N.O. artists worry oil spill will destroy their colony

The artists on Jackson Square are a motley crew of old hands and new ones who have lined the fence for years as part of the culture of the French Quarter, and they like the surrounding businesses have mixed opinions about the oil spill.

Some see the situation as another nail driving into a hardened surface, but this one that might be deep enough to do damage. Thorn Rand is one of them. He is a caricaturist and portrait painter who has worked on the Square since 1980.

“This is going to be a bad deal,” he says. “Just as things were picking up again, it looks like we will have trouble getting customers. People are canceling reservations here in New Orleans, and I think the disaster in the Gulf will affect everything.”

Wendell is the kind of fellow who doesn’t like interviews. As one of the long-termers of Jackson Square he has seen peaks and valleys in the business of art over the past ten years or so. He said, “We were beginning to recover after Hurricane Katrina, and then the recession hit us. Now it will be made even worse with this oil spill.”

Vivian Westerman has been on the square for more than 15 years. Her take on all this? “My house is paid for; I’m doing okay. I’ve got protection for myself in case of intruders, and I take precautions. I stuck it out during Hurricane Katrina, and I will stick out the next crisis too.”

Peggy Nead worries about the New Orleans economy. “The businesses here depend on oil and gas money which has brought affluence to a lot of people around here,” she explains. “Without that money, we will all be in trouble.”

She goes on to explain how difficult it was for the artists following Hurricane Katrina and how one by one they have been trickling back. But this oil spill?

“This is different,” she continues. “This is something we may not survive, and the colony that has been here for decades will be gone.  We can't take another setback.  And what's sad, is art, like music, is a vital part of French Quarter life.