Baltimore Bred, New Orleans Alive

Oretha Castle Haley Blvd is a rapidly growing area of diverse businesses yet it has somehow defied the rampant gentrification of New Orleans. Lot 1701 is located on the boulevard. Event promoter Abstract NOLA uses the lot to showcase the art and creativity of local vendors. On a cold, windy night - this is where I met artist Ashley Moore. She was immediately noticed. Her face paint looked like an initiation into the skull and bones gang and the skirt... The skirt was black and shear which boldly showed the skin tone of her phat ass. Compared to her, everyone else looked conservative. Even in the free spirited culture of New Orleans, Ashley looked different.

At Abstract NOLA, Ashley was casually brush stroking a big bulbous ass on canvas. Her live painting skills were artistic in itself. The content that night was debatable. Her smile was engaging.

Urban504: New Orleans seems to be a catalyst to a joyful Ashley with a booming voice. Were you silent in your native city of Baltimore?

Ashley: I really didn't know myself until I left my city. Being in Baltimore, I wasn't an artist really. I just started painting maybe a year and a half ago. I went to a spiritual advisor and she told me to start painting. In Baltimore, it [art] is really not about authenticity. It's about what the crowd is doing. I never questioned it because everyone was existing this way.

Coming to New Orleans and seeing people being their authentic self opened me up to this culture and accepting the beautiful parts of myself and the harder parts of myself to know who I really am. You really don't know how multidimensional you are until you see the struggles you've gotten through. I paint for hours now. I came alive in this city. Meeting people like you and going to events... We don't have that in Baltimore. Everything there is a who's who.


Urban504: What was some of the beauty of Baltimore that reflects in your art?

Ashley: I feel if you can make it in Baltimore, you can make it anywhere because it's not an easy city. Baltimore girls are sassy and brash. We are bold and we are doing the most even if we are just going up the street. Baltimore helped me feel confident walking into a room and knowing how to work it. There's a hustle to Baltimore. Everyone is selling something and you have to be quick on your feet. I was in corporate. Corporate is my entire background. Baltimore was a different kind of Ashley than the Ashley now. I was a Project Analyst dealing with data and spreadsheets. I'm an artist now. That's two different types of personalities. I painted in Baltimore for about 6 months - mostly on weekends. I did abstract pieces. My paintings were liquids with lots of color. I wasn't bold enough to paint people's bodies yet.

Urban504: Explain your quick skills advancement as a painter.

Ashley: I did a lot of interpersonal work. I've done a lot of work on myself. Since I've been in New Orleans I've been working on me. When you're walking down the street and someone looks at you - you feel uncomfortable. Why is that? I wanted to get in my dark little corners and explore them. In exploring them, it gave me more confidence in my art. I'm self taught but what does that mean? Does it mean you're just casually doing this on the weekends? 80% of my life is painting. I probably spend at least 10 hours a day painting or studying art techniques or going to art stores and asking people about painting. This has all made a difference in my work. You gotta get out of your box to learn.

Ashley talked about a technique she learned called underpainting. She used the technique in the above painting of the female form. "Underpainting is a first layer of paint applied to a canvas and it functions as a base for other layers of paint. It can invigorate areas of a painting that are mundane or uniform (Jerry's Artarama)." In Ashley's female form painting, the brush strokes of the underpainting gives the form skin.

Urban504: What instigated your move to New Orleans? What were your feelings then?

Ashley: I came to New Orleans for the first time in my life in March 2017. Me and my boyfriend came the last day of  Mardi Gras. We got to the city at 11pm. We just hit the streets but I was actually suppose to be working from home while I was here. I was working during the day and seeing the city at night. I just fell in love with New Orleans. Literally when I got off the plane and went to the French Quarter, I was like... I never want to go back. The oldness of New Orleans grabbed me. I felt at home. I said to myself, I'm home. The day we were flying back to Baltimore, we stopped at the Voodoo Museum. I was standing in front of Marie Laveau alter and I kept saying, 'I want to be free.' I got back to Baltimore and got terminated. It was fine. I got unemployment checks. Everything worked how it needed to work for me to move here. The weird thing was I felt the end in Baltimore. No job. No art scene. We packed our place in a truck and drove here with no place to live.

Ashley moved into a shotgun double in the Treme. She's around the corner from Kermit Ruffin's Mother-in-Law Lounge.

Urban504: What's your plan in New Orleans?

Ashley: Immediate plan is to understand and navigate the art scene here. I want to do collaborations with other artists. That's a great opportunity to grow as an artist and get new ideas. I want to do murals. Eventually I want a non profit to undo the gentrification in Treme. All of the underpass (interstate built over North Claiborne Ave) doesn't have to be so sad and gloomy. All of it doesn't have to be just parking. Put a basketball park and some greenery under there. Anything.

Urban504: What's a good story about your body art?

Ashley: I don't really have a good story. My boyfriend has a lot of body art. I always told myself that's not feminine  I boxed it up. Put a label on it. My Dad is very conservative. I am the first tattooed person in my family - mom and Dad sides. Getting to know my boyfriend made me want tattoos. Not to appease him but to become more in my own. My tattoos became warrior paint. The fact that I could sit for 3 hours while a needle was in my body was a testament to my mental and physical strength. Tattooed people aren't a strange subculture. Many I've met are actually conservative. Every tattoo I have I imagined the illustration then told the artist to collapse it together to make it work.

Ashley has always been creative. As a child, her relatives called her Doodle. She chose to put her creativity in a dark corner to pursue the American Dream. That dream has always put a skewed perception of what it means to be financially successful. With knowing herself, bringing her creativity to the light and enjoying the fruits of freedom, Ashley now has creative passion and the best insight on abundance and why it should be attained.  When I swayed lightly on my worth, she immediately put strength to my passivity.

Ashley: Why take the abundance away from yourself? Why can't you blow up? Being in a creative space, it's harder to equate hours worked to dollars earned. I know my art is worth this amount. I will sell $50,000 to $60,000 pieces. I'm not gonna hesitate to tell someone this is a million dollar piece. I deserve it. I deserve to live the most abundant life, yet I understand the joy in sharing. Visual artists with original work are the only artists who do not receive future royalties. I am accepting greatness because it is what God brought me here to do. I'm living my ancestors' dreams. I'm gonna live boldly for them.

Obviously, Ashley is different.
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