Confederate Museum and Southern Art

February 13, 2013

The Confederate Museum in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana, opened its doors 1891. It was constructed as a meeting place for veterans and to house and protect their relics.

The donor wished that the building and collection might forever proclaim "how a brave people and their descendants hold the name and fame of their heroes and martyrs with admiration undiminished by disaster or defeat and with love unquenched by time."

It was moving to see many personal artifacts from Southern soldiers and their families, for example, a small set of eating utensils, each transcribed with "for a good boy". A piano which had been hauled to the Confederate trenches because the Union was going to burn down the house kept soldiers entertained. After the Confederate soldiers shot off the cannons, they returned to the piano to play and sing. Also there were many knapsacks, playing cards, tobacco pouches, garments fastidiously arranged within the display cabinets, and Jefferson Davis' slippers.

Outside, the Robert E. Lee statue, dedicated 1884, defiantly faces north.

Photos were not allowed except for one in the front hall.

Next door to the Confederate Museum is the Southern Art Museum. On the top floor were these ornate beaded and feathered Mardi Gras costumes.

Well Suited: The Costumes of Alonzo Wilson for HBO’s Treme

Well Suited  includes costumes designed by Alonzo Wilson for HBO’s award-winning series, Treme. The emphasis is on the exquisitely crafted Mardi Gras Indian suits from the series.

(The Treme District is New Orleans' first suburb, an area traditionally populated by black Creoles.)

The real New Orleans' Black Indian gangs who inspired this exhibit, otherwise known as the Mardi Gras Indians, are a dazzling example of authentic, unsanctioned inner-city artistry.

Indian gangs began appearing in Mardi Gras parades in the 1880s.

Over the years, Black Indian suits have grown more extravagant. Although the Indians generally hail from the poorest, most crime-ridden parts of town, they devote extraordinary amounts of time and money toward the creation of their suits.

It has been raining for three days and this afternoon the clouds started breaking up. Here is a look out to Lake Porchartrain near where we are parked. It rained throughout the parades and it is lovely to anticipate being no longer being damp and wet.

Adjacent to our camp was the Tulane sand volleyball team preparing for a tournament. The temperature was not quite 50 degrees in the morning when I took this photo.