Shreveport Magazine Summer 2016

THE YEAR OF

SERATONES

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In This Issue 10

The Power of the Artside

16

Ricky’s Terms

26

The Year of Seratones

36

It Is Up To Us

46

Getting From There To Here

56

Southwood Symphonic Sizzle

61

Shreveport Magazine Selects

62

A Parting Thought from Kemerton Hargrove

63

Away We Glo

PUBLISHERS: Mathew Snyder, Andrew Crawford, Grant Nuckolls ADVERTISING MANAGER: Michael Walker

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Sara Hebert, Chris Jay, Michael Walker, Tim Fletcher, Everl Adair, Robert Trudeau, Elles Rock, Kemerton Hargrove

LEAD DESIGNER: Zack Fink

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Brittany Roberts, Shannon O’Rear, Casey Habich, William C. McGrew, Kathryn Gaiennie

CREATIVE CONSULTANT: Sara Hebert

DESIGNED BY: Crawford Design Group

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T h e Po w e r O f T h e

ARTSIDE Moonbot Studio Artists Share Work at Artspace This Summer By: Sara Hebert

One of my favorite parts of watching movies is looking at the long list of credits and taking in the number of people it takes to pull off a high-caliber film. It’s no different for animated films and interactive projects at Moonbot Studios, where the average crew size on a short film can range anywhere from 25 to 40 people, depending on the length and scale of a project. Often, the concept and production art created on a project is never seen by the public. Sometimes, just the incredible feat of simply pulling off a project overshadows the wide range of incredible and varied work created along the way by the crew.

This summer, artspace will host an exhibit, “Phases: A Moonbot Retrospective,” shining light on some of the never-before-seen work from Moonbot Studios’ projects. The exhibit will include work from Academy Award®-winning The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, The Numberlys and the studio’s latest short film project, Taking Flight.

Coolspace, located on the upper floor of artspace, will host a rare glimpse into the personal work of more than 20 Moonbot animation artists in a showcase entitled “The Artside of the Moon.” This peek into the personal work of illustrators, animators and 3D artists will highlight paintings (traditional and digital), animation and sculpture.

Non-traditional formats are the norm for Moonbot crewmembers. JD Gardner, a lighting technical director, created a 3D

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SUMMER 2016

self-portrait for the show, which required a slightly different approach. Gardner closely crafted the garments in his self-portrait. “I took nice photos of all the clothes in neutral light. I got really close in and got pictures of the textures and then made them seamlessly repeating,” said Gardner.

Those photos became the textures for the 3D model he created using software such as Maya, ZBrush (for details like stitching and fine hair), XGen, Nuke and Photoshop.

For exhibiting Moonbot artists Renee Bates and James Cassettari, the push and pull of creating paintings with traditional paints or as digital images is a theme in their work. The vast majority of their output at Moonbot is digitally painted, however, both love the aesthetics of paint on paper. “If I had the choice and time, every piece I created would be traditionally painted. Digital work loses that one-of-akind charm of imperfection that accompanies traditional work,” said Bates, who will exhibit two digitally painted pieces. For his personal work in the exhibition, Cassettari created four pieces using copic markers on watercolor paper, which sometimes creates unexpected but appealing results.

“If you mess up, you mess up the whole piece. It’s great for sketching but for final pieces it can be a little impractical,” said Cassettari of the process. “I’m really bad at settling on something. That’s why digital is good. It’s really easy to make changes.”

As creative professionals collaborating

on projects for a majority of the day, many of the Moonbots find it difficult to summon the energy to work on personal projects. “Animation takes so long and we do it all day. It’s hard to want to do it outside of here,” said Animation Supervisor John Durbin, who somehow isn’t short on ideas for the pieces of animation he will exhibit in “The Artside of the Moon.” Durbin recently explained to a young friend how playing vinyl records on a turntable worked and it inspired him to illuminate the interfaces involved in creating animation. “I like to show the stuff that people don’t normally get to see. Sometimes my computer will freak out and there’s some weird technical stuff – that makes great artwork.

When you’re creating a 3D model, if you go into the mode where you can see the verts, they’re generally yellow or dark pink. If you soft select them, they turn into this spectrum thing, it’s instant artwork but you are just working. It’s not meant to be that way but it is,” Durbin observed.

For many artists and creative professionals, finding inspiration outside of the 9-5 day job is difficult. “The Artside of the Moon” is a refreshing reminder that creating any work of art is a small victory when you have a day job.

For the Moonbot team, the exhibition is a small way to push one another to explore new methods, get feedback and become better artists. As Cassettari puts it: “I don’t show my work that often, except for what I’m doing at Moonbot. It’s a little stressful but in a good way. The perfectionism really comes out. It’s representing the studio and me. I just want to make the studio proud and put something up that will do that.”

When You Go: More info: artspaceshreveport.org

Featuring Moonbot Studios body of work featuring concept art, a reading room and screenings of films

PHASES: A MOONBOT RETROSPECTIVE May 20 - August 12

mainspace @ artspace

THE ARTSIDE OF THE MOON

Group show featuring the personal work of Moonbot crew members

May 20 - July 9

coolspace @ artspace

THE ROCKSTARS OF ANIMATION

Gallery of works by animation artists Joy Ang, Ralph Eggleston and Bruce Smith

May 20 - August 12

@ artspace

A Few Artists:

James Cassettari Animation Supervisor

Renee Bates Animation Supervisor

John Durbin Animation Supervisor

SHREVEPORTMAGAZINE.COM

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R I C KY ’S T E R M S

Written by Elles Rock Photography by Brittany Roberts

B

B

IT WAS IN THESE EARLY DAYS THAT HAMMETT FIRST STARTED HEARING THE NAME SODA POP.

efore the HUB Urban Ministries was located downtown, working everyday with the homeless population in Shreveport, it was one woman and her husband who wanted to make a difference. Cassie and Brent Hammett started the HUB in 2007 and would regularly sit with Shreveport’s homeless population downtown around the library and the courthouse, meeting new people and their needs.

“This was way before the HUB was what it has become today,” said Cassie Hammett, HUB founder. “We wanted to get to know these people personally to really understand what their problems and needs were rather than try to help based off of their assumed needs.”

It was in these early days that Hammett first started hearing the name “Soda Pop.” Soda Pop was someone about whom this community raved, and not with a positive connotation. Hammett would hear countless stories about this man. Stories about how mean he was, how he would only talk in bets and wagers, his cart full of soda cans, and how much he loved Coca-Cola.

Every time Hammett heard something about Soda Pop, it was usually a warning. “Watch out for Soda Pop,” the rest of the homeless population who knew him would say. No one knew his real name or his age. All they really knew about this man was that he was older, he lived in a homeless village in the woods and he collected soda cans.

The more warnings Hammett received to stay away from Soda Pop, the more determined she was, not only to meet him, but also to befriend him. “I just thought, if there’s ever one person who everyone tells me to steer clear from, that’s the person I want to meet,” Hammett said.

It was not long, however, before Hammett got her chance. One day while Hammett was sitting outside the courthouse with some of her homeless friends, she saw a hunched figure in the distance. As the figure came closer, Hammett realized he was pushing something.

It was a cart full of soda cans. She immediately knew that this was the infamous Soda Pop. Hunched over his cart, his hair was long and matted and his skin was blackened with dirt. Soda Pop pushed his cart close enough for Hammett to call out to him from across the street. She started to cross the street but the man yelled an obscenity at her and quickly walked away.

“It was at that moment that I decided this man was going to be my friend,” said Hammett. One week later, Hammett was sitting in the same spot when she saw Soda Pop again. This time she went and sat next to him and started talking. The man did not acknowledge her. He did not speak to her or even look at her, but Hammett kept talking. This was the same story for the next three times Hammett encountered Soda Pop.

There were times when Hammett would talk to Soda Pop and he would become extremely angry. He spit at her and threw cans in her direction. Hammett realized that for some reason unknown to her (she assumed it was because of negative past experiences), Soda Pop could not or would not have interactions with other people without responding in a violent manner.

Throughout these various experiences with Soda Pop, Hammett never feared him. Rather, she sought to understand him and his boundaries. Hammett knew that if Soda Pop was going to be her friend, it was going to have to be on his terms.

For the next year, Hammett sought to learn these boundaries and she did so by trial and error, usually by making him mad.

She learned that he did not like physical touch, being around big

SHREVEPORTMAGAZINE.COM

17

crowds, questions about himself, or people touching his things. She also learned that despite all of Soda Pop’s needs and where he lived, he would not accept help from any of the organizations seeking to help the homeless in Shreveport. She learned that there was only one other person in the world who Soda Pop was friends with, a woman who Cassie had befriended in her time spent with the homeless, named Ms. Evelyn.

Hammett started buying Soda Pop bottles of Coca-Cola, which she would send to him through Ms. Evelyn. There was no other communication between Soda Pop and Hammett other than the Coca-Cola.

One year after starting the HUB, they began hosting meals for the homeless downtown. Soda Pop did not come to these events at first because of his dislike of crowds. One day, much to Hammett’s surprise, she looked up and there he was. Soda Pop was at the event sitting at one of the folding tables.

“At that point, I knew that he trusted me on some level, but he still would not acknowledge me,” Hammett said. As Soda Pop began to come to the events the HUB was hosting, Hammett would sit next to him and talk. The more time that went by, the harder it became for Hammett to try and befriend him.

“It was really difficult to extend mercy and grace and friendship into someone’s life when he would not even look in my direction,” said Hammett. Despite her own difficulty and frustration, Hammett continued trying to befriend Soda Pop. She grew increasingly concerned for his well being.

Although she did not know his exact age,

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SUMMER 2016

she knew he was older and he was still living outside. She grew to care about him the way one cares for a grandparent, even though she had never had a real conversation with him.

One summer day in 2008, a breakthrough came for Hammett and Soda Pop through the form of a pipe. Hammett saw him sitting downtown under a tree and she went and sat next to him. Soda Pop pulled out a pipe, packed it and began to smoke.

“You know I like smoking pipes too, Soda Pop,” said Hammett, and for the first time, he looked at her.

“I don’t believe you” were the first words he ever said to her.

Knowing that Soda Pop spoke a language of bets and wagers, Hammett replied with two words: “Wanna bet?”

Soda Pop took her up on the offer. This was Soda Pop’s bet: Hammett had to meet him under that same tree on December 15th at five o’clock with her pipe. If she didn’t show up or could not pack the pipe

and smoke it, then she owed Soda Pop 30,000 bus passes.

Hammett replied, “Okay, Soda Pop, but if I do come and smoke this pipe then I get to take you to a steak dinner.” Soda Pop agreed and they parted that day. For the next six months, Soda Pop went back to not acknowledging Hammett, and every time she saw him she would remind him of the bet and to meet her at five o’clock on December 15th.

Hammett told everyone she worked with at the HUB about the bet so they could help her remember. She even set an alarm in her phone for that day and time to make sure she would not forget.

When December 15th came, Hammett was prepared. She took her pipe and arrived at the tree ten minutes early. Five o’clock came and went and there were no signs of Soda Pop. Hammett was sure that after six months of waiting for this day, she had been stood up.

Then she saw a billow of smoke rising from behind a trashcan about a block away.

“I see you Soda Pop!” Hammett called out.

Soda Pop stood up from behind the trashcan and slowly walked toward Hammett, pipe in hand. He sat down next to her and she began to pack her pipe. As soon as she began to smoke it, Soda Pop began to talk to her for the first time in a year and a half.

“My name is Ricky Morgan and my birthday is September 15, 1953,” Soda Pop said. For the next forty-five minutes he and Hammett held a steady conversation. Ricky told her about his family, his childhood, where he was from and how long he had been homeless.

“From that moment, I knew I was in,” Hammett said, “It was like a switch went off in his head and we were friends.” Hammett explains that communicating with Ricky was like communicating with a young child.

Despite winning the bet, Hammett did not expect Ricky to come with her to the steak dinner. Much to her surprise, Ricky agreed to come to Outback with Hammett and her

KNOWING THAT SODA POP SPOKE A LANGUAGE OF BETS AND WAGERS, HAMMETT REPLIED WITH TWO WORDS: “WANNA BET?”

husband on one condition: Ms. Evelyn had to come, too.

On the agreed upon night, Hammett and her husband went to pick up Ricky and Ms. Evelyn. Hammett immediately noticed something different about her new friend. For the first time in a year and a half, Soda Pop had changed shirts. He was still blackened with dirt and his hair was still long and matted, but the new shirt was a symbol. It was a sign of the effort he was starting to put forth. Hammett saw him and knew that her efforts were not in vain.

When they got to the restaurant that evening Ricky put his napkin in his lap and placed all the silverware in its proper place in front of him. He even waved the waiter over and ordered what he wanted with exact specificity.

“In very subtle ways, he was starting to act like a human,” Hammett said. “When no one cares about you, you don’t care about yourself, but Ricky was starting to realize we cared about him. Until this point, no one had tried to care for him in a way that made sense to him. We learned that if we functioned on Ricky’s terms and according to his boundaries, we would be good, but if not, we would be out.”

After that night, Hammett and Ricky became close friends. As their friendship developed, Hammett yearned more and more to help Ricky move into a more permanent living situation than his tent in the woods. The more she tried to help him, the more she realized that Ricky did not mind living in the woods.

“Over and over I would ask, ‘Ricky, will you please let me house you?’ and his answer was always the same, ‘Nope.’” Hammett said.

In the meantime, the HUB had begun running programs and daily

operations out of the basement of a downtown apartment building.

They affectionately referred to this space as “The Basement.” Not long after the night Hammett and her husband took Ricky to dinner, she received a phone call from a HUB employee.

“Cassie,” said the voice of Caleb Carter, the HUB employee who ran day-to-day operations at the time, “Ricky is standing at the entrance of the Basement.” Until this point, Ricky had never set foot in this building. That whole day, he stood at the threshold, but never came inside. The next day he came back and took one step inside. This process slowly progressed until Ricky was coming to the Basement on a daily basis. He became a HUB regular, all the while, continuing to refuse housing of any sort.

Over the next few years, Hammett and other HUB employees and volunteers saw many changes in Ricky. He was coming daily to the Basement, where he was involved in various HUB events. At one point, one of the employees even got him to take a sponge bath.

There was one HUB volunteer in particular whom Ricky took a liking to. Heather Hopkins was a nursing student at the time and was volunteering at the Basement three times a week. She first met Ricky at a HUB event called “Lunch on the Street.” It took Ricky some time to trust Hopkins, but eventually they would meet every day at five o’clock in front of the courthouse, and Hopkins would bring him a Coca-Cola.

“Ricky is all about people keeping their word,” Hopkins said.

“He’s very predictable and so he likes predictable people. I had to go through a lot of the same process Cassie did trying to gain his trust,

SHREVEPORTMAGAZINE.COM

19

but after a while he found me trustworthy and we met every day after work.”

In these years, as Hammett and the HUB volunteers celebrated these little wins in Ricky’s life, there were also a few setbacks.

He would get mad at people, even Hammett, and yell at them for reasons they could not comprehend. Sometimes he would spit on other volunteers and people coming to HUB events.

Despite these setbacks, Ricky became a mascot for the HUB. He did not have clear conversations with people, he still spoke in bets and wagers and used only singsong phrases, but the HUB staff loved his company.

In June of 2012, Hammett and her husband were about to leave the country to pick up the daughter they were adopting from Africa. Hammett tried her best to prepare Ricky for her prolonged absence, but he was still upset she was leaving for the month.

While Hammett was out of the country, she frequently Skyped her friends and HUB employees back in the states. During one of these calls, Hammett could hear Ricky’s voice in the background asking a question.

“How’s Cassie?” Ricky asked. After a short hesitation, he followed it up with another question. “How’s the baby?”

“That was the first sign of Ricky’s affection for other people really expanding. Until that point, it was uncharacteristic of him to care about anyone other than the people in his immediate circle, but when he wanted to know about the well being of my child, that was a game changer,” Hammett said.

From the moment the Hammetts brought their daughter Liv home, Ricky was smitten with her. She was the first and only person with whom Ricky holds crystal clear conversations. Ricky, who hates the spotlight and taking photos, has only ever willingly posed for one of Hammett’s photos.

“He only took that photo because Liv was in it. And because I gave him a coke,” Hammett said.

After Liv came home, Hammett noticed a new sense of warmth about Ricky that he had not had before. He became friendlier to employees, volunteers, and strangers, all people outside of his inner circle. He became more capable of being surrounded by company as a whole.

“This is the perfect example of how we approach things at the HUB,” Hammett said.

“It’s all relational and based in friendship.

Ricky would never have gotten to this point

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SUMMER 2016

if not for true friendship.”

In 2013, the HUB moved their daily operations into a large downtown building on Cotton Street. They began The Lovewell Center Program, which is an earning-based approach to help those in poverty. Those enrolled in The Lovewell Center Program can earn points by taking classes toward their GED or attending meetings. As a result, they can spend those points at any one of the four stores within the Lovewell: The Dresswell, an apparel store, The Eatwell, a food pantry, The Smellwell, a Laundromat, and The Drinkwell, a coffee shop. The HUB operates within this pay-and-earn based model in order to challenge the poverty mindset.

Today there are over 2,100 people enrolled in The Lovewell Center Program.

In the summer of 2014, Hammett received a phone call from Carter. Something had happened to Ricky. Carter had no details other than he was on his way to LSU Medical Center. Hammett knew

the worst thing we had seen yet,” Carter said.

They later learned that Ricky had been at his camp when a man confronted him about money. There had been rumors circulating for years that Ricky had money buried at his camp. When the man had not gotten what he wanted, he beat Ricky and left him for dead. Ricky came to a while later and dragged himself out of the woods. A policeman found him and Ricky asked to be taken to The Lovewell. It was then that Ricky was taken to LSU Med Center.

Every bone in Ricky’s face had been broken. His pallet was disconnected and his eye sockets were also broken and disconnected. Ricky, in his sixties, was terrified and screaming in the hospital, and yet, he refused to take any sort of pain medication. He was in the hospital for three weeks and underwent two facial reconstruction surgeries over the course of the summer.

Hammett visited Ricky every day in the hospital. She arrived one day and immediately after stepping off the elevator could hear Ricky,

AS SOON AS I CAUGHT A GLIMPSE OF RICKY’S FACE, I KNEW THIS WAS THE WORST THING WE HAD SEEN YET. that Ricky had to have been incapacitated because he would have never agreed to go the hospital.

Hammett and Carter raced to the hospital and found the room where Ricky was supposed to be. When they arrived, Ricky was out for tests but his clothes were in a pile in the corner of the room, soaked in blood. A nurse came in and told them that the hospital staff were on their way back with Ricky, but that Hammett and Carter needed to prepare themselves for what they were about to see.

When Ricky was brought back into the room he was completely unrecognizable.

The only way Hammett knew it was him was because of his hair, the rest of him was beaten and bloody. She collapsed in shock.

“Working at the HUB, Cassie and I had seen a lot of things, but as soon as I caught a glimpse of Ricky’s face, I knew this was

terrified and alone, calling her name from down the hall.

“In that moment, after all these years, I knew he understood how much I loved him,” Hammett said.

When Ricky was discharged from the hospital weeks later, he had no desire to go back to the woods.

“It scared him to a degree that he knew he could not go back,” said Hammett.

Ricky was due to have one more surgery before the summer was over, and he needed a peaceful place to stay and recover, where his wounds would not become infected. For the rest of the summer, Ricky stayed with the HUB staff pastor, Miles Roberts, in his home.

He was at every HUB staff meeting, he was at hangouts and movie nights and birthday parties. Ricky went from being a HUB regular to part of the family.

Right before Ricky’s final surgery, Hammett took her daughter and went to see him. She was concerned about where he was going to live after the surgery was over. That day she asked Ricky the question she had asked him a million times before.

“Ricky, will you please let me put you in an apartment?”

For seven years Hammett had been asking Ricky the same question, and for seven years she had always gotten the same answer. This time

the answer was different. Ricky agreed to be housed.

Ricky moved into his apartment and had his own roof over his head for the first time in years, but a battle was still set before him.

He needed to qualify for disability in order to pay for his rent, but he had no ID, no social security number, and no knowledge of his full name or his mother’s name.

“It took us seven months to find any information on Ricky,” Hammett said. “When we finally got everything in order it was miraculous. The government processed it and he was officially on disability. Ricky is the exact kind of person who disability was created for in the first place.”

Today, over a year later, Ricky is completely recovered and still living in his apartment. He receives benefits every month and pays his own rent, and he has never been late on a payment. He continues to come to The Lovewell every day and he is still smitten with Liv. He and Hammett remain friends to this day, and he still loves soda pop. Ricky is a testament to the power of true friendship, and he is only one of thousands of people whose lives have been changed in this city because of the HUB.

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SERATONES

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SUMMER 2016

Written by Chris Jay Photography by Shannon O’Rear

THE YEAR OF

T

wenty years from now, when Shreveporters of a certain age get together and reminisce about the year that Seratones broke out of Highland and became certified rock stars, lots of folks will say that they saw it coming. They’ll say that they weren’t surprised to see Connor Davis, formerly a pizza cook at Frank’s Pizza Napoletana, performing on national television during CBS This Morning this past March. They’ll swear that it made perfect sense when Vice’s Noisey.com, one of the most popular music-focused websites on the Internet, became so enchanted by lead singer A.J. Haynes that they dedicated an entire article to the outfit she wore at South by Southwest.

It was just a matter of time, they’ll say, until someone made rock stars out of these incredible young musicians.

Maybe some folks saw the breakout success of Seratones as a fait accompli, but I sure didn’t.

Today’s popular music, at least the kind that normally generates music industry buzz, is mostly auto-tuned, apolitical and boring. Seratones, on the other hand, are honest-to-God rock n’ roll firebrands producing a profoundly loud wall of distorted, take-no-prisoners chaos that somehow seems to be whipped into submission by Haynes’ fiercely ethereal vocals. I would never have predicted that these four young musicians from Shreveport – A.J. Haynes, Connor Davis, Adam Davis and Jesse Gabriel – would ever be famous. I would have told you that they were too damn good to be famous.

UNITED BY PUNK Before they joined forces as Seratones, the band members were each involved in the Shreveport punk scene of the early 2000s. Guitarist Connor Davis and drummer Jesse Gabriel played together in punk rock quartet, The Noids, while bass player Adam Davis fronted an abrasive hardcore group called Sunday Mass Murder. Jesse and Connor have known one another since sophomore year of high school, where they bonded over a mutual appreciation of Black Sabbath and became fast friends. The Noids and Sunday Mass Murder often performed on the same bill at venues like Big D’s BBQ, H & H Lounge and Mia’s Pub, where A.J. was usually in the crowd – even if she’d

had to sneak in through the back door due to her age.

“We all came together and got to know one another through punk,” Haynes said.

Many of the venues where the members of Seratones took their first steps towards becoming performers are clubs and underground music venues that most Shreveporters may never have visited or even heard of. Venues like the tiny lobby of Centenary College’s KSCL 91.3 FM, once the site of regular live music showcases, and David Nelson’s Minicine?, a microcinema and performing arts space in the 800 block of Texas Avenue, were instrumental in bringing the band members into one another’s orbits in the mid-2000s.

An early incarnation of Seratones, A.J. Haynes and the Monkey Business, formed in 2009. They’d play sets comprised of classic rock and punk covers at venues like Bear’s on Fairfield and events like the Texas Avenue Makers Fair. “We just got tired of playing other people’s songs, so we decided to write our own music and it developed from there,” Haynes said of the band’s evolution. A turning point came when Haynes got wind of the first Louisiana Music Prize in 2013. One of the prizes included in the Louisiana Music Prize’s top prize was recording time in a professional studio. “We saw the Louisiana Music Prize as a great opportunity to record. So we wrote some songs, and we won,” said Haynes.

Good things continued to happen for Seratones following the Louisiana Music Prize win. During their first out-of-town show, they caught the attention of a Fat Possum Records staffer. Fat Possum is an Oxford, Mississippi-based independent record label that is known worldwide for a signature “punk blues” sound and a roster that has included The Black Keys, Modest Mouse and R.L. Burnside.

“We played a show with The Nervs, a band that has a dude in it who works for Fat Possum Records,” Jesse Gabriel said. “He told the label about us, and they contacted us and had us come play a show at The Blind Pig in Oxford. And they liked it.”

On December 21, 2014, Seratones officially became Fat Possum Records’ newest signees.

Almost immediately, a tidal wave of media attention crashed into the band and that wave has yet to subside. Interviews on National Public Radio, song premieres on prominent music blogs and photo spreads in influential rock magazines followed, all without even releasing a record.

Seratones were beginning to look like the “next big thing” by mid-2015.

“POWERFUL BEYOND BELIEF” A.J. Haynes is front and center in much of the media coverage of the band, her lightup-the-room smile beaming out of the pages of publications ranging from The New York Times to Women’s Wear Daily. When NPR Music’s All Songs Considered podcast describes Seratones as “a kick-ass rock band with all of the stage presence in the world,”

Bassist Adam Davis and Vocalist AJ Haynes drinking a local beer post-performance.

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It seems to me like we’re in an era of women kicking ass in rock n’ roll. anyone who’s seen the band perform live knows that NPR is referring, in large part, to Haynes’ incredible swagger. When she’s onstage, she commands attention with her voice as well as her exuberance – it is obvious that she genuinely loves performing.

A lot has been written about Haynes’ childhood and upbringing.

She was born in Japan, but moved to America at an early age to live in Columbia, Louisiana, a town 30 miles south of Monroe with a population of 390 according to the 2010 census. Beginning at age six, she sang in the choir at her grandparent’s church, Brownsville Baptist, where she was instructed to “hit the back wall” with her voice. The incredible size of her voice, which Paste Magazine described as “powerful-beyond-belief,” is difficult to comprehend the first time you experience it. A video on YouTube shows Haynes joining the similarly full-voiced singer of St. Paul and The Broken Bones onstage in Ft. Lauderdale for a rendition of their song “Make It Rain.” When Haynes starts to sing, the audience roars with amazement. Cell phones come out. Audience members look at one another as if to say: “Are you hearing this?!” For a diminutive, 27-year-old woman, Haynes possesses a voice that sounds as if it is not only trying to “hit the back wall,” but to tear that wall off of the building.

A childhood spent singing gospel certainly shaped that voice, but Haynes doesn’t want to be defined solely by the church days of her youth.

The narrative of gospel-singer-turned-punk-bandleader is an oversimplification of her lifelong relationship to music and performance. It’s the stuff that PR firms and music promoters dream of, but it’s not the whole story. A passionate interest in music that took root early in her life has been shaped and informed by so many other forces. The do-it-yourself ethos of punk rock, jazz, fashion, women’s rights and world literature are all in there. She can speak and sing fluently in Spanish, and appears to be as comfortable belting out a classic punk anthem to a crowd at the Red River Revel as she is quietly crooning an ancient Mexican love song in the corner of Ki Mexico on a rainy Wednesday evening.

Haynes credits her ability to always appear to be comfortable and confident onstage to her years spent teaching at Caddo Middle Magnet and C.E. Byrd High School.

“There’s this weird parallel between the classroom and performing onstage,” she said. “They’re both places where people are trusting you as the expert, and you can’t show any fear. But you also have to draw them in, to be vulnerable. That’s what makes a good performer.”

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SUMMER 2016

For their part, the guys in the band seem to understand that Haynes, as a front woman with charisma to spare, will command a lot of the attention. They seem supportive of Haynes and even proud, in a quiet way, to be part of a woman-fronted band.

“It seems to me like we’re in an era of women kicking ass in rock n’ roll,” Connor Davis said. “I’m proud of that aspect of our band.”

In November 2015, Seratones set out on a stretch of tour dates with popular soul band St. Paul and the Broken Bones. The tour included sold-out performances at some of the most revered music venues in the U.S., including Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 Club, which is often listed as one of the best live music venues in the world. “Playing in front of that many people feels like that part of the roller coaster when you’re being pulled towards the top,” drummer Jesse Gabriel said. “But in a way, it’s easier than playing to a room full of friends. You can be whoever you wanna be in front of people who don’t know you.”

All of the members of Seratones will be spending a lot of time on that roller coaster in the months to come. In April, the band was named one of “10 New Artists You Need to Know” by Rolling Stone. That same week saw the publication of major features on Seratones in The Wall Street Journal and Entertainment Weekly.

This is a band that has been shot out of a cannon, and they don’t look to be landing anytime soon. Following the May 6 release of their debut record, Get Gone, they’ll be touring for the better part of a year. This Summer, they’ll follow up back-to-back national

From L-R: Adam Davis, AJ Haynes, Connor Davis, Jessie Gabriel

tours opening for Thao & the Get Down Stay Down and The Dandy Warhols with appearances at several huge international music festivals in England and France. They will share stages with everyone from Red Hot Chili Peppers to Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. In August, they’ll play a string of nightclubs and festivals in Germany, France and England. The more they’ve traveled, the more the band has grown to appreciate the fact that being from Louisiana gives them a foot in the door with new audiences.

“We carry this mystique because we’re from Louisiana,” Haynes said. “People are automatically intrigued because of that. Louisiana is just sexy as hell. It’s this crazy juxtaposition of severe poverty and the creative forces that seem to live in the air here.”

THE SHREVEPORT SOUND Would Seratones sound the same if they weren’t from Shreveport? The summers in Shreveport are long and stiflingly hot.

The cultural offerings and the political climate can leave much to be desired, especially in the eyes of young artists. In short, it is the perfect swamp for rock n’ roll music to crawl out of. It is a Petri dish for creative, frustrated young people with a van full of amplifiers and nothing else to do on a Friday night. This is as true today as it was in 1954, when Elvis Presley snarled and shook his way into the American consciousness from the stage of Shreveport Municipal Auditorium.

Decades before Presley, there were the politically charged 12-string folk blues of Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter. Along the way, the city has also been called home by rockabilly pioneers, avant-garde

AJ Haynes playing her Fender Jazzmaster

Shreveport takes care of us. It also drives us crazy. But that’s just how it is with any family. experimental music collectives and country music bad boys who were outlaws long before “outlaw country” was a genre on iTunes.

Shreveport, for whatever reason, is the kind of place where musical misfits have always fit right in.

According to Seratones guitarist Connor Davis, it’s also the kind of place that encourages musicians to master various styles.

“At one point, I was playing in a psychedelic band, and I was also playing in a cover band at the casinos,” Davis said. “The casino gig was how I was paying my bills. I was also in a punk rock band playing violent thrash versions of Elvis songs. And no one judged me.”

Haynes believes that this lack of a distinct musical and cultural identity is one of Shreveport’s most compelling characteristics.

“Shreveport is always trying to figure out its own identity,”

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Haynes said. “A situation like that is a blank slate where you can do whatever you want. Shreveport takes care of us. It also drives us crazy.

But that’s how it is with any family, they piss you off sometimes but they also care for you.”

WHATEVER LIES AHEAD Seratones have come a long way, but in many ways the band is just getting started. They’re still loading their own gear into and out of a battered old van with three doors that don’t work, a window that doesn’t roll down, and a hole in the roof. They’re still working the merchandise table after shows and sleeping on the occasional couch. Somehow, Haynes finds the time to moonlight as a freelance journalist from the road, her byline surfacing regularly in The Times and Rouge Magazine. For a young band that has achieved national recognition and is just beginning

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SUMMER 2016

to get a glimpse of what real success would look like, they remain incredibly levelheaded. Life as a professional musician can be tough, but Seratones seem prepared for whatever lies ahead in 2016 and beyond.

“Buddy Flett always says: ‘Take your vitamins, don’t ever stop playing and don’t start hating each other,’” Gabriel said.

Flett, a Shreveport native who has toured around the world with Kenny Wayne Shepherd and is a veteran bluesman with multiple Grammy nominations, should know what it takes to make a career out of music.

“We’re ready,” Haynes said. “It’s fun and it’s terrifying. It’s like being a teenager, when your limbs are too big for your body.

You don’t know what to do, but you figure it out.”

THE ALBUM Get Gone, the debut album from Seratones, was released on May 6, 2016 on Fat Possum Records. It is available for purchase in formats ranging from vinyl record to digital download. The album features artwork by Shreveport-based artist Nate Treme. To stream or purchase tunes from the record, visit Spotify, iTunes, Day Old Blues or FatPossum.com.

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IT IS UP TO

US Written by Tim Fletcher Photography by Casey Habich

. ls w o r g h c a m to s is H The last meal he had l o o h c s t a h c n lu s a w the day before.

Note: This is a story featuring a fictional account of real life events. Names and schools have been changed to avoid unnecessary attention for young student-athletes in the area.

J

elani Green doesn’t have an alarm clock to wake him up in the morning. Mom isn’t going to come in and rouse him from his slumber. When he wakes in the morning, the house is dark and without power.

He rubs the sleep out of his eyes before slowly sitting up in bed.

Two younger brothers are still asleep in the queen bed perpendicular to his twin bed. His stomach growls. The last meal he had was lunch at school the day before. He has an older sister in technical college who lives with them, along with one younger sister.

Their mom works two jobs: the graveyard shift at the processing plant and a part-time job as a convenience store clerk. She is out of the house from 4pm-7am, five days per week. The sole bread-winner, Cicily Green is trying to make ends meet. Paychecks totaling $420$500 each week don’t go very far with five children under the roof.

Their power has been cut off half a dozen times in the last two years. The water, cable and gas companies have also cut off service for non-payment of bills recently. Today, Thursday, Jelani will wear the same school uniform for the fourth straight day. He’s careful not to spill any drink or food on his shirt, since it’s the only one he possesses and the Green’s don’t have a washing machine.

Every sports fan in the city knows Jelani. His Friday night exploits unfold on local television highlight shows during the fall. He led Central High to the state semi-finals in basketball his sophomore year and the quarterfinals the following year. Just for kicks, the day after basketball season ended his sophomore year, he tried high jumping in the pit just beyond the track that encircles the football field. He cleared 6’0” on his first ever-attempt. He now holds the school record.

Young kids in his neighborhood consider him a hero. Old men in the same neighborhood compare him to the greats from their era.

The young men in his neighborhood protect him from the pitfalls that attract teenage boys who have no adult supervision at home.

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37

t h g u o r b o ls a s c ti le th A mething missing in lani’s life to the Their pride in watching Jelani excel with ease, against kids and teams who have much more support at their disposal, is an elixir of hope in the community.

At the tail-end of his junior year, academic struggles have pushed Jelani to the brink of ineligibility. Missing his mom, and with no stability at home, Jelani feels helpless.

There is no one there to reassure him when he begins to have doubts, and no one to issue stern warnings of what life looks like for a high school dropout. He is left to ponder the future on his own. The future looks bleak and dark, despite a bevy of scholarship offers in multiple sports.

The smile that once foretold his arrival in the classroom has dimmed. His eyes, bright and brown, are now half-closed as he shuffles from class to class.

What energy he does have, comes out in bursts on the football field, basketball court and high-jump pit. In these areas, the numbers and facts make sense, unlike in the classroom.

Athletics also brought something missing in Jelani’s life to the forefront, leadership.

Every coach who worked with him, from the age of seven and up, loved the kid. Quick to adapt to the system employed by the coach, Jelani was eager to help his teammates acclimate. He practiced harder than he played, and he played like his pension was on the line. Jelani could often be seen setting examples for those wearing the same uniform who possessed a fraction of his skills.

On this Thursday afternoon as soon as track practice concluded, Coach Willard Benson decided to address the physical and emotional changes he noticed in Jelani.

Benson is Central High’s head football and track coach as well as the athletic director. He graduated with Cicily from Central twenty-two years earlier.

Coach Benson is aware of Jelani’s home life. Like most coaches in the area, Benson is good at reading his kids. He asks questions.

Because no kid wants to feel interrogated, he asks the right questions, avoiding an overabundance of inquiries. Today, he whistled at his star athlete as he was exiting the locker room.

“Son…I can’t help but notice…you drag out of here these last few days like you would rather be anywhere than where you’re heading.”

“I’m okay coach. Ain’t got a problem.”

“Didn’t say you did have a problem. But we’re going to have one soon. A big one.

refront, leadership.

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SUMMER 2016

What’s going on in World History? Mrs. Anthony said you were disrespectful to her this morning and that your grade has gone from a solid ‘B’ to a high ‘D’. Mrs. Jenner said you blew her off yesterday when she asked where your assignment was. Printed report…ringing a bell, Jelani?”

“Yes sir. I just didn’t have time to get it done. I didn’t say nothing to Mrs. Anthony, Coach. Nothing that should have got me in trouble.”

“Keep talking.”

“She said I looked like something the cat dragged in. Said my shirt was raggedy and I got a belt-loop that had come loose in back of my pants. I told her it wasn’t none of her business.”

Coach leans around and looks at the back of Jelani’s pants. “I don’t see a belt loop hanging out.”

“I tore it off.”

“You can talk to me. You know that.

What’s going on with that uniform you’re wearing? You had the same shirt on yesterday…doesn’t have any buttons on the front.”

Jelani stared at his coach eye-to-eye, man-to-man. And then, the young man looked at his shoe-tops, his shoulders slouched. He went from a man to a boy in a span of two seconds.

“It’s all I got, Coach. Mom had to get my brothers new uniforms two weeks ago because they got too big for their old ones.

Can’t afford anything else right now. And we don’t have a washing machine…”

“Okay…so why’d you blow off Mrs. Jenner? You know what we’ve told y’all about respecting teachers and ladies…”

“Yes sir.”

“Why’d you do it, then?”

“How am I going to print a report, Coach? We ain’t got a computer or printer at home. She called me out in front of everyone in class. I told her the day before that I could write it out, but she said she can’t… said she WON’T read every student’s handwriting.”

“Understood. Follow me back to my office.”

The two walked in silence back towards the gym to Benson’s office just outside the weight room. The coach shut the door behind Jelani and reached inside a locker on the far wall.

“Here son,” he said as he tossed two new school shirts and a new pair of khaki pants to Jelani. “Stick these in your backpack. No one needs to know where you got

It’s all

those. Here’s an extra pair of gym clothes. Go in the bathroom and change… let me have your uniform after you change.”

He followed his coach’s instructions.

Embarrassed initially by the charitable donation, Jelani’s reaction soon evolved into relief.

It’s been six months since he had anything new to wear. The only other uniform he had went missing at the last out-of-town track meet.

He lost a necklace, cell phone and his school clothes. His teammates were also hit, but the effect wasn’t as severe.

Jelani reappeared in Coach Benson’s office,

I got Coach... handing over the balled-up, old school uniform. “What you going to do with that, coach?”

“Just pick it up tomorrow. Don’t worry. You have your written report on you?”

“Yes sir.”

“You got to be anywhere in the next hour or so?”

“No sir.”

“Use my computer on the desk to type out your paper. We’ll print it here and you can give it to Mrs. Jenner tomorrow

morning.”

“She said she won’t accept late work.”

“Worth a try. What does Coach Wilson tell you in basketball…‘You won’t make any shot that you don’t take.’”

“Yes sir.”

Thirty minutes later, Coach’s wife, Dee Benson pulled into the gym parking lot with two catfish dinners. “How’s he doing in there?” she asks.

“His typing skills don’t quite match up with his tailback ability, but it’s coming along. Should be done here in another 30

or 40 minutes. I’ll drop him off at his house and head home. Thanks forbringing dinner. Watching him type builds up quite an appetite.”

Coach Benson placed Jelani’s container of six catfish fillets, two hush puppies and large French Fries next to the keyboard, along with a bottled water. “Take a break. Go ahead and eat, don’t want the fish to get cold…but I also don’t want you to get grease all over my keyboard.”

Jelani chuckled and opened his dinner. The top of the container was wet with condensation from the piping hot catfish. This would be his first warm meal in over a week.

SHREVEPORTMAGAZINE.COM

39

Coache the las

for hun in our

any of them alumni of Centra l gh, were exposed for the firs t time he desolate conditions in whic h y of their students lived.

Thirty minutes later, the nearby printer belched out the report. Coach Benson gave Jelani a clear file to place it in before hitting the lights and locking up the office. Benson knew where Jelani lived but hadn’t been to his neighborhood in nearly a year. For every manicured lawn, two were in disarray. They pulled into the driveway of the dark house Jelani called home. It was 8:30 in the evening.

Benson could see flashlight beams flashing inside the house.

“What’s going on, Jelani?”

His star tailback explained the power situation and the lack of food, which in this case was not the worst thing. If they did have food, it would have spoiled in the refrigerator over the last two days.

Coach walked inside with Jelani and met his younger siblings. They were all under the age of 10 and were all alone in the dark house. Their giggles took away a portion of the lump in his throat, but not all of it.

Coach Benson called his principal while driving home from Jelani’s house. He had an idea.

The next morning, Jelani turned in the report to Mrs. Jenner before first bell. There was no lecture, just a reassuring smile from his teacher. Coach Benson had caught her in the parking lot before school to explain Jelani’s situation. In addition, every teacher at Central High received a note in their email.

An impromptu “workshop” would take place Saturday morning. Attendance was not man-

40

SUMMER 2016

datory, but highly recommended.

On Saturday, 80% of the faculty arrived on campus at 8 am sharp. Six yellow school buses awaited them.

“Where are we going?” was the standard question.

“You’ll see,” was the standard reply.

With Coach Benson manning the first bus, and members of his coaching staff on the bullhorn in the other buses, the faculty road trip was underway. There was no museum on the itinerary for the day.

There would be no teacher conference or continuing education workshop.

Ten minutes into the trip, the buses turned onto a narrow street with several dilapidated houses. Coach Benson spoke to his group, “On this street, there are six students who attend Central High. All six live in poverty. Their names are the first ones on the sheet you received earlier… recognize any of them?”

Four teachers raised their hands on his bus. Similar reactions occurred in the remaining buses. The tour wound through some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Often, a student sitting at the city bus stop with their work-uniform replacing their school uniform would recognize the bus and wave. Occasionally, the kids would see one of their teachers on the bus and think, “No way. Couldn’t be her?”

Teachers, many of them alumni of Central High, were exposed for the first

time to the desolate conditions in which many of their students lived. Several faculty members who believed and periodically divulged a student to be “lazy”, witnessed said student wearing a fast-food restaurant uniform walking to work.

Several of the students’ yards were filled with men who were swearing loudly and drinking early this Saturday morning.

A large number of kids at Central High don’t get to experience life as a teenager when they return home. The students are breadwinners on occasion, but economic contributors more often. Central High features a student population whose study time is spent over a vat of hot grease in a fast food kitchen, or retrieving vehicles from a casino parking garage.

This one bus tour helped change the culture in a school. After witnessing life in the trenches for their charges, teachers were much more forgiving than prior to their excursion. Annoyance turned to sympathy, which led to relationships that students could trust.

The final street on the tour was Jelani’s. All five children were in the mostly dirt front yard, along with their mother. A steady cloud of hickory-scented smoke escaped from the charcoal grill in the driveway. Sausage, ribs, chicken, corn on the cob, and sweet potatoes made up the menu.

You could smell a week’s worth of meals through the open bus windows.

All of the Green family waved at the buses.

Coach Benson smiled. The carport light was on.

city.

NOTES FROM THE WRITER

es and teaches are st bastion of hope ndreds of teenagers There are numerous examples of coaches and faculty taking extra measures to ensure the health and well-being of their students. Examples of housing, clothing, food, money for electric bills, backpacks, etc. are plentiful.

Coaches and teachers are the last bastion of hope for hundreds of teenagers in our city. One school locally outfitted their locker room in carpet and installed TV’s because more than one player was homeless and needed shelter. Students have taken residence on a temporary basis in coach’s offices or T-buildings, with Coaches and their spouses providing money out of their pocket to keep kids fed and off the streets.

Several schools in the area feature well-established Booster Clubs that provide team meals after practice and/or before and after games.

Travel costs have been covered by Boosters and alumni. However, several of the oldest schools in the city, which are sixty, seventy, eighty years old, have no Booster Club or alumni association working to defray costs.

It’s time Shreveport-Bossier banded together to support the chief source of our future growth, kids.

One local school will have over a dozen members of their team working this summer, sacking groceries at a store near the school.

Temporary employment not only gives these kids necessary funds, but the experience gained with local businesses is good for both parties.

If there is work needed this summer, contact a high school and ask for a head coach. See if any of the boys and girls could use a job. In addition, ask Coach if there is anything your business can do to assist the kids—from backpacks, to school uniforms, to football helmets.

In addition, we need to teach all of Caddo/Bossier kids skills that can make a difference in their lives. Several local farms could enrich the curriculum of local schools by teaching fundamental gardening. The most poverty-stricken neighborhoods have little or no access to organic fruits and vegetables. Cheaper food with fewer healthy ingredients and more chemicals are staples in all areas of town.

We can teach kids how to fish, from baiting to grilling. We live in ‘sportsmen’s paradise,’ with plenty of fish available. One trip to the lake could help provide a family a week of meals.

This city has an opportunity to lead the country in advancing youth beyond high school. A friend and former co-worker of mine recently told me, “People don’t understand. When capable kids underperform in school, it becomes society’s problem when they become adults. People will be surprised how kids will respond if someone gives them a chance.

Not every kid, but an overwhelming majority.”

We’re not going to make any shot we don’t take.

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Getting From There To Here: The Norton Turns Fifty Written by Everl Adair

Present-day museums are coming to realize… that they must do more than just put art objects on exhibit and hope that somebody will happen to drop by to see them…

R.W. Norton, Jr. The Progressive Museum: An Asset to the Community

There are many perks to working in an art museum. For one thing, you work surrounded by beauty every day. For another, you are constantly learning new things, not just about art and artists, but also about the culture and circumstances that made these works not only possible but also almost inevitable. And then there’s the Aladdin’s cave of the museum’s storerooms and archives where you can actually touch history.

In 2007, for example, the research library of the R.W. Norton Art Gallery was being remodeled, an area that included my office.

Re-locating the archives until the new library was complete, I got to hold in my hands a remarkable series of artifacts, including a copy of the July 1776 Pennsylvania Magazine that contained the first published version of the Declaration of Independence (on page four), and a handwritten letter from John James Audubon to the British printer who was engraving his monumental doubleelephant folio of The Birds of America. But perhaps the most immediately significant thing that came to light in my delighted exploration of the archives was a short, typewritten document, now rather yellowed with age. It was an essay composed around the mid-century mark by the Norton’s co-founder, Richard W. Norton, Jr., entitled “The Progressive Museum: An Asset to the Community”. Not only did the essay providevaluable insights into the planning and purpose of the Norton at the time of its founding, it also provided inspiration as

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the Gallery moved into the twenty-first century. Mr. Norton began the essay by pointing out that “The concept of the purpose and function of a museum has changed radically during the past several decades, and, in fact, it is still changing.”

He could have written that today and it would still be true – which was his point.

The Norton needed to be a dynamic force rather than merely a static collection if it were to properly serve its community.

FOUNDING Back in 1946, that process began when he and his mother, Mrs. Annie Miles Norton, were searching for a project to honor his father, Richard W. Norton, Sr., an oil and gas pioneer who was one of the discoverers of the Rodessa Oil Field in the 1920s. Their final decision was to set up the R.W. Norton Art Foundation with the eventual goal of an art museum that would provide its patrons with access to art and other elements of culture while being self-sustaining rather than relying on public funds and/or entrance fees to support its operations and acquisitions.

Dick Norton wanted everyone to be able to come to his museum, not just those with money to spare.

The first issue, naturally, was to accumulate a collection worth visiting.

Both Mr. Norton and his mother were art lovers themselves and prepared to donate a large percentage of their personal

collections to the new Norton. However, they were also aware that this would be insufficient in terms of both depth and breadth for a proper museum collection. Reflecting their personal tastes, the original collection contained a large number of pieces by certain artists, like Frederic Remington, and particular movements, like the Hudson River School. The Nortons set out to acquire more museum-ready works of art. Fortunately, their previous collecting had introduced them to some of the finest dealers in New York and throughout the South.

It was through these dealers, for instance, that Mrs. Norton had acquired in the 1930s

what would become one of the greatest treasures of the museum: a complete edition of the double-elephant folio of John James Audubon’s The Birds of America, sold by Oxford University as a result of a budgetary shortfall. Audubon was a perfect artist for the Norton.

For another of the Nortons’s goals was not only to build a world-class collection of art, but also to sponsor and feature art with resonance for the community.

They didn’t want to simply mimic famous Northeastern museums, but rather build one that spoke significantly to Louisiana (and Shreveport itself ) as well. It was with that goal in mind that wheels were set in motion for one of the Norton’s most unique collections. In 1947, Mrs. Ruth Gray and Miss Ruth Blumenstiel of Henderson Avenue Antiques in Hot Springs, Arkansas, wrote to them with a proposition for a “collection to be placed in this worthy memorial which you are planning.” The two Ruths, using Mrs. Gray’s extensive collection of antique 19th-century German bisque porcelain dolls, would create authentic wardrobes for them covering 200 years of Louisiana history, from 1720 to 1920.

Mrs. Gray promised to take on “whatever else she might do to make [the doll collection] the finest one of its kind in the country.” The dolls would fit well into the new museum.

Mr. Norton wrote back that he liked the idea, but warned in a June 6, 1947 letter:

headed to Philadelphia and New York where “Mrs. Gray bought out the entire stock of an old millinery store… The hats, gloves, shoes, stockings, (sometimes two pairs of different material are required for one doll), underwear (some of it layers and layers), fur, feathers, etc. must be complete in every detail.” Each dress had to be fitted to each individual doll, as no two were the same size. While Mrs. Gray sewed and fitted, Miss Blumenstiel produced remarkable miniature accessories, designing all the jewelry and carving period shoes from cork to be covered with the appropriate fabric and adornments.

They even hired a professional costumer to make wigs of human hair, except for the powdered wigs of the 18th-century dolls, which were made from historically accurate yak hair. Mrs. Gray then set and lacquered the wigs in hairstyles appropriate to both period and costume. Miss Blumenstiel wrote to Mr. Norton with pride, “Everything in your collection is authentic and we have proof of every garment and stitch.”

Unfortunately, there was still no museum to put them in. Still recovering from World War II and gearing up for the Cold War, the U.S. government limited manufacturers’ ability to sell building supplies. Mrs. Annie Norton wrote to the

two Ruths in 1952, “Even now, we are not able to start our gallery on account of lack of critical materials, especially steel.” For the moment, the Norton’s first commissioned collection would have to go into storage.

In the meantime, the Nortons had at least been able to begin work on the building using Howard Sherman with Neild Somdal Associates as architect. Here, too, Dick Norton had a firm grasp on his concept of the museum as a contemporary structure. Rather than choose a Neo-Classical or Colonial design as so many American museums had, he chose a design in what today is called Mid-Century Modern, light and open with the potential for expansion. And instead of the typical museum portico with tiers of steps leading up to the entrance, the Norton was planned to be user-friendly for those with physical disabilities. There were no steps from the curb to the front entrance and no stairways inside on the main museum level. Those with wheelchairs or crutches would be able to maneuver themselves easily throughout the museum. The Norton would even loan them a wheelchair if needed.

As the Norton finally neared completion in 1964, Ruth Blumenstiel had passed away, but Dick Norton hired Ruth Gray at a monthly salary to prepare the doll collection for exhibition.

Unfortunately, she also died before the display was complete. However, the collection was finally put on exhibition for the first time in April of 1968 during the Holiday in Dixie celebration. In a letter

…it would have to be considered as a long-range project, for not only have we not begun the construction of the Gallery but also we have not even been able so far to acquire a suitable plot of ground on which to put it… Even after we get the site we shall have to spend many months on the plans… and then many more months on its construction. I do not foresee the opening of the Gallery for at least another three years.

Little did he know that it would take almost twenty.

Nonetheless, the two Ruths immediately set to work. They lined up the dolls and began cleaning, repairing, and where necessary, embellishing. Their first trip was to Baton Rouge and New Orleans to research the dolls. Then they

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to Mrs. Grey’s son, Norton wrote, “during that nine-day special exhibit, the dolls were seen by over 4,200 visitors.” In 1990, the Gray-Blumenstiel Doll Collection went on permanent display in a gallery of its own in the new South Wing. And in 2008, further associating the dolls with the state they represented, each of them was given the name and biography of a real woman or man from the appropriate period of Louisiana history.

The doors to the R.W. Norton Art Gallery formally opened in 1966 with Richard Norton, Jr. at the helm. Strolling through one room after another, visitors could admire paintings by artists including Thomas Cole and Sir Joshua Reynolds, and sculpture

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by the famous “cowboy artists” Frederic Remington and Charles Marion Russell.

The research library, then just a few thousand books, included a large Reading Room and five small research rooms where putative scholars could take their requested books to make notes and write papers. The opening on November 13 was a tremendous success, with major coverage in both The Shreveport Times and Shreveport Magazine.

And soon after the opening, the Norton commissioned another unique work, the painting that became the most reproduced of all those in the museum. Like the Gray-Blumenstiel Doll Collection, it all began with a letter to Dick Norton. This time it was from a Louisiana artist named

Lloyd Hawthorne. Hawthorne had been stunned to realize that, although a major figure in American history, there were no substantial images of Captain Henry Shreve, for whom Shreveport was named. In fact, there was only one somewhat questionable portrait. Hawthorne wanted to remedy that. He approached Louisiana State University first, but finding no interest there, wrote that letter to Norton. Once the Board of Trustees agreed, Hawthorne was commissioned in 1968 to create his large-scale canvas, Captain Henry M. Shreve Clearing the Red River Raft. To ensure historical accuracy, Hawthorne did an enormous amount of historical research, including acquiring copies of Shreve’s original drawings for his snagboat from the U.S. Patent Office. As the only image showing him at work, Hawthorne’s painting is consistently requested for use in history textbooks and other printed material, particularly tomes produced by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Other masterworks came to the museum through the Nortons’ personal friendships with some of the artists. Dick and Margaret Norton had become friendly with the New Zealand-born British artist Felix Kelly, who married Romanticism and Southern Gothic in his paintings of steamboats, plantation homes, railways, and parks. Not only did the Nortons purchase several of his haunting renditions of scenes along the Mississippi River, they also acquired his depiction of the brand-new R.W. Norton Art Gallery, with themselves and their family rendered as ghostly figures standing by the portico and wandering under the canopy of trees on the south lawn.

Dick Norton was also determined to augment the still relatively small permanent collection by providing visiting exhibitions that would feature works by other artists and schools. These, too, were to be presented free to the public. Among the visiting exhibitions sponsored by the Norton were the Bermuda Masterworks Collections. This included a collection of Neo-Realist paintings, shows dedicated to wildlife and national parks imagery, and displays of Ansel Adams photographs. And a tradition begun in 1968 would prove popular for nearly forty years – the annual Christmas tree. Each year a theme was chosen and a 20-foot tree in the Oval Gallery at the center of the museum was decorated with ornaments based on that theme. From Victorian objects to blown glass to Disney characters, they were, in the famous words of Clement Moore, “visions of delight”.

the new millennium, another member of the Norton family stepped up to participate in the maintenance and expansion of the R.W. Norton Art Gallery. Lewis Norton joined his mother in preparing for the future, first by the construction of a new North Wing, this one with designated temporary exhibition galleries plus several more galleries for the permanent collection.

“THE PROGRESSIVE MUSEUM” The new North Wing was opened in 2003, but not before Lewis Norton had spearheaded some other expansions of the museum’s role. And in recent years, his wife Ruth has joined him in that endeavor. Like Dick and Margaret Norton before them, Lewis and Ruth Norton work together to ensure the Norton is prepared for the future in addition to preserving the best of the past.

[The museum] should be a strong connecting link between the past and the present… It should present the past as being the foundation-stone of the present, and seek to instill in the public a feeling of connection with and dependence upon the past.

EXPANDING But Mr. Norton was not allowed the time to expand the museum and its programs as he had hoped. After his untimely death in 1974, his wife, Margaret Norton, took over the direction of the Gallery. With the support of the Board of Trustees, she continued the programs already begun by her husband and continued to add to the permanent collection, including works, by significant female artists like Impressionist Mary Cassatt and Modernist Henriette Wyeth. An American History Gallery was established, presided over by Jane Stuart’s version of her father Gilbert Stuart’s famous portrait of George Washington (the model for the dollar bill) and Rembrandt Peale’s portrait of Martha Washington. There was also a table display of miniatures of important figures on both sides in the Revolutionary War, part of a collection of miniatures that was growing to be one of the largest in the country.

Along with maintaining the museum, Margaret Norton set her stamp on it with her dedication to the grounds surrounding it. While azaleas are a staple of Southern landscapes, it was Mrs. Norton who saw that the gentle hills and valleys of

the forty acres surrounding the building were perfectly situated for large clusters of these spring-blooming shrubs. Thousands of azaleas in many varieties were planted in swaths under the high canopies of oaks, elms and pines, with brick and stone paths laid out for strolling visitors. A small pond graced with benches alongside it occupied the lowest point. With the Norton nestled in a residential area with little traffic, its now regularly blossoming grounds quickly became a local favorite for long walks and casual picnics.

But growth brings its own set of problems. Even when first built, the Norton lacked enough gallery space for its entire permanent collection to be on display, and, as the collection grew, even the museum’s extensive storerooms were over-crowded.

Fortunately, the building had been constructed with an eye toward expansion, and in 1990, a new wing was added to the south side of the Norton. Connected to the main body of the museum by a glass courtyard with full-length windows looking out over the grounds, the new South Wing housed galleries devoted to the Gray-Blumenstiel Doll Collection and the works of Felix Kelly.

However, it was not long before this wing, too, could not contain the Norton collection. And, as the museum approached

-Richard W. Norton, Jr. The Progressive Museum: An Asset to the Community In 2001, the Norton added a new department, the Oral History Project, headed by retired USAF officer Phil Lynch. Keeping in mind the museum’s commitment to the community, the OHP sought to interview and preserve the testimony of the local people who had been instrumental in the past of the region, sometimes through fighting to preserve our freedom, sometimes through changing our lives for the better. The OHP defines its mission as: These people, living quietly among us, changed our lives in ways we hardly realize. Their stories, whether tales of wartime valor, the struggle to obtain civil rights, pioneering efforts in the oil industry, gifted and innovative music-making, or building a community both diverse and vibrant, deserve to be told and recorded. In short, the Oral History Project is dedicated to preserving the stories of the men and women who made the world in which we live a better one.

To date, the OHP has preserved more than 900 oral histories. These records are kept in both electronic voice-recordings and written transcripts to be available for families (who receive a copy of each) and scholars in the years to come.

While the newly re-discovered essay enumerated many goals that Lewis Norton had already

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been pursuing, it also provided a written record of the intentions of the founders and a rationale for innovations that Norton wanted to incorporate as the museum moved into the 21st century. …have the gallery offer enough variety of programs so that everyone can regularly find some event there which will interest him…

-Richard W. Norton, Jr. The Progressive Museum: An Asset to the Community The Norton began sponsoring special events to appeal to people of different ages and interests. These have ranged from adult-oriented evening events like “The Art of Beer” and “The Art of Love” (chocolates and wine for Valentine’s Day), as well as family-oriented events like the now annual “Night at the Museum” and spring “BLOOM! Festival”.

There’s a lot to interest people in the grounds around the Norton as well. In 2008, Kip DeHart was hired as the new Landscape Designer. Under Kip’s sure hands and imaginative conceptions, the gardens have grown into a host of botanical eco-systems, with new streams and ponds helping provide a marsh with commensurate vegetation, a xeriscape garden, a tropical environment, and Maple Hill with multiple varieties of Japanese maples. Something blooms here year-round and the grounds are now officially the Norton Botanical Gardens. …have competitive exhibitions of the work of local artists…

-Richard W. Norton, Jr. The Progressive Museum: An Asset to the Community In 2015, the Norton discontinued its tradition of sponsoring visiting exhibitions.

This was partly because the recession of 2008 had forced many of the companies that arranged such exhibitions to fold and good exhibitions were becoming harder to find. But mostly it was because this freed up space for the Norton to curate temporary exhibitions of its own, drawing from its permanent collection, including items only infrequently on display. They are also able to feature more up-to-date and imaginative subject matter in exhibitions like #hashtagging history and Down the Rabbit

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Hole: Alice Visits the Norton. A special South Wing Corridor exhibition is commemorating the centennial anniversary of the Great War (World War I) with posters created in each year of the war and culminating in 2019 with After-Image, an examination of the effects of the war on art. The North Wing Corridor recently held the exhibition Paper Zoo, and the library also holds regular exhibitions, some of which have included the drawings of Frederic Remington, illustrations from 19th- and early 20th-century children’s literature, and eyewitness accounts of history, including both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. And eliminating the visiting exhibitions also provided space and time to display juried exhibitions by local artists, including the recent first annual BLOOM! exhibition.

…have a nursery and playgrounds open and attendants on duty…

-Richard W. Norton, Jr. The Progressive Museum: An Asset to the Community While the Norton’s staff and facilities have not been able to stretch to the establishment of a nursery and playground per se, the staff’s concern for the potential of young parents to enjoy the museum with their children continues today. Thus was born the Stroller Tours, regular events exclusively for those with toddlers and babies to bring along.

Recent themes for these tours have included Storytelling with Thelma Harrison, Fun with Music and Sound Effects with George Hancock, and Spring Fling with Dr. Martha Mangin. Another recent addition are Mommy & Me Yoga sessions, providing not only a

grounding in yoga, but also a chance for parents to bond with their children in a healthy way.

And that reflects by far the greatest consideration of Richard W. Norton, Jr., the relationship between the museum and the socialization and education of children. If the leaders of the Norton had focused in the past on building the collection and creating a lovely environment for largely adult patrons, its new focus, while not abandoning its old concerns and audience, was to be on children. …this program of education for children should not be limited to the children of parents with enough means or enough interest in art to bring them to the gallery of their own accord. A concerted effort should be made to attract the children of [the] poor…

-Richard W. Norton, Jr. The Progressive Museum: An Asset to the Community Even before the Education Department came into existence, this goal to educate became a priority. Lewis Norton began by offering summer Art Camps on an invitational basis. Teachers in at-risk schools were asked to recommend students who had shown ability in art, and these students were then invited to attend the Norton’s Art Camp for free.

Since the Education Department began managing them, the Art Camps have been able to branch out and work with subjects including Robotics, S.T.E.M., and Spy Camp (working with codes and ciphers). Additionally, each summer one of the camps produces either a stage or radio play based upon a classic work of literature. Subjects have included The Iliad and Tales of King Arthur (based on Le Morte d’Arthur).

During the school year, the Norton’s educational staff also works

with at-risk schools. Recently, they have been partners with the Caddo Parish School Board in developing programs to help the Transformational Zone schools enhance their lessons to help them achieve their educational goals. They have also worked with specific schools that are struggling to develop classes and extracurriculars that strengthen the students’ overall skills in a variety of subject areas. …an art gallery should be a positive force for constructive good in a community…

-Richard W. Norton, Jr. The Progressive Museum: An Asset to the Community The Norton isn’t finished – not by a long shot.

There will always be more and better programs, new art to be enjoyed and studied, and continually evolving environments in which to experience it all. This year the Norton celebrates its golden anniversary, fifty years of serving the community of which it is proud to be a part. But if the founders of this beautiful museum could be here with us today, I know what they would be proudest of – that fifty years from now, at its centennial, the Norton will still be hosting men and women who came here as children and whose lives were all the better for the experience.

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SOUTHWOOD SYMPHONIC SIZZLE T

he stunningly assured Southwood High School Symphonic Winds ensemble has brought new luster to Caddo Parish schools. Under the direction of 39 year-old director Lennard Holden, this large ensemble has made a name for itself by winning Superior ratings in Louisiana and sweepstakes in the Southern Star Music Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. In Atlanta, the Southwood Symphonic Winds performed three pieces: “El Camino Real” by Alfred Reed; “Gabriel’s Oboe” by Ennio Morricone; and “Danzas Cubanas” by Robert Sheldon. These are complex pieces ranging from 4 to 10 minutes in length, and involve challenging tempos and dynamics.

How do Southwood students do it so well? They toil. “The people listening to us will never know how many hours of work we put in,” says Anthony Harris, trumpet player and a student leader in the Symphonic Winds.

Holden arrived at Southwood High in 2008, knowing that a series of band directors had come and gone. He brought determination, stating “There’s nothing more powerful than a made-up mind.” Along with determination, he had an old school approach, “I am teaching students the real joy in delayed gratification.” During marching band season, gratification for student musicians arrives via weekly performances.

But the Symphonic Winds group – virtually the same students as the marching band – focuses on competitions that take place in April. “We practice 2 to 3 hours per day after school, often six days a week,” says flutist Brianna Moore. “Delayed gratification is literally foreign to them,” admits Holden, “I have to constantly teach this.”

Holden grew up in Shreveport. He absorbed his music ethic at Bethune Middle and Fair Park High Schools. Of his experience growing up, “We all wanted to please the director. And we could see the older students getting scholarships in music.” At Southwood, says Holden, “Parents buy into it as well as the students. We are about doing whatever it takes to be the best.” In fact, Band Booster president Harold Mingo says that fund raising by the parents amounts to approximately $50,000 per year. According to Mingo, “We feed the band. In fact, they eat very well.

We take them to different locations and out of town. We buy additional instruments for them. When Mr. Holden wants something done, one way or the other we make it happen.”

A plan for student success in academics is part of the band ethic. Holden and those who work with the students “are constantly monitoring student progress. Those who need academic help are given Band Study Hall after school.” The older students run the tutoring sessions. “We want every student to be ready for the work force, for college and the military,” says Holden. It is a

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tone appreciated at the Walker Road school. Holden points out, “Our principal, Jeff Roberts, does not stay in his office, he too, is constantly monitoring student progress.”

Holden has created a program with magnetic force. “My brother was in band when I was little and I was always around the band program, “ student Johnathan Hall said in a recent video interview in the Times. “I just love how things really function around here,” adds Hall. Of performing in the marching band, he admits, “It can be overwhelming at times.”

“Marching band – some 130 students – is what really pulls kids into the program,” Holden told the Times. “It’s exciting, loud, raucous, boisterous. It’s everything that I, as a person, hate.

Ha!” They practice 6 days a week and he remains on campus until 7 or 8 pm.

Yet something about Holden’s ability to understand teens’ emotions is at work, says retired band director Paul Tinker. “He’s almost like a substitute dad for some students. He listens to students. They trust him. They love him. He can say things to students that other teachers could not,” observes Tinker. “Holden wants them to look presentable, to act presentable. In the band room, I can see kids picking up after themselves, running a vacuum cleaner. That’s because he speaks to their hearts.” When speaking about Holden’s interactions with the students Mingo observes, “I think some kids would rather be at school with him than home with their parents.”

Developing the embouchure, fingering and ability to count time in young teens is a challenge. When learning a new piece, “We zero in on the most difficult part,” says Holden. “We work at it every day and we do our ‘woodshedding’ on the really complex parts.” He says that, “My biggest challenge is to help them get over their fear.”

Holden invites other music instructors to drop in after school.

There are mock competitions for the students to help them prepare for the upcoming competitions.

“Feel the music,” is what alto sax player Zachary Johnson hears from his director. “Be confident and believe in your music,” is the message from the director, says Tamarah Youngblood. “I have no doubt in the power of music,” asserts Holden. He goes on to state, “I have lived that. You feel better as a person through music.” The

Southwood band’s reputation is strong, and according to Holden “It’s almost impossible to keep up with the volume of requests for performances.”

The work is unceasing, yet evolving, says Southwood administrator Teniesha Mahoney, “It was Mr. Holden’s idea to have an annual event called Concert in the Courtyard. It generated such interest in the first year that we sold some 300 tickets to the performances this year. The orchestra, band, choir, culinary arts and art students are all participants.”

How does one understand Holden’s ability to shape the students?

“He has high expectations. He’s consistent in what he does. Parents trust him. In the end, he motivates students to learn the music, says Mahoney.” It is clear that this dedication makes all the difference.

Enjoy performances by the Symphonic Winds on youtube.com by searching Southwood Symphonic Winds or Southwood High School Band.

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A PARTING THOUGHT Written by Kemerton Hargrove

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

I

forget who said this, originally – my father, perhaps – but the message is what’s important, here.

(I’m sure most of you are familiar with this quote, but just to cover my bases I’ll go ahead and assume you aren’t.)

Essentially, it trivializes the importance we place on names. Does it really matter what something is called? What someone’s name is? The author is arguing that, no, it does not.

(At least I think that’s what the author is saying; I’ll have to check with my father.)

Now, normally I’d agree, but for the sake of this article I’ll play devil’s advocate: Names do matter. Maybe not in the context of a rose, or star cross’d lovers (wink), but perhaps nowhere does a name matter more than in music - specifically, what the name of a band is. (Or singer/songwriter, for that matter.)

Yes, the band name. Insignificant, to some, of the utmost importance to others.

So, why is this relevant, you ask? It isn’t… not really, at least. But it stemmed from an article I’d intended to write about the Seratones, our cover story.

Now, I’m a fan of the Seratones. I think they’re immensely talented.

But when it came time to write the article, I couldn’t think of a single question to ask them that they hadn’t been asked already.

What did stick out to me, though, was their name. The Seratones. Great name, right? So I figured I’d focus on that.

I spoke to lead singer AJ Haynes about how they settled on the name, and what the process was like.

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“Seratones came from a weird play on words,” she said. “I originally thought of ‘Ceratones’… ‘cera’, Spanish for wax and playing on the idea of a mother wax record (part of the record pressing process) plus tones, a classic ending. The guys thought that it would look better with an “S” (and) ‘Seratones’ was born. No, it is not based on ‘serotonin’, but is a fun coincidence.”

I totally thought it was based on serotonin, but hey, what do I know?

Apparently there weren’t any other frontrunners… at least, nothing we could print in the magazine.

“There weren’t really any other names that were viable candidates,” Haynes explained, “or anything we think fit to print or mention. Band names are the worst and bring out the most absurd and perverse language combinations.”

Maybe that’s why I find band names so fascinating — they bring out the most absurd and perverse language combinations. What’s not to like? This got me thinking.

Ultimately, if you’re truly talented, it shouldn’t matter what your name is, or what you call yourselves. But just to give you an idea of how things could have gone for some of the musicians we know and love today, here’s what we almost got: Before Bob Dylan was Bob Dylan he was Robert Zimmerman, which sounds more like the moniker of a Russian spy than it does a folk singer.

And say what you will about Van Halen, but it sure beats Rat Salad, which we can all

agree is a bit of a downer. (Fun fact: Rat Salad was considered for the title of this magazine, but ultimately was dismissed because why the hell would we name the magazine Rat Salad?)

Before The Roots were the hottest ticket in late night, they were The Square Roots, which is a better name for an academic decathlon team than it is a funk/hip-hop powerhouse.

Sometimes it isn’t even that the name is bad, so much as it’s… well, exhausting. Which is probably why The Red Hot Chili Peppers ditched their original name, Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem.

Try saying that three times fast.

Local band The Hubcaps were originally Johnny Raymond and the Hubcaps from Outer Space – which – come to think of it, I sort of like better.

Then there are times when the name just doesn’t fit the group. I’m looking at you, Bee Gees. Believe it or not, The Bee Gees initially went by the Rattlesnakes. Next time you hear “More Than a Woman”, try imagining it came from a group called the Rattlesnakes.

No, really. Try it.

Sometimes you just need to be yourself.

Just ask Simon and Garfunkel. The pair initially went by Tom and Jerry before deciding to use their real names, which could have stemmed from a desire to stay true to themselves but might have come on the heels of a Hanna-Barbera lawsuit.

At the end of the day, I’m sure the Seratones would do just fine under a different handle. So long as it wasn’t Rat Salad.

Seriously, Rat Salad is the worst.

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