House floats are popping up all over town I've seen a few of these. But in the COVID times one only travels a short distance along the same route every day with fewer stops in between so I can't say I've seen a lot of them yet. I'm sure I'll get out and take some pictures sooner or later. I have noticed a number of different takes on the phenomenon over the past few weeks. The class politics of it are a little bit fraught. One could complain that it's a high barrier to entry kind of event. In order to have your own display, you gotta own a house and afford to pay for the art. The inherent tie to home ownership can signify gentrification, especially given what we've been told about high enthusiasm among wealthy young transplants for participating.
But, when you think about it, regular Mardi Gras basically works the same way. The floats and riders represent a certain wealth holding class. Although, we should note, there is wide variation there that has become elaborated over time. Once there were only krewes comprised of white elites. Now there is basically a krewe for every sub-strata, race, or gender of the upper middle class. So, you know, progress. But, as always, the real event is in the party that chaotically evolves from public participation all around it. The parade of blue bloods (or moderately well off so and sos) is just a reason to be there. It's the people dancing and shouting and drinking and just standing around talking to their neighbors that we're all there to see. Obviously we can't have that this year. Not the way we are used to, anyway. Look what happened last time.
We did walk out to see the Phorty Phunny Phellows on Twelfth Night thinking it would be the closest anyone would come to seeing a real live Carnival thing happen this year. A larger (but still sparse and well distanced) crowd than usual showed out probably thinking the same thing. It was a weird vibe. Uneasy, uncomfortable and concerned that maybe this anti-climactic non-event we usually take in as an ironic amusement would be the most celebrating we would do all season.
We have to have something, though. Our spiritual health demands that. And house floats are as good a place as any to start. Maybe there are other kinds of public art and just ways of hanging out that can embellish that central event. Back in the normal universe from which we are currently estranged, Krewe Du Vieux would have been parading this weekend. Instead they are offering a "virutal parade" on their website as well as a series of house float style art installations in various locations across the city. See their website for a map. Hopefully we'll see more events like this. Sooner or later we're going to learn that lots of things besides houses can probably be floats.
The good news, in the meantime, is that it's proving to be a way to keep artists working this year who otherwise wouldn't be.
Devin DeWolf then took the concept a step further and focused specifically on job creation with his website HireAMardiGrasArtist.com. “Caroline Thomas knew that I had organized Feed the Frontline NOLA, which brought 90,000 restaurant meals and 10,000 coffees to local health workers as a moral boost. We hired unemployed local musicians as delivery people,” said DeWolf, who is also the organizer and founder of the Krewe of Red Beans, and the charity project Feed the Second Line.
“Red Beans has a lot of members who care about the community and are very grass roots, so when Caroline Thomas had the idea to crowdfund Mardi Gras worker jobs back, she turned to us,” said DeWolf. HireAMardiGrasArtist.com collects donations of all sizes. “And every time we raise $15,000, we raffle off a house float to someone who donated. We also take commissions from people and businesses who want to hire artists to create $15,000 projects. We’ve raised a quarter of a million dollars in just a month, and are currently employing 45 full-time artists at a minimum of $30-per-hour. We’ve completed 22 float houses since December 5th when we announced the idea.”
What this proof of concept suggests, though, is that we could go bigger. Imagine a COVID stimulus bill that includes a WPA style program for hiring artists and other participants in the so-called cultural economy to keep this sort of work going. Not year-round house floats, per se. Carnival does come to an end, after all. But surely there are other creative ways to employ creative people who haven't been able to do their ordinary work during the pandemic. There are unique talents and resources in New Orleans. We should learn from this unusual Carnival season that they are talents worth investing in.
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