As a joyful harbinger of spring, the streets of New Orleans are typically alive with the roving brass-band delirium of second-line parades on Sunday afternoons. The ongoing Covid pandemic has sidelined parading organizations and left neighborhoods abnormally quiet, but Longue Vue House and Gardens has found a way to keep the tradition alive by hosting the VIP Ladies and Kids Social Aid and Pleasure Club for a first-of-its-kind creative residency.
The club will will honor what would have been their parade date with a more muted family-oriented celebration in the gardens of the historic house museum. The public is invited to a Free Family Sunday on March 7 from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (capacity is limited and advance registration is required). Admission to the grounds is free of charge; house tours are available at a half-price charge of $5.
An exhibit of VIP Ladies hats, accessories, children’s fans, and photographs from past parades will be displayed in the South Colonnade during the celebration and will remain at Longue Vue for visitors to enjoy throughout the month of March. While the parade clearly represents the “pleasure” side of the organization, “social aid” takes many forms throughout the year. The club annually sponsors back-to-school events, health fairs, a Halloween carnival, and adopts homeless families. Members have been featured in the “Hey Mama” music video by Mat Kerney (theme song for the film Mother’s Day), the HBO series Treme, American Horror Story on FX, and Sunday Best on BET.
A Twilight Concert Series will be offered in the Spanish Court of Longue Vue on select dates beginning March 17. Photo courtesy of Longue Vue House and Gardens.
Framed by an allée of stately live oaks and surrounded by gardens designed by noted landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman, Longue Vue is one of the last great American houses to be built during the Country Place Era of the 1890s through the 1930s. Edgar and Edith Stern commissioned the home in 1939. In 1977, three years prior to her death, Edith bequeathed the property as a house museum, leaving nearly all of the original furnishings and decorative arts collection. The Sterns amassed a notable collection of modern art, including works by Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Victor Vasarely, and Barbara Hepworth.
“Edith and Edgar Stern were staunch believers in the importance of creative expression,” said Baty Landis, executive director of Longue Vue. “Our job in continuing their legacy is to think about how different creative voices speak to our values and challenges as a community today. For several years Longue Vue did this through a visual artist-in-residence program. When COVID arrived, we decided to broaden our definition of an artist residency, and to work with individuals and groups across a range of fields and cultural practices, especially practices that take place outdoors.”
Longue Vue welcomed Jakilah Mason, its first gardener-in-residence, in 2020. Mason’s Afro-Garden thrives with plants related to culinary traditions and medicinal knowledge of the African diaspora. Deidre Hall serves as a culinary-artist-in-residence and has reopened Edgar & Edith’s Museum Cafe with a variety of coffee, tea, and sweets. Picnic baskets will soon be offered when a Twilight Concert Series resumes on March 17.
Landis views these residencies and hosting the VIP Ladies as a legacy of the Sterns’ renowned philanthropy and involvement in civil rights and social justice causes. The couple was instrumental in establishing Dillard University and the Flint-Goodridge Teaching Hospital for African Americans and worked on voter-registration reform. Edith was the daughter of Julius Rosenwald, part owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company. His Rosenwald Fund built more than 5,000 “Rosenwald Schools” for rural African Americans in the first half of the 20th century and disbursed grants to “individuals of exceptional promise,” with an emphasis on people of color, including singer Marian Anderson, poets Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou, writers Ralph Ellison and James Weldon Johnson, and psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark, among many others.
“The Sterns believed in the idea of creative impulse,” said Landis. “We want to continue their efforts.”
Longue Vue House and Gardens, located at 7 Bamboo Road, is open Monday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, including the events calendar, click here.
