Where does a story truly begin or end? I have strong memories in my teenage years of thinking spatially, and of incredible environments for skateboarding. My middle school and high school note books were full of stick figure skateboard riders, progressing through linear environments, or the blue lines on the page. I knew, at one point in time, that I was interested in designing the spaces around buildings, however I lost track of that vision after being introduced to DIY, Do It Yourself ethos.
The immediate gratification of DIY, which praises action over fruitless contemplation led me down a laundry list of creative endeavors culminating in a massive project that would change my life, as well as the lives of countless others. In 2010, while living in the City of New Orleans, we gave birth to a brand new space on seemingly blighted land. The Peach Orchard Skate Park, paved the way, or, was the seed for New Orleans first public skate park. Finally, the place we always dreamed of, was created with volunteer labor, scrap wood, and broken bags of concrete.
From 2010-2012, we operated our project with a very minimal and streamline budget. Taking our funds directly to the hardware store we operated with complete artistic freedom, until being shut down by the rail road company, who in fact, owned the property. However traumatic the reality of seeing your hard work being literally reduced to rubble, we were back on track within days.
On adjacent land, owned by the Federal Highway Administration, and previously managed by the Parks Department, we began ordering concrete by the truck. While we had received no support in our previous efforts, we turned heads, and made great friends in City Hall who supported our efforts. Thanks largely in part to Skylar Fein, for becoming the spokesman for our non-profit. His visionary abilities, and strong communication skills turned our friends into assets. With further assistance from the Small Center for Design, and the Tony Hawk Foundation, we finally found ourselves working with the city.
One of the first things that had to happen was a halting of construction. The crew worked rapidly to close up any exposed areas, as the park was preparing to enter into a standardized public process for generating new infrastructure.
While searching the internet for jobs in skate park construction, I was introduced to Landscape Architecture in the form of a job posting! To me, based on the title alone, it recalled the middle school sketchbooks right to the present time, and my involvement in skate park creation. I immediately contacted the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture. Before attending LSU, I spent a few years at Delgado Community College repairing my GPA, and studying CADD(Computer Aided Drafting and Design).
In 2014, thanks to a donation by Red Bull, the park was expanded and christened with a new street course, and would officially become the first skate park in New Orleans. The, "Fiends of Parisite," still work actively to expand the park, and have open projects. Ask me how you can get involved!
In 2015, I enrolled in the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture, with the minimum GPA requirement. I'll have to save the rest of the story for another blog post. Thanks for reading.