New Orleans artist Marti McEnery’s path toward hitting her artistic stride began — as many do — with a detour. Well, a few detours. After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in studio art from the University of Arizona, McEnery (née LeBourgeois) spent time creating jewelry with a silversmith in Tucson. The pull to come home and be with family, however, brought McEnery back to the Gulf South — by way of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi — where she could be closer to her parents. During that period, McEnery began making and selling pottery.
“I just fell in love with it,” McEnery says, looking back on this period as a joyful time creating in a shared studio on BSL and selling her wares at art markets in New Orleans. But then Hurricane Katrina hit, devastating the Gulf Coast, her parents’ home and the studio where McEnery worked. “That was kind of the end of pottery.”
In the years following, McEnery felt pressure to pursue a more financially stable career. She continued to create as a personal pursuit while earning a master’s degree in counseling. McEnery landed a position working with people with dementia at Lambeth House and loved it. But, missing art, she took another detour, this time to Austin, Texas, where she earned a teaching certificate. There, McEnery simultaneously met her husband and quickly realized teaching wasn’t for her. The couple moved back to their shared native city, New Orleans, and started a family. As a new mother, McEnery revisited her art.
“I got this idea to start doing the alphabet,” she says, referring to her intricate, illustrative alphabet series. McEnery later found inspiration in the magnified world of botanicals, selling large-scale watercolor pieces. “It’s cathartic for me. Being able to go into a studio and sit there and paint. I get absorbed in it.”
Now, McEnery is embarking on a new artistic chapter, exploring ink and collage. Her latest works are personal, marking a shift from the precise realism of her earlier pieces toward something more symbolic and surreal.
“I feel like I can tell a story with it,” McEnery says.
This evolution feels right to McEnery, allowing her to express her experiences as a mother of three and a woman who has navigated life’s ups and downs. Recently, McEnery’s family moved to a new home in their Uptown neighborhood. Here, she gained a new studio — a dedicated space for her burgeoning work. It’s a full-circle moment, as McEnery returns to something resembling the happy time in BSL, creating in the studio and selling her wares. The one regret from this artist who took chances on a variety of career paths?
McEnery says, “I wish I had not been afraid to take more chances with my art.”
martilebourgeois.com, @martimcenery
