Noteworthy
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What’s New at NUNU
some production work on a laser cutter,” explained NUNU’s Interim Director Peg Ramier of a few possible uses for the A MAKER’S SPACE, FEATURING A 3D PRINTER AND LASER CUTTER, space. “I got a really good idea ROUNDS OUT THE ARNAUDVILLE ARTS & CULTURE COLLECTIVE. last night: I’m gonna make little Cajun houses! Yeah, so I’m ext one point, the former Sin- bring in some of this technology that gleton Hardware and lumber they hopefully can learn to use for their cited about the laser cutter, now that I’ve store on the outskirts of rural future jobs, or hobbies, or whatever,” said got my idea in mind.” The goal is that artists working in a vahArnaudville slung some of Gloria Van Arsdale, the jewelry maker the most basic tools and supplies imag- who donated the 3D printer and laser riety of mediums, as well as those interinable: lumber, hammers, nails. But since cutter to NUNU. “And that’s basically ested in exploring new crafting hobbies, will have access to relatively cutting-edge 2011, NUNU Arts and Culture Collec- what the Makers’ Space is [for]: to bring (i.e., expensive) technology that othertive has occupied the old building, foster- the community together.” wise would be unavailable in a small, ing an enclave of artistic expression, exThe historic building NUNU resides rural town like Arnaudville. Other anticploration, and collaboration in Acadiana. in is outfitted with seventeen-foot ceil- ipated additions to the Makers’ Space are Now, the nonprofit is elevating its offer- ings, which provided ample space for the a photography studio, as well as a place ings with its new Makers’ Space—featur- recent addition of a mezzanine in July. for the production of encaustic artwork ing high-tech equipment that includes a “And so the anticipation is that we’ll use (which utilizes beeswax as a medium). 3D printer and laser cutter. the mezzanine as a Makers’ Space, so “And we’re really really, really thank“We are trying to create a Makers’ there’ll be space up there for artists to do ful to Gloria, that [she] wants to help us Space that will bring people together and their painting, for people who want to do grow because there’s a lot going on here,”
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The Cottage on Tchoupitoulas
said Ramier, referring to projects already ongoing at NUNU, which include initiatives like an artisan market, music venues, and the Five Mile Café, which sources all its produce from within five miles. “The laser cutter is going to be a really exciting part of it.” Van Arsdale, who makes her company’s jewelry using a laser cutter, emphasized the community benefits access to the equipment will provide. “I think [the Makers’ Space] will give the community the ability to know a little more about NUNU and create, which is I think the reason why NUNU exists: to bring together artists and creators,” she said. “I think that will help people as they move forward in their jobs, to be able to know that they can use laser cutters, 3D printers. Just introducing new technologies and making them available as a new part of the artistic community and the community in general.” h nunuaccollective.homesteadcloud.com —Alexandra Kennon
Photo by Charles E. Leche, courtesy of the Preservation Resource Center.
RICHARD CAMPANELLA UNVEILS THE HISTORY OF ONE OF NEW ORLEANS’ MOST FASCINATING PROPERTIES
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n Richard Campanella’s latest book, the geographer and historian poses one of New Orleans’ oldest homes has a witness—albeit a silent one— standing stolidly in Uptown for centuries, as history unfurls around it. Campanella, in his signature way of historical storytelling, acts as the voice of the cottage on Tchoupitoulas—recalling, in marvelous detail illuminated by comprehensive and well-delivered research, the dramas that have unfolded in this bend in the Mississippi River. The Cottage on Tchoupitoulas: A Historical Geography of Uptown New Orleans starts with Pierre Le Moyne, sieur d’Iberville’s very first glimpse of the lower Mississippi River Valley—described in his journals, from the visual perspective atop a “nut tree” as : “nothing other than canes and bushes,” the land becoming “inundated to a depth of four feet during high water”. By choosing this moment as a starting place, Campanella alerts the reader that this will not simply be a story of a place and what happened there. Iberville’s im8
pression of the land that would become the Crescent City immediately establishes the signature tensions that define this region: water and the wild, colonialism and power, a river and its people. With “our site,” as Campanella refers to the property on which the cottage sits, as our grounding place—he tells the story of New Orleans, starting with its initial ownership by the city’s very founder, Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. Upon “our site” Louisiana history parades: when the Spanish gained control over the region, here is where meetings were held to stage the 1768 coup to oust the Spanish governor. When the rebellion ultimately failed, and the owner was banished to prison in Cuba—the people he enslaved on “our site” became some of the first to take advantage of the new Spanish policy that allowed for purchasing one’s own freedom. This site is also where, during the height of its own plantation era, sugar was first granulated in Louisiana. Campanella dedicates ample space to this period in time in which the property was
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owned by Jean Étienne de Boré, not only to emphasize the significance of this development for Louisiana agriculture, but to meditate on its implications for the thousands and thousands of enslaved individuals whose forced labor would fuel that industry. “The misery of the many brought great wealth to the few,” he writes. Besides underlining de Boré’s magnificently influential role in Louisiana agriculture and politics (he became New Orleans’ first mayor), Campanella spends just as much, if not more, time sharing as much as we can know about the hundred-or-so enslaved people who worked on his plantation—while also acknowledging the limitations of the source material, written from the enslaver’s per-
spective, from which that information comes. It is also during this era that the original foundation for the cottage on Tchoupitoulas was built. The evolutions of “our site” in its post-plantation era reflect a changing New Orleans, one of increasing urbanization and transportation technologies. It saw the effects of “subdivision fever” and the benefits of the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad (now, the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line). Under the ownership of Polycarp Fortier in the mid-nineteenth century, the property facilitated the manufacturing of ten thousand bricks a day, many of which Campanella points out likely still remain in walls and chimneys around the country. During the Civ-
