Each year, the French Quarter Festival provides free entertainment to the city, with more than 150 musical performances on sixteen stages throughout the French Quarter over three days, bringing tourists and locals together. The FQF will have more than 70 food and beverage booths this year, located in Jackson Square, Woldenberg Riverfront Park and the U.S. Mint.
As a non-profit organization, French Quarter Festival relies heavily upon the sales of merchandise to help keep our events free and open to the public. Therefore, it is important to select a painting that portrays the fun, festive atmosphere of French Quarter Fest. This year's piece is no exception.
The French Quarter Festival staff approached local Jackson Square artisan, Søren Vandegaard, a native New Orleanian, who 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. (Buy It Here!)
FQF visitors may use cash to purchase items at any festival food booth. For those who wish to use credit cards, food tickets may be purchased in increments of one dollar at any official FQF Information Booth. Ladies and gentlemen, start your tummies! Here are the 2009 French Quarter Festival vendors. Be warned, reading this list will leave you starving!