Adore April 2022

Anne Blenker MARIGNY Artist anneblenker.com

A nne attended the Lafayette Parish High School Arts Academy and studied Fine Arts Painting at Pratt Institute in New York. With a long fascination with our subtropical ecology and urban landscape, her works celebrate the beauty of living with the natural features of the Mississippi River and the urban modifications that impact the surrounding swamplands. Using unique layering techniques, her abstract acrylic paintings explore regional aerial topography and various New Orleans ecosystems. Through art, she captures the ever-shifting and dramatic significance that the river has for the people of New Orleans. WHAT IS INSPIRING YOU RIGHT NOW? I am inspired by climate change and specifically the changing landscape of Louisiana. Coastal erosion, flooding, and extreme weather are top of mind right now in the work that I create. I am thinking a lot about the future and what that will look like in New Orleans. WHAT DO YOU DO TO NURTURE CREATIVITY? It's really important to me to do creative things just for the sake of doing them— such as going all out on creating a homemade Mardi Gras costume or hand making all the decorations for a party. A few things I've made for parties include a 10' x 10' Statue of Liberty head and full size cardboard Iron Throne. When you make your living from art, you can fall into the trap of monetizing everything you create, but I think it's really important to make crazy things for fun. WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE FOR TAKING CREATIVE RISKS? Early on, I was so stumped by what I should make. I had a lot of schooling in my head about what I'm "supposed" to be making. I found that if I became obsessed with an idea I needed to follow it. Your art should be interesting to you and should be fun to make (at least most of the time). Follow that. FAVORITE PART ABOUT WHAT YOU DO? As a child all I ever cared about was making things. Turns out I never had to stop.

FAVORITE PART ABOUT LIVING IN NEW ORLEANS? The creativity. People express themselves in a very special way here, particularly during Mardi Gras. My favorite thing is seeing homemade costumes and floats in the walking parades. There is a special homemade ingenuity on display that I don't see anywhere else in the country. FAVORITE QUOTE? "Over and over in the butterfly we see the idea of transcendence. In the forest we see not the inert but the aspiring. In water that departs forever and forever returns, we experience eternity." Mary Oliver

ADORE • APRIL 2022

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