Introducing Jack Budd

Introducing Jack Budd

Jack Budd, American multi disciplinary artist, was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana and graduated from the University of Louisiana’s Visual Arts program with a concentration in Painting and Printmaking. Budd’s achievements include pieces and instillations in the University of Louisiana’s Marais Press Collection and Bottle Art Loft Apartments. Budd has also been published by the SouthWestern Review, a University of Louisiana contemporary periodical, on the cover and as a featured artist. Recent instillations include LOUDHOUSE X ARCHIVES and (un)Common with Basin Arts. With work examining identity, imagination, and language in the context of socio-political, scientific, and religious ideology, Budd...

Introducing Martha Garner

Introducing Martha Garner

Martha Garner is a certified Master Naturalist and collage artist who lives in Lafayette. Her collages represent her love for nature. She has recently created Art Spark project meant to bring about awareness of the fragility of our state’s ecology. It is on display at Cite des Arts. You can find her work on Instagram @marthacutsandglues, on Facebook as Martha Garner, Collage Artist, & on Culturalyst as tiny2022. Who makes up your art circle? Kathy Reed, Milton Arceneaux, Denise Gallagher, many online and Instagram friends, authors I know through my work with Festival of Words How do you expand your...

Introducing Carly Dupré

Introducing Carly Dupré

Carley Dupré is a ceramic artist and aspiring educator whose work serves as a testament to the multifaceted world of artistic exploration. Based in Lafayette, Louisiana, Carley is earning adegree in Visual Arts with a concentration in ceramics from the University of Louisiana atLafayette. She experiments with self-reflection across various media, including drawing,painting, printmaking, metalwork, and ceramics, creating artworks that carry personalsignificance. Each piece embodies a moment of personal growth, a reflection of herexperiences, or a view into her current emotional state. Carley has exhibited her work at theAcadiana Center for the Arts and has been recognized with numerous scholarships...

Introducing Kelly Nelson

Introducing Kelly Nelson

Kelly Nelson, a Louisiana native, is an artist who has a passion for all things related to the arts.She recently relocated back to Louisiana after living and working in Houston, Texas for the lasttwo decades. She grew up on the northside of Lafayette, Louisiana, where her parent’sencouraged creativity, dance, painting, and drawing. She believes being exposed to art from ayoung age has proved to be the conduit for her everlasting desire to create. Kelly earned herdegree from the University of Southwestern Louisiana. Kelly’s art depicts her perspective of culture mostly rooted in southern Louisiana and Texas. Assuch, her creations are...

Introducing Elana Jacobs

Introducing Elana Jacobs

Elana Jacobs is a Choreographer and Pilates Instructor living in New Orleans. Since 2011, she has served as the Artistic Director of performance company CabinFever. In addition to performances in traditional venues, CabinFever creates and produces site-specific works performed inside people’s homes and historical spaces inspired by memory and architecture. With CabinFever, Elana has also created original performances in institutions, including The Marigny Opera House (New Orleans), On The Boards and Town Hall (Seattle), and Links Hall, Soho House and Hyde Park Arts Center (Chicago). Most notably, she was commissioned to create a performance throughout exhibit spaces at the Museum...

Introducing Kennedy Walker

Introducing Kennedy Walker

Kennedy Walker is a movement artist from Baton Rouge, LA. She received her BA in Dance as well as a BS in Neuroscience in 2022 from Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. Following graduation where she was heavily involved with Tulane’s Dance Department as well as local dance communities in New Orleans, Kennedy moved to London, England to earn her Master of Science in Dance Science at Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance. Kennedy’s artistry flourished here as she was able to dive into incredible collaborative experiences while also learning about the physiological backbone of dance as an activity...

Introducing Alex McBride

Introducing Alex McBride

Alex McBride is originally from Lafayette, Louisiana. He received his BFA in Dance from The University of Arizona in Tucson and his MFA in Dance from Hollins University. Alex has danced and trained with San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, 10 Hairy Legs (NYC), The Limón Dance Company (NYC), and Basin Dance Collective (Lafayette). Alex is a highly sought-after performer and teacher. He has studied, performed, and taught across North America, Central America, and Europe. Most recently, he was nominated for a BESSIE award for his role in Adam Weinert’s reconstruction, MONUMENTS: Echoes in the Dance Archives, which was staged at...

Introducing Megan Constantin

Introducing Megan Constantin

Meet Megan Brown Constantin, a regional roots singer/musician and cultural activist living in Lafayette, LA, originally from Tepetate, a small community between Eunice and Basile.  Megan grew up to the sound of Cajun music at her grandparent’s Cajun restaurant. Singing all her life, she took to Cajun music and with it the French language at the age of 18.  In 2010, Megan took Lafayette by storm by completely stealing the show during her first performance at both Festivals Acadiens et Creoles and The Blackpot Festival with a haunting vocal delivery that seemed (as Chas Justus from The Revelers recalled) “like Zeus hurling musical...

Introducing Johanna Divine

Introducing Johanna Divine

Based in Lafayette, musician-songwriter Johanna Divine has written three original albums and co-wrote the celebrated musical Dream of the Marionettes, selected for the 2010 NYC International Fringe Festival. She has shared the stage with Louisiana greats David Egan, Sonny Landreth and Tommy McClain and had the privilege of working with international stars Joan Baez, Luther Dickinson and 12-time Grammy Award winning producer Jay Newland. In addition to her work as an artist, Johanna is general manager of The Current, Lafayette’s only nonprofit news organization, and serves as a board member for Basin Arts. She is a national W.K. Kellogg Food and...

Introducing Paula Calderon

Introducing Paula Calderon

Visionary and creative artist born in Colombia, South America. Her bachelor’s degree in industrial design and over 20 years of experience as a professional ballet dancer have given her the tools to become an entrepreneur in costume and stage design and production, with notable recognition in the performing arts industry in her hometown Medellin. Her sensitivity to illustration and dance at a young age shaped her career. Ballet became such a powerful passion that she managed to find a perfect synergy between design and dance, serving as artistic director and creative manager at one of the most recognized dance studios...