Painting New Orleans Blog

WHY I LOVE PAINTING COMMISSIONS

Painting commissions for people of their homes and buildings they love has given me real satisfaction and sense of purpose.  I live in a city that is deeply connected to its past and I have the opportunity to connect people with their own personal history in an emotionally satisfying way.  Architecture can be a powerful symbol of the things that are important to us, it doesn’t merely protect us from the elements, and architecture carries our stories and our passions within its walls.

I recently had an opportunity to connect with architecture and someone’s personal story when I was approached by a woman named Rosanna at the Palmer Park Arts Market.  She asked if I would paint the Beauregard- Keys House at 3111 Chartres Street in the French Quarter.  The Confederate General Beauregard had honeymooned at the house before the civil war and lived there for two years afterwards.  More important to Rosanna was that her Grandfather and Father lived in the house and she worked at the house as a docent which is now a museum.

Working on the painting helped me to appreciate its architecturally distinct Greek Revival Style.  I particularly loved the curved staircase and how it set off the columns.

“Beauregard Keyes House” 16” x 20”

When I had finished the painting I delivered it to Rosanna at the Beauregard Keyes house right before she had to give a tour.  It was an emotional event because the house is so important to her.  She told me that the painting made me think of her father,(who had passed) and how he would spend time in the wine cellar when he was a boy and she tried to imagine which rooms her father had stayed in. 

This is Rosanna with her new painting.

I also learned a bit about Rosanna and her family and a bit of intrigue that her great grandfather was involved in.  Her family was involved in the wholesale liquor business in the early 1900s and they were having trouble with the Sicilian Mafia.  So her great grandfather shot and killed four members of the mafia on the back gallery of the house. He was tried for murder but the case was dropped because everyone thought that he had really done a good deed.  What can I say, we live in an interesting city.

When I was a niave teenager I thought that paintings would move people by expressing the pain of the artist.  That melodramatic understanding has given way to something more real but just as emotional.  I get to connect people like Rosanna to their stories with a one of a kind work of art.  It’s a lot of fun.