How I Became A Professional Henna Artist

My work as a henna artist officially began in Jackson Square in 1997. I became well versed in how to use the tools and how to apply henna quickly. I had moved to New Orleans but could not find creative work and was unable to pay my bills.

So I got an artist license and began working in Jackson Square as the first licensed henna artist ever to be there. 

      The old-time artists were ruthless and tried to have me arrested and my license revoked. They said henna was not art. My friend Tanner also did temporary tattoos, he was one of the first to use Temp Tu and he had it shipped from Japan. Crazy how long ago that was now!

Tanner was getting the same treatment I was, so together we stood our ground. It was really really difficult though.

The man who was head of licensing was constantly harassing us and trying to make us leave. Tanner even had cop cars surround his booth to try to make him leave once. The older generation of artists did all they could to have us thrown out of there. We had a binder we called the “harassment file”, of all the things the city or artists had done to try to intimidate us to leave. We had to battle the city and artists for the right to be there. A lawyer from Lawyers for the Arts had to speak to the city attorney and threaten a lawsuit if the city did not comply with our right to work in Jackson Square. I was painting on a plain surface, just as the law read one must do to work there. The big argument was, what is a plain surface? Canvas? Cardboard? Driftwood? Skin? Artists painted on everything and none of the others were having to deal with what we had to, simply because we were painting on people.

         I worked Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 10am until dark for months and not only was I able to pay my bills but I also got really good and fast. I was broke no more.

         This was before the economy crashed and people would spend money on all sorts of novelties- including henna, which most people were only just hearing about and dying to try out. 

        I bought a house in the Marigny with that money and traveled to Brazil, and Mexico and Hawaii and LA each year. I made better money than most any independent artist could. And I earned it all, working as a street artist in world-renowned Jackson Square New Orleans.

That Time the Flesh Art Show Auditoned for America's Got Talent at Dolby Theater

A couple of years ago a team from the Flesh Art Show received a real treat. We were flown to Los Angeles to audition before the celebrity judges on America’s got talent. How we got here is a great story.

When I finally decided to audition for America's Got Talent it was right after the third Flesh Art show in New Orleans. I was thinking of this one dancer who was phenomenal in the show, Angela Hutchinson and was inspired to create the team to go ahead and audition. AGT had contacted me months earlier but after a month of solid scouting, I could not find anyone I thought would be up for the task who also wanted to take the chance on something without guarantee of getting paid.

I was also confident that one of my favorite artists, Brittney Pelloquin would be able to create a piece for more than one person that would fit like a puzzle. And I also knew we would need a male counterpart for Angela. The talent agent had made it clear that I would need to find tremendous talent to be able to get us to the show.
We set a date to meet in Lafayette Louisiana right before our deadline. When we were finally all together, including the other supporting artist, Megan Davis, we met in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Angela would have to audition her male counterpart with us there to make a final decision and we had just two possibilities for him. One of the top male aerialists in the country Garrett Caillouet and Angela’s pick.
We would have 24 hours to pick between the two male dancers, then for Angela to choreograph their piece, as well as eight hours of actual body painting, and to create an audition video, before the talent scout would be meeting with her team to make final choices.
Miraculously we did it, we were a terrific team, and we made an audition video, that's Angela Hutchinson and Curry Furman produced. It had to be all one take, 60 seconds, and they would not have many tries to get the dance right before ruining the body paint.
Well it caught their interest BUT they said, “You also have to create a second design for us to say yes”.
Creating one design on two people is tricky enough but now we had to make two designs on two people, a nearly impossible task and something not even asked of Skin Wars contestants.
AGT flew us all to Los Angeles to Dolby Theater just 10 days later. Here is our original audition video that got us to that stage.

Because we were like no other art form they had ever had on the show, we would be their first body painters. They put us in the basement to paint because we needed eight hours. So we got to be alone working together, with no distractions, unlike everyone upstairs prepping for their auditions.

It was really odd how they set up the stage and judges because the judges were on the floor several feet lower than the stage and we did not feel they could see the body art straight on to really get it.
There were 3,000 people in the audience but the screens they were looking at were also too small for everyone to really see.
Without making more excuses, we were not picked by the celebrity judges to go onto the show
But it was an amazing experience and the synchronicity involved to get us to that point was astounding, it was a one time thing that was a miracle to pull off.
Literally.
Something that all of us were proud of.
We worked really well together, each of us with a drive and passion to share our art with the world.