2017-01-05 02:03:37
Talk a little about how you first came to New Orleans from your native France. I started my love story with New Orleans with good luck. I was living in France and wanted to travel to America, and one of my customers said one day: Where would you like to go? I said that I’d love to discover New Orleans, and they said they’d buy me a plane ticket if I gave them a painting. I came to New Orleans for a month, and as soon as I arrived I knew part of my life would be here. Now I spend eight months a year living in the French Quarter and four months in France. Why did you settle on living in the French Quarter? It’s so full of life. I’ve been living for four-and-a-half years in an upstairs apartment at the corner of St. Peter and Royal, where I have my studio. I keep the windows open and music comes into my studio. I have so many subjects to paint — the musicians on the street, the crowds and buildings. Do you stay connected with New Orleans when you’re in France? Yes. We actually have a New Orleans music festival in my village where we’ve brought great names from New Orleans to perform. We’ve had Big Chief Monk Boudreaux and Johnny Sansone. I also listen to WWOZ [New Orleans’ local jazz and blues station, at 90.7 FM] online when I’m at my studio in France. I have so many beads and New Orleans decorations there ... I miss New Orleans when I’m away, but if you came to my studio, you’d think you were in a French Quarter house! Many of your paintings are of outdoors scenes like second line parades and festivals. Why do you gravitate towards those subjects? Because it’s New Orleans life. I like doing paintings of crowds to make contrasts between all of the colors. Like, all of the people at Jazz Fest, you can recognize the stage but not the people in my paintings — they’re just a sea of colors and shapes. I also love painting scenes from my balcony, of people and street scenes. I have a different perspective. Most of the street musicians who play in front of my apartment know me by now. Where can people see your work? I do a lot of festival posters that people have seen. I did the official poster for the 2016 French Quarter Fest, and have done others for the Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo and Jazz in the Park, in Armstrong Park. If people want to stop by my studio where I have about 200 of my paintings, they can contact me directly. I love having people come to my place and showing them how I work. Isabelle Jacopin’s NOLA Top 10 St. Augustine Catholic Church Mid City Lanes Rock ‘n’ Bowl Frenchmen Street music venues Besthoff Sculpture Garden in New Orleans City Park Rebirth Brass Band at the Maple Leaf Bar (Tuesday nights) Backstreet Cultural Museum Preservation Hall Algiers Point/Canal Street Ferry Shopping on Magazine Street French Quarter Fest (in April) To see more of Isabelle Jacopin’s paintings or set up a showing, visit stratoweb.com/isabellejacopin.
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