ABOUT YOUR HOST

Jean-Marcel St. Jacques is a self-taught artist and 12th-generation Lousiana Afro-Creole. His family fled Louisiana in 1970 to escape racial oppression. He returned 16 years ago to reconnect with the land of his ancestors. He makes art with wood salvaged from his Katrina-damaged home in the Treme neighborhood, and masks as a Medicine Man in the Black Masking Indian tradition of New Orleans. His art is in the permanent collections of the American Folk Art Museum, The Alexandria  Museum of Art, and in the homes of art-lovers worldwide.