Journell, Ballard and Trudeau open galleries in Texas Ave shipping containers on Fri, June 20, 5 - 7 pm

"People are doing fun things with 20-foot shipping containers all over the globe," says Brandon Oldenburg, creative director of a series of events in Shreveport Common called UnScene. "We wanted to supply the same kind of canvas for our local artists. I love seeing the diversity in creative vision for these things."

The industrial containers, the sort that are stacked 15 high on globe-girdling container ships, arrived at 837 Texas Ave in time for UnScene Makers fair.

The first residents included artist Su Stella, whose display included a black light rear Voodoo room. Also a pioneer was Emily Daye, whose unified vision melded clouds and blue sky canvas wall paper with a series of student desks - each containing pencils, paper, etc, in the drawers. "This classroom scene came to me in a dream," she said with a convincing smile. Kids and adults participated in her display by making sketches and writing notes in the 20' classroom.

Amanda Rowe, a Natchitoches-based painter and sculptor, created a startling scene of death masks integrated into ominous clouds above a cracked-egg humanoid surrounded by gilded guns and ammo. It was "Humpty in the dumps. Falling off a wall and spilling golden violence," she noted.

This month Nicola Medley Ballard is creating an art lounge; she's using wooden shipping pallets. "It's a pallet patio for our party," she said. Painter Jeormie Journell is calling his Animal Art Trap. He has of late produced detailed and realistic paintings of rats, a rooster and an opossum. Journell will be selling T shirts that cannily evoke the basic rat trap logo. The trap company he has created is called Ratchet City.

Robert Trudeau will be manning a show called Swanky Shreveport. It will be filled with "affordable prints of my pen and ink sketches, matted or framed and ready to go."

The newest container artists' debut date is 5 pm on Fri, June 20. That's the night that UnScene will mount a feast ($35 ticket) called Rich Table in the nearby Municipal Auditorium. Expect the galleries to be open again on Sat, June 28, 5 pm or earlier; that's the day of the Wayne White Mega Puppet Parade in Shreveport Common.

Shreveport regional Arts Council, sponsors of the containers, want the artists to open the steel boxes as often as possible. Artists are encouraged to produce parties and special events of any unexpected sort, since they are part of UnScene, an attempt by Srac to bring fresh, art-fueled life to Texas Ave.