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Aug 29, 2010
"In a time of destruction, create something." --Maxine Hong Kingston
Beauty in Scraps of Metal
Five years after Hurricane Katrina, the sun continues to rise over evacuated homes and empty lots. New Orleans is still cleaning up debris. Yet one local artisan is building up beauty out of the destruction. Stefano Velaska is a survivor of both Katrina and the 1968 invasion of his native Czechoslovakia. At 18, he fled his country and ended up in Louisiana, where he discovered a passion for jewelry-making. After the hurricane hit, he found himself searching for "some way to somehow promote New Orleans." He stumbled upon the answer in the scraps of metal strewn across the city. Today, you can find him in the covered French Market of the New Orleans French Quarter, crafting the city's endurance into an art form: jewelry from the storm. "It is a small piece of New Orleans, a small piece of history," Velaska remarks.
BE THE CHANGE
Create beauty out of something that seems hopeless.
