How Our Trip to New Orleans Changed the Way We See—and Create—Art When we touched down in New Orleans, we weren’t sure what to expect—jazz on the corners, powdered sugar in the air, yes. But the art? It didn’t just live in galleries. It spilled out onto the streets, onto buildings, into alleyways and old houses, into movement, memory, and rhythm.  We set out to explore the galleries, yes—but what we found was a heartbeat. And that heartbeat is now woven into everything we do at Kelly’s Art Shack. The first stop was New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) , tucked inside the lush, almost mythical City Park. We wandered through centuries of work—classic to contemporary—and ended up spending more time than we planned in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden. There’s something about standing under giant oaks, surrounded by iron and bronze, that rearranges your thoughts. That contrast—old trees, new shapes—made us rethink how we layer texture and tone in our own pieces. From there, we dove into the Ogden Museum of Southern Art , which felt like a true conversation with the South. It was unapologetically raw in the best way. Every piece felt like it had lived a life—weathered storms, danced in kitchens, whispered family secrets. We came out of Ogden realizing we wanted to bring more storytelling into our work. Not just pretty colors. Truth. We were especially moved by Studio BE . It’s not your traditional gallery—it’s a massive Bywater warehouse-turned-temple of social consciousness. Brandan "Bmike" Odums’ towering murals and mixed-media installations left us speechless. Art here isn’t a product. It’s a call. A punch. A prayer. This stop cracked something open in us. We left scribbling notes for a new series centered around voice and legacy. The Stella Jones Gallery was like entering a sanctuary. For almost three decades, they’ve been celebrating Black artists in ways that feel personal and deeply intentional. We spoke with one of the gallery assistants who told us, “Here, art is memory.” That stuck. It made us rethink our own curation back home—how we display, how we honor, how we pass stories forward. Jonathan Ferrara Gallery f lipped the script again. One of their installations was an entire room filled with suspended keys—thousands of them. It was haunting and beautiful. And it reminded us that art can be small and massive at once. This idea of repetition and accumulation is now making its way into a new wall piece we’re building for the Shack. Some of our most joyful discoveries happened in quieter corners. The New Orleans African American Museum in Tremé wasn’t about spectacle—it was about soul. About lives lived with dignity, in resistance and joy. We spent an hour just sitting in their garden. It gave us the idea for a new immersive class: painting as reflection, painting as ancestry. We also wandered into Boyd Satellite Gallery on a whim and found ourselves in a conversation with a visiting artist about sound and form—how jazz impacts brushstrokes. The whole exchange is influencing a new sonic art series we’ll be launching in the fall. At Arthur Roger Gallery , the curation was electric—modern, sharp, but still warm. One room held a sculpture that looked like a deconstructed brass band mid-parade. We snapped a dozen photos of it and went straight to the sketchbook when we got back to the hotel. The Historic New Orleans Collection reminded us that preservation is art. It showed us how architecture, maps, and letters can tell visual stories too. We’re now planning an exhibit at Kelly’s that integrates old McKinney photographs and documents into mixed media pieces. Finally, the Newcomb Art Museum reconnected us with something that felt personal—female artists, pottery, craft. It was humble, meticulous, and powerful. We left with a new respect for small formats, for repetition, for letting the hands lead. What’s Next at the Shack? Inspired by these spaces, we’re bringing that New Orleans fire back to Texas. You’ll see it in our next exhibit: “Spirits of the South”, launching this fall. You’ll feel it in our new couples workshops and mixed media classes that dive into heritage, music, and movement. And you’ll hear it in the playlist we’re building—straight from the streets of Frenchmen and Tremé. New Orleans didn’t just inspire us—it challenged us. And from here on out, we’re answering that challenge with color, soul, and story.

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