Hope Your Family Doesn't Drive You Crazy in This Merry Season

Even Movie Blog Boy is doing the family thing today. Trudeau has an idea for a fun family project. Since RRBJ ate Christmas dinner yesterday, we'll brunch it today, complete with Noma's jam on our instant waffles.

Community + Centenary College

Students in Centenary College's Art 295: Introduction to Community-Based Arts probably experienced one of the most hands on classes of their academic careers. Instructor Leia Lewis and her class actively engaged the community of Highland from the start of the creation of the The Highland Spirit House Project.

Early in the semester KSCL interviewed Lewis and Dr. Mat Schwarzman about community based arts projects.

The local project drew much of its inspiration from New Orleans artist John Scott. Scott was awarded a MacArthur Genius Award in 1992. He spent his life transforming metal and wood into visual stories about black culture in New Orleans. One of his grandest works is the huge public sculpture Spirit House. It was funded through the Percent for Art Program. For more examples of Scott's work click here.

A celebration of all the hard work done by students and community members was held Sunday at Meadows Museum. It will be interesting to watch the progress of this community and college collaboration.

Picture of the Day

The Night Life
Originally uploaded by MJW's.

RRBJ doesn't care if you say "Merry Christmas" or not. We're just celebrating the fact this is day one of December 2007. We'll let the goof ball talking heads argue amongst themselves while we get distracted by the pretty decorations.

Thank you MJW's for the use of The Night Life. We lub us some downtown Shreveport when it's twinkling in merry-happy-ho-ho lights.

Lila's Cakes and Chocolate

Can't remember when RRBJ first realized Lila's was open for business. Did we walk by, see the owner's picture on Trudeau's blog, or catch Mike Rosebery's black and white photo on flickr.com?

In addition to selling tasty baked goods, Lila's Cakes and Chocolate is also an eatery with a full breakfast and lunch menu. The last time we dined we had the soup and sandwich lunch special (pictured above). Food is good, service is fast and the ambiance is similar to one of those little places you stumble into on a visit to New Orleans.

The shop is named after the tiny daughter of the owners, Sopan and Lisa Tike. Sopan has over 18 years of experience as a trained pastry chef. Lisa is also the director of the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum in Shreveport.

440 Olive Street, Shreveport. 318 676-1407. Open Monday - Saturday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Happy One Year

We started RRBJ in November 2006 with a post containing pictures of red trash in Highland. We celebrate one year of publishing with these photos of red. RRBJ seems to be a blog mainly about life in Highland and downtown with the occasional excursion to other nearby points.

Thank you to Trudeau and Noma for the inspiration to begin blogging. We're excited that blogging has also opened up other creative venues for us. We're tickled red for the assistance in finding our way back to the homemade life.

Picture of the Day

Pray, Children...Pray
Originally uploaded by jawbone54. Thank you to jawbone54 for letting RRBJ use his cool shot. If you've got a photo, poem, sketch or anything artsy-craftsy that illustrates life in SB Land drop it off via RedRiverBlogJam@gmail.com.

Glass Jewelry

Su Stella's a talented Highland artist who will be selling her work at the Highland Jazz and Blues Festival this Saturday. She is also a part of the Shreveport Regional Art Council's Deck the Halls show. Su shares a home and studio with blacksmith Curt Harville.

Trudeau has the latest on the Saturday's doings and memories from last year's festival on his faces blog. Stephanie Netherton's covered this year's festival in today's Shreveport Times in a nice article with the reminder to tote some chairs or blankets so you'll have a place to sit.