Cheery chimes, rumbling oscillators, pinging door bell tines, flapping walls: when the New Orleans Airlift team came to Texas Ave on a 2014 Shreveport Regional Arts Council grant, New Orleans and Shreveport makers and imagineers donned work gloves and joined forces to make musical architecture.
Artists from the two cities created a Shreveport version of the Crescent City’s first Musical Village. Called the Calanthean Canyon, it was forged over a month’s labor in a hidden space adjacent to the Calanthean Temple, 1001 Texas Ave.
Brett Roberts made an elevated shack that integrated an array of tuned plastic horns. Chris Maesdesigned and built a tuneful beer bottle carillon.
Artist-welder Jimmy Cousins constructed a circular staircase and multi-level catwalk system high above the site. A hand-powered clacking clock tower windmill was constructed by John Christopher Martin and Laura Thompson. SRAC’s Josh Porter and Mitch Landry provided steady muscle and problem solving. Several additional structures were Shreveport-New Orleans collaborations. Two of the houses were constructed so that they could be transported to New Orleans when the Shreveport project ended.
Please see photos here.
Today the NO Airlift team is has plans to build a permanent site for their sonic architecture. Led by visionary Delaney Martin, the project’s kickstarter campaign is underway.
Might this be a prompt for the Shreveport art gang? A lot of fulfillment was in evidence during that work. Was there enough stimulation to energize a Shreveport or Bossier person to take leadership in the style of Delaney Martin?
While wishing Airlift success in their endeavor, I must ask Shreveport-Bossier artists whether they would like to pick up the tendrils of the Calanthean Canyon project.