by Jim Calder
But the Roths say they never questioned returning to New Orleans because they own two businesses there and property and have a love affair with the city.
“Certainly many have decided not to come back to New Orleans after the hurricanes last year,” she says. Roth claims that the Jewish community has shrunk from close to 10,000 to approximately 6,000, which directly affects their business, which specializes in Judaica.
Approaching the height of this year’s hurricane season Roth claimed she had no fears, that she lives in the present and that she will deal with her situation as it changes. A philosophy that seems only possible to adopt after going through a year like the one she just experienced. Not only having to rebuild, but also having to adjust to a market and consumer base that isn’t anything like it was a year ago.
“I will never fully be recovered from this much damage, either physically or emotionally. The French Quarter is operating fairly normally, but there aren’t nearly enough tourists to keep things humming,” she says.
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| “The tourist trade has all but vanished,” says Kent Follette, potter and owner of Follette Pottery Store in northern Louisiana. |
About 200 miles up the Bayou from New Orleans in the wooded hills of north Louisiana, potter Kent Follette has been working in his studio at that location for the past 27 years.
“We were somewhat lucky. We were far enough north of the coast that we weren’t touched by the storms, the storms passed on either side of us,” he says. However, Follette and his family felt another consequence of the Hurricanes. Their home was quickly filled with dozens of misplaced family members. He explains how the town of Ruston, like so many others north of the coast, was filled with evacuees. They filled empty dorms at the University, as well as churches and every civic building in their town.
“People were living in their cars in the Wal-Mart parking lot. My family stayed for eight weeks and left to return home, they are still staying in 36-foot long trailers in the front yard of family members,” he says.
Follette reminds us all that people stopped wherever they could, the hotels where all booked and gas was running out everywhere. “Katrina was the size of the entire Gulf of Mexico. When people saw where it was headed they actually ran for their lives. It took my family 16 hours to make a four-hour drive!,” he says.
He spent the first month coordinating the feeding of the local evacuees, letting his pottery business stay on the backburner as long as possible. Follette has eight apprentices, all of whom had the same family troubles to worry about at their own homes. As a result, pottery production was not always the first priority.
Follette’s own family members lost 10 homes in southern Louisiana.
“When the news hit our phone started ringing with calls from the wonderful galleries that have carried our work for the last 25 years,” he says. He told them that “we had dry feet” but that they might be a bit late filling orders.
It wasn’t long after this that they started receiving money in the mail from just about everyone they did business with.
“A lot of the checks were for me to help feed all the refugees in town and there were plenty to just help whoever needed it most,” he says. “I quit counting checks at $7,000.”
His wife Libby and son Andy operate Follette Pottery Store (www.follettepottery.com) on I-20. The gallery seemed to be full of people but people were not in a buying mood. According to Follette, the city of Ruston is back to normal, but the southern part of the state is still in turmoil. “The locals are not resettled by any means. The tourist trade has all but vanished,” he says.
The only reason he feels they were able to literally weather these massive storms is because of the nationwide sales base they had previously established. Local artists in contrast are really hurting, still to this day.
“Once we got through the first few weeks things just got to the point that you went out to the studio to immerse yourself in your work. A lot of artists vented by doing hurricane art,” he says.
“Things in south Louisiana are far worse than just storm damage. Families have been put to the test in a million ways; and if you think the government is here to help, you are mistaken.” He also voiced concerns echoed across the area that the insurance companies are taking advantage of the situation.
However, the Louisiana Craftsmen Guild has been working vigorously helping many artists who had studio and home damages and losses. “I feel artists being the entrepreneurs that we all tend to be are doing whatever it takes to keep our creative identity,” he says. “There are times that something like this can allow us all to think out of the box when it comes to marketing our work.”
According to Follette and others it will take years before Louisiana’s commerce and tourism industry will be running at “full tilt.” He believes that the arts in his state have deep roots but were never the center of tourism promotion before. He hopes that will change post-Katrina as the state seeks to regain its footing. “The Louisiana Craftsmen Guild has recently started to be a major factor in promotion of crafts in the state. I can’t help but believe they will be stronger after the bonding that the hurricane has brought,” Follette says.
Jim Calder is the associate editor of The Crafts Report.