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\nStreet people and artists are two archetypes that society imbues with magic, probably because, like The Bead Lady, street people and artists use mystique as a defense against \u201cpetty meanness\u201d….Both are living outside of societal norms. Both struggle to eke out a living. Artwork is often sold like a \u201clucky bead\u201d, with promises of return on investment and the potential for fame and celebrity.<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n
This essay appeared in\u00a0Kolaj\u00a0#23. To see more,\u00a0SUBSCRIBE<\/a>\u00a0to Kolaj Magazine or\u00a0Get a Copy of the Issue<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
Lucky Beads<\/h2>\n
by Ric Kasini Kadour<\/p>\n
New Orleans is full of characters, past and present, and when you are drinking at a bar, the city\u2019s denizens trade stories about them like marbles on the playground. The Bead Lady is one of them. The old woman walked the streets of the French Quarter. Strings of Mardi Gras beads hung from her neck. Sometimes she wore a parachute and hardhat, other times she appeared dressed in layers. \u201cThe first couple of times I saw her I thought she was a witch,\u201d recalls my friend TJ. Her mystique inspired others to create mythologies about her. Some say she was a Swedish bride brought to the city by a now deceased husband. One guy who claimed she yelled at him, also claimed she cursed a friend of his who lost his leg the following day, and referred to her as either a \u201cCrazy Israeli burnout Berkeley grad\u201d or a \u201cRussian Princess jilted by her French paramour.\u201d Another source claimed, \u201cShe was said to be the ghost of a concubine of a French soldier.\u201d I think you get the idea. If The Bead Lady caught your eye, or you caught hers, she would approach you with stories and conversation and eventually, her request, \u201cDo you want to buy a lucky bead?\u201d<\/p>\n
TJ recalls, \u201cWhen I first moved here about 37 years ago, there were not as many homeless people on the streets and she stood out in the crowd in the Central Business District. A couple of times, I saw her in the crowd and when I looked again she had vanished. It was kind of weird.\u201d TJ\u2019s husband purchased a lucky bead from her once. \u201cIt didn\u2019t work, he met me.\u201d Artist Mandie Lucas recalls, \u201cCurses and dirt were her weapons against anyone who tried to get close. They worked equally well against petty meanness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Street people and artists are two archetypes that society imbues with magic, probably because, like The Bead Lady, street people and artists use mystique as a defense against \u201cpetty meanness\u201d. And while I don\u2019t mean to minimize the cruelty of mental illness and homelessness, I do think artists and street people have a lot in common with each other. Both are living outside of societal norms. Both struggle to eke out a living. Artwork is often sold like a \u201clucky bead\u201d, with promises of return on investment and the potential for fame and celebrity.<\/p>\n
In reality, The Bead Lady\u2019s story was familiar and tragic. Her name was Leah Shpock-Luzovsky and she was from Israel and had been missing for forty years. Rabbi Mendel Rivkin of Chabad-Lubavitch of Louisiana tells her story, \u201cLeah served in the IDF during the mid to late 1950s. Upon completing her army service she was awarded a full academic scholarship to Berkeley. Sometime during or after her four year stint at Berkeley, Leah experienced a severe mental breakdown. One can only speculate that the rampant hard core drug use in that era contributed to her situation. Somehow she wound up in New Orleans and lost all contact with her family in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
And in reality, the life of the artist is more mundane than not. We wake up. We eat breakfast. We work in the studio. We take lunch. And sometimes when we are lucky, we make something magical, something that speaks to someone else. It says, \u201cDo you want to buy a lucky bead?\u201d And the person it speaks to, says yes.<\/p>\n
In telling you this, I am not suggesting that the art world is full of lucky beads. Rather, my hope is that when you meet artists, that you think of them as real people with lives and stories and struggles of their own. And my hope is that you will think of your own. We remember people like The Bead Lady, not simply because of their oddity and eccentricity, not because of their ability to throw curses and dirt, but because she brought joy to people. She entertained and made people smile. She noticed you in a crowd and hoped you noticed her. She made conversation. And when we are alone in our world, a little connection to another soul is a lucky bead.<\/p>\n
This essay appeared in\u00a0Kolaj\u00a0#23. To see more,\u00a0SUBSCRIBE<\/a>\u00a0to Kolaj Magazine or\u00a0Get a Copy of the Issue<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
Image:<\/strong>
\nLucky Beads<\/em>
\nby Ric Kasini Kadour
\n30″x24″
\ncollage, archival print
\n2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Street people and artists are two archetypes that society imbues with magic, probably because, like The Bead Lady, street people and artists use mystique as a defense against \u201cpetty meanness\u201d….Both are living outside of societal norms. Both struggle to eke out a living. Artwork is often sold like a \u201clucky bead\u201d, with promises of return […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rickasinikadour.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bead-Work-vert.jpg?fit=700%2C875","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p30q3c-dX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rickasinikadour.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rickasinikadour.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rickasinikadour.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rickasinikadour.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rickasinikadour.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rickasinikadour.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rickasinikadour.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rickasinikadour.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rickasinikadour.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rickasinikadour.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}