Material Life Shop in New Orleans
A while ago I read this article on Apartment Therapy: A Collector's Maximalist New Orleans Home
Do you see her home????????? It is sooooooooo gorgeous! I noticed in the article that she has a shop in New Orleans called Material Life Shop so I went stalked her Instagram feed: Material_Life_Shop
Everytime since, whenever I was in the city, it was either on a day she wasn't open or she'd already closed for the day. Today was my lucky day!!!!!!!
The owner, Carla Williams, had the most magnificent energy! Her shop / gallery is filled with amazing artefacts, art, books, photography, pottery, etc. from Black life. And when I say the pieces she's curated are amazing?????? THEY ARE AMAZING!!!!!!! I walked up and down because I didn't want to miss a thing. AND...if you ask her about a piece? SHE TELLS YOU THE MOST FASCINATING STORIES!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just shares with you things you knew nothing about and now? You want to know everything about!
Take these two pieces I brought home with me:
They were both created by The Black Potter, Mr. Jim McDowell. The first one is an ugly face jug and the second one is a whiskey mug. LOL!
The jugs were used to mark the graves of slaves and the ugly face was so that it scared away the devil. Interesting right? I just thought they were cool. I'm totally looking forward to visiting this store often so that I can integrate some meaningful art into our home.
Next time you're in New Orleans, you should go check it out. Tell her I sent you so I can stay on her good side. Yall know I have an inquisitive nature so I want to ask her a whole lot of questions whenever I'm there. LOL!
Oh...and use the address on her Instagram page. If you just ask Mr. Google...he doesn't have the new address updated yet. Yeah...we went to the old location first but we were determined to find it today!
Check this out: http://www.pbs.org/video/history-detectives-face-jug/