During the interview, Carol Harris, Keshuna Jones-Lee, and Demond Melancon reflect on 2020 and 2021 and the changes they have seen personally, and the inward transformations. The deep sorrow for the lives lost is palpable. They detail how the pandemic shifted their worlds upside down. Harris reminisces as to how Covid is mean and brutal, in all facets of life. This was felt in her immediate family when she watched many of her close ones take their wings. Jones-Lee also shared her personal experience of having Covid-19 and how the closures shut down many of her options of creating income as a singer and performer. As the pandemic put many lives on pause, Demond felt that he was able to hone in on his craft and continue creating his bead art. This led to opening his own show and selling some of his fascinating pieces. While reflecting on the Good Life Project, a sense of mindfulness and creation was born in each. As Jones-Lee says so beautifully, she was reminded how much sweeter the simple things are, like being able to see the black maskers come out of their homes with their suits on or see a second line on Sundays. These traditions knit the community together.
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Dartanya Croff Oral History
Kim Vaz-Deville
Dartanya Croff: Fiber Artist Dartanya Croff is a fiber artist and a member of Krewe of Goddesses. She reflects on how the pandemic shifted her focus and identity herself from aficionado to artist. Learning about the pandemic and grasping the fact that we live in a time where this can exist was a hard reality to accept. But within the last two years, she found solace. Ms. Croff is originally from Flint, Michigan, and moved to New Orleans in 2016. In 2020, she participated in the 2020 Mardi Gras with the Krewe of Goddesses and created a costume based on Josephine Baker. When the pandemic developed, she was hit by a car on her way home from working as a tour operator in the French Quarter. As part of her recuperation and healing journey, she began crocheting fanciful bike helmet covers, designed to increase biker visibility. As the pandemic took hold, and she was still recovering from her injuries, she was experiencing carpal tunnel syndrome and stopped crocheting. She began to paint and sculpt. Many of her paintings featured her new dog, in various settings. Now she is creating paintings of nature scenes, in which depictions of Black women are central to the scene. Ms. Croff was in a unique position on this panel, as she is a recent transplant to New Orleans. She noted the difference in cultures compared to Flint, MI, where she would not have seen, for example, musicians parading through a neighborhood. Her overall theme is how she took difficult events and created something positive and beautiful out of them. For Carnival 2022, she wore a hand-crocheted “mother earth” costume for the Krewe of Goddesses parade on Friday, February 11, 2022.
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Oral History of interviews of Cherice Harrison-Nelson, Janet "Sula" Evans, and Carl Reed
Kim Vaz-Deville
During the interviews of Cherice Harrison-Nelson, Janet "Sula" Evans, and Carl Reed, you get a better understanding of how the Pandemic affected their lives to what it is today. Between these 3 leaders, you can feel a sense of understanding how deeply intertwined the virus was to spirituality and internal changes. Through Covid-19, Sula has a sense of more creativity and slowing down. She felt the pandemic offered people a chance to relearn how to treat one another. Cherice felt the impacts of Covid hit her family and close ones. She felt the spirit of Olokun, the Orisha of the Bottom of the Ocean. Carl homed in on his safety for his family and protecting those around him. You can feel how Mardi Gras 2020 was a reflection of what the future was going to hold, especially through the creation of Carl’s suit, the Graveyard suit. All 3 felt the pulls of Covid directly in their lives but reflected on the Good Life as a sense of freedom, healing, self-determination, and safety.
Cherice Harrison-Nelson
Cherice Harrison-Nelson is an educator, narrative beadwork, visual and performance artist, and arts administrator. She is the co-editor of 11 publications and coordinated numerous exhibitions and panels on West African-inspired cultural traditions from New Orleans. Her creative expressions have been performed, presented, and exhibited locally and internationally. She approaches her art as a cognitive provocateur, with the specific intent to engage observers through imagery and performance that simultaneously explore gender roles, classism, and other limiting/confining norms. Her work is primarily autobiographical as well as simultaneously ancient and contemporary. She uses imagery from her family history, ancestral homeland, and life experiences, she is her primary muse. She is the recipient of several honors: Fulbright Scholarship to study in West Africa; Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Award, 2016 United States Artist Fellowship and a Joan Mitchell Artist-in-Residence. She is the daughter of Herreast J. Harrison and the late Big Chief Donald Harrison, Sr.
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Oral History with Demond Melancon, KeShuna Jones-Lee, Carol Harris
Kim Vaz-Deville
During the interview, Carol Harris, Keshuna Jones-Lee, and Demond Melancon reflect on 2020 and 2021 and the changes they have seen personally, and the inward transformations. The deep sorrow for the lives lost is palpable. They detail how the pandemic shifted their worlds upside down. Harris reminisces as to how Covid is mean and brutal, in all facets of life. This was felt in her immediate family when she watched many of her close ones take their wings. Jones-Lee also shared her personal experience of having Covid-19 and how the closures shut down many of her options of creating income as a singer and performer. As the pandemic put many lives on pause, Demond felt that he was able to hone in on his craft, and continue creating his bead art. This led to opening his own show and selling some of his fascinating pieces. While reflecting on the Good Life Project, a sense of mindfulness and creation was born in each. As Jones-Lee says so beautifully, she was reminded how much sweeter the simple things are, like being able to see the black maskers come out of their homes with their suits on or see a second line on Sundays. These traditions knit the community together.
Carol Harris - Baby Doll Kit
Mardi Gras Baby Doll masker, “Kit” is the founder of the N’awlins D’awlins Baby Dolls. She also has a passion and talent for making clothes. For the event, she wore a beautiful, bright green peacock-inspired dress that symbolizes rejuvenation and strength. Harris felt that this dress represented her experience during the pandemic. One thing that was particularly beautiful to see was the umbrellas that she has created. They are sacred to her and do not let them touch the ground. She certainly required a lot of strength to get through the pandemic when Covid-19 tore through her family. She lost her mother, aunt, cousin, and many more close family members due to the virus. Harris expressed how angry she felt towards those who have not taken the pandemic seriously. It is all very real to her. Although it seemed to be a very trying time, Harris refused to let the hardships cripple her. She found comfort in her fellow Baby Dolls quite often, continuing to help other groups start and grow. This was because more and more people wanted to be a part of N’awlins D’awlins Baby Dolls but she wanted others to be able to write their own history and bring more diversity to the community. Harris’s story of strength and perseverance during such a hard time inspires. She never backed down to the challenges taking them as an opportunity to grow, spread love, and create.
Keshuna Jones-Lee - Actress, Performer, and Casting Director
Ms. Jones-Lee loves Mardi Gras and the culture that follows it. Mardi Gras is a big part of her life. During the pandemic, things were hard for her because she felt that few people were remembering their culture and where they come from. The pandemic caused a lot of second lines, Mardi Gras, and other culture-building activities in New Orleans to be put on hold since the outbreak was spreading fast during the epidemic’s peak. Having a passion for conveying the truth about her culture, it was hard for her to reach people, especially while on lockdown. Ms. Jones- Lee found a passion for making earrings featuring ethnic fabric during the pandemic. She made a couple as samples and after hearing a lot of positive feedback regarding them, she decided to sell them. Ms. Jones-Lee also mentioned how her priorities have changed from the beginning of Covid, to now. Previously, she focused on making sure people know their culture and stay true to it. She said that because few people find joy in figuring out where they are from or even trying to understand it. She felt too many people were trying to hide from it. Her reasoning for this came from when she was getting her master's and saw how she was the only one in her graduating class who looked like her or even had the motivation to know more about herself. This led her to want to help people understand their cultures. During the pandemic, her main motive was to stay safe and work on helping people with their culture in ways that did not involve her having to leave the house and take the risk of being infected by Covid. On Mardi Gras, March 1, 2022, Ms. Jones-Lee masked with about a dozen others as the Treme Million Dollar Baby Dolls.
Demond Melancon - Contemporary Bead Artist
Demond Melancon is a contemporary bead artist and Big Chief for the Young Seminole Hunters Tribe. He viewed the COVID-19 pandemic as a blessing and a curse at the same time. It had never happened before to him, to create a suit for Mardi Gras and then not be able to wear it, to not be able to mask. Due to the pandemic, Melancon was able to spend more time on his contemporary arts pursuits. He has studied different painters and black artists over the years and won “Best of Show” for contemporary arts at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. One of Melancon’s goals is to figure out how to mix his work in the art world without selling out his culture. Other accomplishments include the purchase of all his art during a show and beading many pieces outside of the Black Masking tradition to widen his artistry. He was constantly sewing during the pandemic. Covid showed him focus and purpose. He also put one of his suits on the Jefferson Davis Status for Mardi Gras 2020 is a bold statement of who the statues should represent, rather than what is there now. The goal was to show the city which types of people belonged here and what it means to be in these spaces. Melancon wants to make a stand for the young Indians coming up in the city. He speaks about how the elders would be proud of him for what he is doing for the community and for himself. It is important for Melancon to let the galleries know the price of his work and what it is worth because he demands respect within these spaces for his work. He is making a route, paving a road for those who want to mask because there is no blueprint. On February 13, 2022, Melancon paraded with a different but related tradition, the Cross the Canal Social and Pleasure Club, also known as the CTC Steppers.
