This Thursday! "Home of the Happy" in New Orleans
A reading and discussion at Sibyl Gallery
Happy Monday everyone!
It’s been two months now since Home of the Happy launched into the world, and it’s been an absolute fever dream.
Someday soon, I’ll find the words to describe/document what these weeks have been like. But for now, I just wanted to say how much all of the support has meant, especially from those of you from Louisiana. And I want to invite you to a really special event taking place this week in New Orleans.
I’ll be doing a reading and discussion on Home of the Happy at the wonderful Sibyl Gallery at 8630 Zimpel St., standing among the dreamscapes of the remarkable Sadie Sheldon.
Here is a little about what you can expect to find in Sheldon’s artworks in the exhibition on display, titled briefly:
Sheldon paints each subject in acrylic, then cuts and collages the pieces sewing them together with discarded materials. The portraits read as dreamscapes, the results of Meridian readings made material. Colored lines and dots might seem abstractly familiar because they are. Process color patches, a system of standardized codes designed to ensure consistency for mass color printing of commercial packaged goods, nod to Sheldon’s habit of sewing and collaging disposable packaging into her works. Bringing this visible/invisible commercial symbology to the forefront of our field of vision, she asks us to question what other hidden structures might guide and govern visual culture? Everything we see, we see filtered through the subconscious filter of our experiences. We see these symbols everywhere without actually seeing them. Though generally standardized, in Sheldon’s painting each symbol becomes entirely unique and unreproducible.
I’m honored to share my art alongside hers, and hope that many of you will join me! More details, and the link to RSVP, below:
Join us Thursday, June 12 at 6PM for a special literary event at Sibyl Gallery featuring Louisiana-based author Jordan LaHaye Fontenot reading from her USA Today National Best-Selling debut publication, Home of the Happy: A Murder on the Cajun Prairie. Managing Editor of 64 Parishes, Alexandra Kennon Shahin will then moderate a discussion and Q&A on the book and Jordan’s writing process.
In this riveting blend of true crime and memoir, Jordan LaHaye Fontenot investigates the kidnapping and murder of her great-grandfather in 1980s Louisiana. Set against the backdrop of one of America’s most mystical and overlooked landscapes, Home of the Happy traces not just the crime itself, but the reverberations on the author’s family and community throughout the decades.
"A vivid, unflinching, and suspenseful true-crime story from a soulful new voice."
“In an impressive feat of both memoir and original reporting, Jordan LaHaye Fontenot has cast a reporter’s gaze on her own family’s buried secrets.”
— Walter Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author and journalist
Blue Cypress Books will be onsite with signed copies of Home of the Happy for sale.
Author photo by Olivia Luz Perillo
ABOUT SIBYL
Founded by Katherine Lauricella Ainsley in 2022, Sibyl Gallery is a contemporary art space in New Orleans dedicated to promoting emerging artists and art practices. Collaborating with artists, patrons, and institutions alike, the gallery aims to continue to diversify and strengthen the New Orleans art community and connect it with the broader international art world.