007, Michael J. Sax www.flickr.com/photos/michaelsax/sets/72157601639387493/

Two years ago today Hurricane Katrina, the costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in the history of the US, made landfall in the Gulf. The most severe loss of life and property damage occurred in New Orleans when the levee system failed catastrophically hours after the storm moved inland.

The system failed in 53 different places. Nearly every levee in metro New Orleans breached as Hurricane Katrina passed east of the city, subsequently flooding 80% of it. Much of the city and many area of neighboring parishes were underwater for weeks.

Two weeks after Katrina, President Bush, in Jackson Square, pledged to the nation a massive reconstruction. "Bureaucracy", he said "is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people". Now two years later a bureaucratic stranglehold is choking off its recovery. Huge amounts of money have gone to waste, while so called leaders are mired in scandal, corruption, and fighting all the way down the line.

In the past year as all the failures have come to light Bush visited New Orleans twice and didn't even mention the great city in the State of the Union address last January.

Much of New Orleans still looks like a wasteland, with businesses shuttered and houses abandoned. Basic services such as schools, libraries, public transportation and childcare are at half their original levels and only two-thirds of the region's licensed hospitals are open. Workers are often scarce. Rents have skyrocketed. Crime is rampant.

I am shocked, I am dismayed. That this country's leadership is so bankrupt and has strayed so far that the welfare if its own people has become unimportant. To be willing to throw away the cultural richness and human dignity of a once great city is beyond my comprehension.

It is my mission and my goal to help bring some humanity back by connecting to this terrible tragedy through art.



The Lost World-There are no trailers, no signs of FEMA,
no construction crews or anyone around at all. This is the Lost World.
New Orleans, May 2007 www.flickr.com/photos/9735372@N03

ONLINE GALLERY
The address for the online gallery where I will be posting artwork during and after the New Orleans trip will be
www.bluezeppelin.com/gallery/yikesstudio

Till the next blog...
~Suzanne

Fundraising Bracelet available online

Hi, I wanted to let people know that the handmade fundraising bracelet "Home" is now available for purchase online at Etsy. They make it very easy to purchase items through their secure server, can accept all major credit cards and PayPal.

THANKS TO THE SPONSORS
I am thinking it would be nice to list everyone who has made this trip possible.
Please let me know if you would like your name listed on this site as a sponsor.

ORGANIZING THE TRIP
I am in the process of getting my itinerary together as far as what I will be doing each day. Here are the things I am planning at this time. Painting at the Common Ground Wetlands Restoration Project, painting at the Eco Green building site, Painting at the volunteer center. Painting at a Habitat for Humanity site (met the Bangor Habitat for Humanity volunteers at the Folk Festival in Bangor last weekend-They sell an adorable "House" pin to raise money!).

If anyone knows about anything else I should check out, please let me know and I will do my best.

Have found a fantastic place to stay in New Orleans on Craig's List. It is a weekly rental that has a kitchen and plenty of room for my art supplies!

The dates are cemented in for Oct 10-17. Probably not long enough but it looks like that is what is affordable.

News
Will have some interesting info about Wetlands Restoration here soon.

Thanks for your support--Suzanne

Great Things are Happening in NOLA!

A single-family, eco-friendly home from
Global Green USA and workshop/apd's New Orleans project.

I Wanted to post a pict here about Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, Global Green and Brad Pitt and the creation of the first of the Green houses in Lower 9th. This is an amazing project financed by Pitt and HomeDepot. The Holy Cross Project consists of 5 single-family homes, an 18-unit apartment building, and a community center/sustainable design and climate action center.

As part of my trip to New Orleans I plan to visit the construction site, do some drawings and will upload photos of this fantastic project.

Global Green USA and New Orleans – an Overview
After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the inadequate response of the US Government, Global Green USA made a dedicated commitment to sustainable building in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. As part of that commitment, Global Green, in partnership with Brad Pitt, sponsored an international design competition during the summer of 2006, with more than 125 entries competing to design a zero energy affordable housing development in the Holy Cross Neighborhood of the Lower 9th Ward. Matthew Berman and Andrew Kotchen of Workshop/APD in New York created the winning design. With the Home Depot Foundation as lead sponsor, Global Green is now working with Workshop/APD and a dedicated and highly skilled team of sustainable design and building experts together with the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association to translate the winning development proposal into a reality.

Charles Allen Speaks
08-16-2007
The Holy Cross Project symbolizes renewal and rebirth of the Holy Cross/Lower 9th ward community. Given the fact that this community housing/multi-use project is very modern and state of the art in its appearance and technological design/features, it sends a strong message to the world that the people of this community have fully embraced sustainable redevelopment and wish to serve as a model community in this regard. We in this community wish to no longer be seen as being relegated to substandard conditions for living and working in this community. We want nothing but the best. And, we wish to proclaim commitment to helping preserve the global environment.

-- Charles Allen - President of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association

FILM
If you haven't seen Spike Lee's film "When the Levees Broke" try to see it soon.

TRIP UPDATE
looks like the dates will be Oct 10-17. Not a lot of time to cover everything but I plan to get as much packed in as possible. Might not be sleeping much as I intend to create as much work there as possible.

Thanks for all your support
--Suzanne