The Dadaist Marcel Duchamp once said, “Anything can be art.” Perhaps he was defending his ready-made entitled Urinoire an installation piece that was simply a urinal mounted on a gallery wall, or maybe he was asking the world to embrace art as an everyday occurrence, saying that art can be as much about pouring clean, white milk into an empty cereal bowl as it is about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Maybe he was asking the world to loosen up and let the art of the everyday enter into its consciousness. I like to think that. And I like to envision a world where the art of the everyday collides with our senses, where we pick it up and run with it, where paint drips off our tongues, and where our bodies crackle with music. In that world, everyone’s an artist, and our daily machinations are pieces of the great masterpiece.

Too idealistic? No one ever said I was anything other, but the fact of the matter is that New Orleans can be, and sometimes is, just filled to the brim and spilling over with art. It’s there on the weekends where suddenly a parade comes barreling down the street, or where everyone seems to be dancing to something. It’s the energy that goes along with Jazz Fest, the feeling that comes when the weather eases out of its blister and becomes bearable again. It’s Michalopoulos’ Mardi Gras party or a Thursday at the Ogden. It doesn’t need a grant or a gallery to happen, it just opens up and does its thing and we stand back and watch or jump right in. That’s art.

One of the great things about Nolaphile is that it’s a lot like Marcel Duchamp in that it encourages the community to participate in the forum of ideas, to take part in the making of art right here, right now. Each week, I write an article about the arts community, but that’s not all the site can hold. Not by a long shot! We’ve got room for so much more, and that’s where you come in. Are you secretly tinkering with an amazing project you’re just dying to share? Let us know. Do you have something to say about the way the arts are run in NOLA? Sound off! Make a comment, write an article, and send in some photos. We want to know your take on what’s art and what’s not in our fair city.

Come on, don’t be lazy! That’s one thing art never is. As the critic John Ruskin said of that side of things, “To draw like Michelangelo is no mystery. Simply draw every day, draw through the night, draw when everyone else is taking a break from drawing.” What will you draw for Nolaphile?

Send your submissions and thoughts to hello@nolaphile.com and become part of the masterpiece.

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