New Orleans Jazz Fest must-see crafts, first weekend
Doug MacCash, NOLA.com
Step right up for Molly McGuire's circus banners.
Molly McGuire's Crescent City-centric circus banners will appeal most to edgier art lovers — you know who you are. McGuire, whose legal name (featured on Jazz Fest information) is Jacqueline Gardner, is both an artist and bass player. She said that the first inspiration for her imaginary midway banners was the real circus that used to encamp near her childhood home in Trenton, Ontario. She said the traveling show brought a "magical vibe to something that ordinarily is a parking lot."
Fast forward a few years and McGuire found herself on the road, touring with alternative bands from Los Angeles and New Orleans. On one especially low-budget cross-country trip from the west coast to New Orleans, McGuire created fantasy circus posters that she sold along the way for gas money. It was one of those mother-of-invention moments, whereby a future artistic style was born.
What: Surrealistic circus banners with Crescent City themes.
In the first years after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, McGuire's steady day job was painting houses. The house-painting bonanza has petered out, but it left the resourceful McGuire with plenty of spattered canvas drop cloths on which to paint banners. Her titles, such as "The Hermit Crab Girl," "The Real Voodoo Doll," "The Devil Girl of the Bayou" and "Suicidal Clowns" indicate that dark humor plays a shining role in her works. New Orleans is, of course, a circus of sorts, and McGuire incorporates the Crescent City milieu into her comic paintings.
"They're based on my personal experience," she said. "Since I've gotten on this New Orleans kick, the subject material is really limitless."