City ordinance had said the works must be 'accomplished essentially by hand'
A consent order between the city of New Orleans and three Jackson Square artists will allow them to sell reproductions of their work at the famous site. The decree caps a dispute that has been simmering since 2005 over a New Orleans law that said artists on that coveted French Quarter turf should display and sell only work that has "been accomplished essentially by hand" and without the use of "any mechanical or duplicative process."
View full sizeArtist Jim Maurer of Mobile, Ala., hangs a just-completed painting of Marilyn Monroe on the fence outside Jackson Square in June 2009. Under the ordinance, city officials could yank violators' permits to sell artwork for a year.
The consent order signed Dec. 20 by attorneys for the city and the three local artists -- Holly Sarré, Barbara Yochum and Jack Wittenbrink -- states the city is "permanently enjoined from impairing these plaintiffs' right to display and sell reproductions of their original art."
While the order relates only to these three individuals, Sarré's attorney Brian Bégué contends that the floodgates are now open.
"Once the word gets out -- and it's a small artists community so word spreads quick -- new suits are going to be filed seeking the same relief," Bégué speculated Thursday afternoon.
The city also is required to pay the three artists' attorneys fees, totaling $127,500 under the order.
Bégué also had represented artist Marc Trebert, who won a suit against the city in 2005 that contended Trebert's First Amendment rights had been violated by the city's attempt to stop Trebert from selling items it said weren't handmade: digital photographs that he colored with pastels.
A few months later in 2005, Sarré -- a contemporary folk artist perhaps best known for the hand-painted toilet seats she used to display along the Jackson Square fence -- sued the city, similarly saying the ban on prints violated her rights of free speech under the First Amendment and of "basic economic liberty" under the 14th Amendment.
Sarré, who had caused a stir among some in the Jackson Square artists' colony after she began selling $35 prints of her more expensive acrylic-on-canvas New Orleans renderings, essentially argued that artists should be allowed to sell less expensive multiples to help make ends meet. Since Hurricane Katrina, she has produced acrylic series such as the "Flood Series" and "After da Spill."
Yochum, who worked on the square for about 40 years, stopped in 2009 when she could no longer support herself there without selling reproductions. Instead, she opened 906 Dream Studio on Royal Street.
"With this economy, you just can't make money with originals," Yochum said. "I was selling a painting once or twice a month, which wouldn't pay my rent."
She says she was hoping that the city would change the ordinance for everyone but that the current order "is better than nothing."
"Prints are important, as three quarters of the population can't afford an original unless it's a $5 fleur de lis," she added. "Jackson Square, it's all souvenirs now."
The city has contended that, without the ordinance, artists could sell lower-priced prints that would inevitably take the lion's share of the business, driving out artists producing original works and diluting the square's attractiveness to tourists.
In 2006, U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle suggested the city should adopt a "more narrowly tailored ordinance" than a total ban on prints, but the City Council in 2007 refused to go along with his idea, rejecting, for example, a proposal to allow every Jackson Square artist to sell reproductions, provided they did not generate more than 20 percent of the artist's sales.
Then, in 2009, Lemelle ruled in favor of the city, saying he had become "convinced that allowing print sales would subvert the creative, improvisatory interplay between working artists and audiences that is inherent in the Jackson Square experience."
But in March, a U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling gave the artists new life. The New Orleans-based appeals court determined that Lemelle had erred in 2009, as the city had failed to prove it had a good reason to forbid the sale of prints.
The appeals judges stated that the city "merely offered affidavits of rival artists, who are likely to be biased against their competitors" and had failed "to prove a nexus between the sale of prints at Jackson Square and harm to the character of that area."
While there are alternative forums for reproductions, such as the Dutch Market Co-op and the flea market in the French Market, plus local galleries and websites, the artists have argued that they were not adequate substitutes for spaces along the Jackson Square's al fresco gallery strolled by millions of tourists a year.
Yochum is known in part for creating fantasy scenes populated by mermaids and pixies.
Wittenbrink, who has recently used Katrina-ravaged scrap metal to create New Orleans-inspired images, has said he joined the suit in part because he wants to reach "gas station attendants from Lafayette" and other visitors who can't afford original works of art and won't venture into galleries. He has said the square's artists should be able to offer something for everyone.