By Veronica Cross

The Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival celebrates its twentieth anniversary October 9-11th, 2026. Organized by the Jazz & Heritage Foundation, this free festival in New Orleans’ Lafayette Square Park merges the artistry of the Blues in live performances and oral histories with the diverse culinary arts of barbecue and features a wide array of visual art and craft vendors. Debuting in 2006 as a creative, economic, and communal outlet for musicians, artists, and the public after Hurricane Katrina, the festival continues to present known and new faces from these creative fields. Since 2016, Gene Meneray and The Ella Project have served as Crafts Coordinator for this fantastic event.

Kia Robinson Hatfield, the Director of Programs, Communications, & Initiatives at the Jazz & Heritage Foundation remarks how rewarding it is to watch returning artists grow their businesses and visibility over the years, adding that more than 20 vendors will participate in the festival’s Arts Market this year. For this year’s Festival, we’re taking a closer look at three of the participating artists.

EMMA FICK

Artist and author Emma Fick initiated her visual art practice by drawing her observations of everyday life of Serbia, where she was stationed on a Fulbright scholarship to teach English. Sharing these “cultural illustrations” on Tumblr, Fick cultivated an audience, inspiring the 2015 publication of her first book, Snippets of Serbia. Upon returning home to Louisiana, Fick began selling her paintings at the Frenchman Art Bazaar while developing a second illustrated book, Snippets of New Orleans. Fick’s work has since expanded with additional paintings, prints, and books, to include designs for the New Orleans Book Festival posters, and decorative and meaningful objects such as earrings and Mezuzahs. Her non-hierarchal throughline envisions design and fine art as both “pieces of the same puzzle”, and aesthetically and philosophically connected to her painting.

In Fick’s aesthetic, everything is infused with a colorful life force; here, tilting houses, buoyant daisies, wiggling maypops, and vibrant Russian alkonosts all occupy equal status like characters on a stage. As “wearable art”, the silhouettes of Fick’s laser-cut earrings retain the idiosyncrasies of her hand where you just might notice a wobble in the linework. The earrings designs often honor Louisiana plant life and offer “everyday beauty ... all being part of the same pursuit as with fine art for your walls”, says Fick. She is a self-represented artist, managing her business independently and choosing where her work is offered. You may have seen Fick’s work at the Louisiana Crafts Guild, Where Y’Art Works or at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, for which she makes instrument-inspired earrings such as trumpets, saxophones, and piano keys. Fick will offer this line at The Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival as well, in addition to her original paintings and prints.

DARRIN BUTLER

Artist Darrin Butler also works in both two and three-dimensional formats and has established his own unique accessories line, Black Picasso Eyewear. Butler’s earlier large-scale aluminum public art sculptures The Jogger and Hi, which are permanently installed along the Kenner Art Walk, show his unique relationship with materials and bold silhouettes that continues in his later works of oil- stained birch plywood.

After years of physical strain from welding aluminum for large sculptures and work, Butler was diagnosed with cubital tunnel syndrome and underwent multiple surgeries. In response, he developed a gentler way of working, painting with oil-based stains on birch plywood where he allows the patterns of the grains to show through, to dynamic effect. He has made paintings, tables, and glasses in this method, allowing the natural wood grains to come through in abstract passages and portraits of artists such as Prince; his vibrant scenes of New Orleans such as painting of a Soul Rebels show titled Let Your Mind Be Free. Butler’s stained paintings have been exhibited in Then and Now at Brand New Orleans Art Gallery via Arts District New Orleans (ADNO) and the Arts Council of New Orleans.

The artist wearing his Black Picasso Eyewear,

The name Black Picasso is bold statement, yet it also tells the story of Butler’s dyslexia, which he credits as a creative way of visualizing and thinking outside the box; he recalls how the lowercase letters d and b in his name would be transposed to P in his mind’s eye. Employing the same process of layering, cutting, and staining plywood he used in his earlier stained wood pieces, the smaller scale of the glasses frames puts less strain on his arms and offers a personal, stylish way of accessing Butler’s art. He uses color-filtered plexiglass for the lenses and as part of the glasses’ construction as well.

For The Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival, Darrin Butler will have a selection of his stained wood paintings and Black Picasso eyewear. He is also open to custom order requests.

MICHAEL CAIN

In Mercury Lab Guitars, Michael Cain’s artistic virtuosity coalesces with his musicianship and resourcefulness in the custom resonator, electric, and cigar box guitars that he builds by hand. Cain transitioned to building guitars from his two demanding roles as a visual artist working in large scale neon, glass, and public sculpture and as the frontman of acclaimed local roots and rock group The Parishioners after a 2014 accident severely injured his hands. The band had just received a grant from the Threadhead Cultural Foundation to record their third album, Between Piety and Desire. You may also know Cain’s public artworks, which were funded through grants by Arts New Orleans as they are still installed throughout the city, including his 2005 Synergy of Sport made of cast glass, metal, and neon installed at the Ted Gormley Stadium. Michael would draw from what he knew about music to develop a brand as a luthier, while relearning to play guitar within the limits of his injuries.

Jonathon “Boogie” Long’s album cover photo and video for Courage in the Chaos features Michael Cain’s custom DCS Electric Guitar

One of Cain’s custom electric guitars, the DCS, is featured in the album cover photo and video for Courage in the Chaos by Jonathon “Boogie” Long, a return customer who will also perform at the festival again this year. Occasionally employing punk’s no rules ethos, the starting point for Cain’s guitars just might be the Hello Kitty lunchbox he adapted into a cigar box guitar to play in his new metal band. Customers can request finishes such as a classic raw aluminum, brushed with translucent color overlays, and variations of rust and distressed looks to conjure age and atmosphere. For this year’s Crescent City Blues and BBQ Festival, Michael Cain plans to bring a selection that speaks to his breadth and strengths featuring electric, resonator, and cigar box guitars along with his decorative floor stands and hooks.

Learn more about these three artists via the hyperlinks and attend The Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival if you can. Remember - it’s free! If you are an artist interested in applying as a vendor for future festivals, Kia Robinson-Hatfield advises that “artists don’t have to create blues or music themed work. What we’re really looking for is original, distinctive, handmade work across a range of artistic disciplines, and suggests you follow and subscribe to the social channels and communications at jazzandheritage.org

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