Cheryl Gerber
As culture vultures well know, museums come in all flavors. And while perusing a jaw-dropping collection of world-class art is always a thrill, some museums are, shall we say, more on the unusual side. If you’re like me, drawn to the offbeat with a strong interest in cultural nuance, here are six museums in and around New Orleans that deliver experiences that are anything but mainstream.
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Abby Sands Miller
Abita Mystery House
Hoarders are in. There are television shows that chronicle obsessions with everything from tattoos to antiques and custom choppers. Sometimes an intervention is in order; but mostly, these folks are viewed as harmless weirdoes with one-track minds intent on collecting a certain something to extreme degrees. Artist John Preble turned his drive to collect into the Abita Mystery House across the lake in Abita Springs. A fun day-trip across the twenty-four-mile causeway that you can combine with visits to other Northshore attractions like the nearby Abita Brewing Company, the Abita Mystery House is one bizarre trip.
Preble, an artist who paints gorgeous portraits of Creole women, has amassed an eccentric collection of life’s bizarre flotsam and jetsam, from all kinds of barbed wire and a genuine “bassigator” to handmade, animated miniature scenes of Louisiana life that Preble makes himself from found objects and clay. Think outsider art meets a junkyard meets vintage tchotchkes shoved into a warren of ramshackle spaces, and you’re onto something. A personal favorite is his tableaus of New Orleans scenes, including a juke joint and a tiny jazz funeral. Then there’s a comb collection, old roadside attraction postcards, and paint-by-number art so bad your fillings will hurt. It’s awesome. ($3.)
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Beth D'Addono
House of Dance & Feathers
When it comes to mysterious New Orleans phenoms, Mardi Gras Indians top the list. Tracing their roots back to when Native Americans sheltered runaway slaves, the fifty-plus local tribes are known for spectacular hand-beaded and feathered costumes, call-and-response percussive music, and fierce pride in both neighborhood and tribe. Catching up with a tribe in full regalia isn’t easy, although some Indians do hire out for events. You can see them at festivals and at the annual Super Sunday event in Central City, but year-round you can learn about Mardi Gras Indian culture at the Backstreet Cultural Museum in Tremé and House of Dance & Feathers across the Industrial Canal in the Lower Ninth Ward.
Backstreet Cultural Museum founder Sylvester Francis brings Indian culture to life with a brilliant collection of hand-sewn suits incorporating brightly colored plumes, beads, and glittering sequins and rhinestones, all adding up to a dazzling panoply of folk art. He’ll show you around the Tremé landmark across from St. Augustine’s Church and share all kinds of inside info along the way. ($10)
Take a ride to the Lower Ninth to meet Ronald Lewis at the House of Dance & Feathers, a long-time Mardi Gras Indian and a passionate preservationist of the culture, including Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs and Skull and Bone Gangs. Lewis offers articulate commentary by appointment in his former garage-turned-museum jam packed with beads and masks and feathers attesting to generations of proud history unique to New Orleans. (Donation appreciated.)
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House of Broel's Victorian Mansion and Doll House Museum
Although best known as a picturesque wedding venue, with ceremonies often provided by owner Bonnie Broel, an ordained interfaith minister, the House of Broel has more going on than its Garden District exterior suggests. Inside, there are antiques and artifacts, including a desk built for the Duke of Dresden, a two thousand-year-old piece of Egyptian fabric, and an exhibit about the Louisiana Frog Farm, which was owned by Broel’s father. But head up the striking blue stairs to the second floor, and a miniature world of Victoriana awaits. Fun for anybody interested in small worlds and craftsmanship, the collection would also appeal to a child who likes to read and has a big imagination. Rooms are lined with Broel’s custom-made beautiful doll houses, each with a different theme; the crown jewel of her collection is a hand-made, 10’12” Russian palace, with each room completely decorated to scale, all very intricate.
Get a $15 combo ticket, and you can head up to the third floor, where three rooms of antique fashions await. There are lots of wedding and ball gowns, along with daywear adorned with all manner of frippery, from gems and sequins to gold and feathers. Understand this isn’t a house tour per se, but a place to dive into one woman’s unusual obsessions. (General admission: $5 kids; $10 adults.)
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Museum of Death
227 Dauphine Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70112Body bags, coffins, skull collection, Manson Family photos, graphic crime scenes and car accidents, art and letters from infamous serial killers—with that kind of a line up, it’s for sure that the Museum of Death is not for everyone. Situated just a few blocks off Canal on Dauphine Street, this collection of beyond-the-grave gruesomeness opened last year; and from the looks of things, both locals and visitors are just dying to take a peek. If you're more Suzy Sunshine than Jack the Ripper, move along. But if darkness excites and the underbelly invites, come on in. What do you get for your $15? An impressive number of well-curated (except for the tiny labels) authenticated ephemera of the dead, dying, and the ghouls who did the killing. Close up death shot of JFK? Check. Nicole Brown Simpson's gaping neck wound? Yep. Also the Kevorkian "death machine," drawings from the likes of John Wayne Gacy Jr. and Henry Lee Lucas (serial killer art), the bra and panties Aileen Wuornos wore on death row (remember the movie Monster?), all kinds of funeral and embalming doodads, skeletons and stuffed pets, brains in jars, gobs of murder scene pics—you get the idea. Creepy, interesting, gross, scary, intriguing—it's all here. Tip: If you can’t stomach the accident scene photo that sits at the entrance where you pay, save your money. ($15)
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Cheryl Gerber
New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum
724 Dumaine Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70116Harry Potter would be right at home in this teeny tiny French Quarter landmark with its oddball displays of gris-gris (voodoo charms), potions, and all kinds of memorabilia pertaining to Voodoo queen Marie Laveau, a nineteenth-century priestess and one of New Orleans' most colorful characters. Ask about scheduled rituals and guided tours to spiritually charged haunts. Marie Laveau's tomb is said to be in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, but you'll need a guide to get in, a relatively new development in place because Laveau's fans had a habit of regularly defacing her grave. Also serving as a meeting point for haunted walking tours, the Voodoo Museum is jam packed with altars, images, and artifacts; and the gift shop sells customized gris-gris, which can range from amulets to herbs and potions used in the casting of spells. And of course if you were in the market for a voodoo doll, this is your spot. ($7)
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