((PKG)) ARTREPRENEUR
((TRT: 07:50))
((Topic Banner: Artrepreneur))
((Reporter/Camera/Drone: Aaron Fedor))
((Producer: Kathleen McLaughlin))
((Editor: Kyle Dubiel))
((Additional Drone: L. Warren Thompson))
((Map: New Orleans, Louisiana))
((Main character: 1 male))
((Sub characters: 1 female; 2 male))
((NATS))
((Thomas Mann
Artrepreneur))
What is an artrepreneur?
Well, an artrepreneur is basically the extrapolation of an artist into entrepreneurship. And it's my particular point of view that artists are, by their very nature, entrepreneurs.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Thomas Mann
Artrepreneur))
Hi, my name is Thomas Mann. And I am a professional artist celebrating my 52nd year as a self-employed entrepreneurial artist. And I live and work here in New Orleans and I love what I do.
My artistic career really began as a child. My fabulous mom, Charlotte, recognized that I had some sort of talent because I was drawing all the time. And she enrolled me in Saturday art classes at the Baum School of Art in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where I had my first introduction to painting. When I discovered jewelry making in high school in 1963 from a student teacher in one of my high school art classes, I quickly developed an interest in making jewelry because I discovered the connection between jewelry, money and girls.
((NATS))
((Thomas Mann
Artrepreneur))
I would say that the principle inspiration I've had throughout my career that has contributed to the design vocabulary that I am known for, which is called Techno-Romantic jewelry objects. Basically our whole world, primitive culture, current cultures, iconography, history, all of those things combined into the development and the extrapolation of a personal design style. That's always in the background feeding what I do.
((NATS))
((Thomas Mann
Artrepreneur))
Yeah, we're happy to be on this particular corner of Tchoup [itoulas] and Magazine [streets] because a lot of people like you are going, “What's in there? What's in there? What's going on in there?” Yeah. Yeah. Good. So, thanks so much.
((NATS))
((Randy Fertel
Author, Philanthropist))
His role in the craft's movement is huge. The interesting thing about Tom, one of the principle threads in improvisation since antiquity, is that it takes valueless things and makes valuable. The French word is bricoleur. We say tinkerer. He takes old things, puts them together with things that he's fashioned that are meant to look like they were also old things and create something new. And that's, you know, ravishing.
((Thomas Mann
Artrepreneur))
I feel like I'm on a personal artistic mission to constantly imbibing the work with the kind of energy that people witness, recognize, salute and purchase.
((Gwen Thompkins
Reporter, New Orleans Public Radio))
I think the first piece I bought must have been a broach, actually. I really love Tom's broaches. In fact, this is a Tom Mann broach. And they're wonderful conversation pieces and they're delightful and whimsical and wonderful sort of beginnings of conversations.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Gwen Thompkins
Reporter, New Orleans Public Radio))
As you know, New Orleans is one of those cities that is living in lots of different centuries all at the same time. It's living the life that we see in front of us. There's the spiritual life of the city. The dead and the living live together. We coexist together. And for some reason I think that Tom's jewelry, in many ways, is an embodiment of that.
((Courtesy: Thomas Mann))
((Gwen Thompkins
Reporter, New Orleans Public Radio))
You see images of faces, for instance, in the jewelry of people who've lived long ago but who, for some reason, have a spiritual connection to whoever's wearing that piece, for instance. You have these sort of amalgamations of very current and sleek, you know, metals. But at the same time, you’ll have wood or you’ll have some other type of resin, for instance, or you'll have some stone, some piece of glass, for instance, that was discovered
((Courtesy: Thomas Mann))
from a Roman ruin site somewhere in Europe. It's really, you know, just lovely to see the little surprises that are in each piece.
((Gwen Thompkins
Reporter, New Orleans Public Radio))
And this idea of the past and the present together, you know, that are sort of bound by the soul, perhaps initially Tom's soul. But then once you purchase it, once you wear it, then somehow your soul intermingles with it.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Thomas Mann
Artrepreneur))
I'm currently working with
((Courtesy: Thomas Mann))
a group and the leader of the group, who are determined to put artistic know-how back in high school programs.
((Courtesy: Thomas Mann))
((Rev. Goldie Westley
Pastor, Community Activist))
And what Tom does is, being a jeweler, a craftsman and a man of the arts, he possess a skill that's very unique. They're excited over, "Look at what he made. Look at what he can do. I want to see him. I want to meet him. I think I can do that."
((Thomas Mann
Artrepreneur))
In 1993, I had the opportunity to buy the building that we are in today, which is called the Rose Tattoo. That was the name of the bar that I used to attend here in New Orleans in the ‘70s. It closed in ‘82. I bought the building in ‘93 and I've converted it into basically Pee-wee's Funhouse, Tom's artistic environment. That, to me, is inspiring every time I look around the space and know that this is kind of my world. And that's an important part of how the world knows me because I live in my work. I live in the environment of my work all the time.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Randy Fertel
Author, Philanthropist))
He's a wild man, my kind of wild man. He's a lot of fun.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Randy Fertel
Author, Philanthropist))
He's got a lot to say, says it well, both in his art and in his narratives.
((Thomas Mann
Artrepreneur))
There's a belief system in our culture that you can't really make a living as an artist. So, I'm here to encourage people and to demonstrate and be an example for them that you can be successful, truly successful, as an artist.
((Courtesy: L. Warren Thompson))