For this year's poster, the French Quarter Festival staff approached local Jackson Square artisan, Soren Vandegaard.
A native New Orleanian, Vandegaard has shown artwork around the United States as well as internationally. He
is among the new class of up-and-comers within the artist community.
For this year's festival poster, Vandegaard created a festive assortment of all things French Quarter. Joan of Arc,
"The Maid of Orleans" leads a parade of revelers, which includes a collection of memorable French Quarter figures
including the late Ruthie "The Duck Lady", a bullish sanitation worker, and an infamous hotdog vendor, as they second-line
past the peaks of the St. Louis Cathedral and the paddle wheel of the Steamboat Natchez. The original is a collage of
photo-derived realism and hyper-color expressionism - in a mixed-media courtbouillion of recycled paper, duct tape, colored tissue,
acrylic paint, markers, crayons, and cardboard, much of which is salvaged from French Quarter debris. Tissue paper functions as
a type of stain-glass filter, while the tape is used to provide depth, resulting in a multi-layered window through which viewers
gain insight into the streets of New Orleans.
