TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Mardi Gras Society sponsors TXST Sculpture Club NOLA trip
Mardi Gras started early this year for the TXST Sculpture Club. The San Marcos Mardi Gras Society, The Mistick Krewe of Okeanos, partnered with the student arts club to help build parade floats that will be showcased at the Mardi Gras Parade on March 1st. The Krewe sponsored a three day trip for the club to New Orleans, Louisiana in order to learn about Mardi Gras history and to gain new skills in a float making workshop. The club plans to use their upcoming meetings to construct parade props to contribute to the San Marcos Mardi Gras floats as well as their own float to be featured in the parade.
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Four of the club’s officers took an eight hour road trip down to NOLA, including Emily Cotton who is the president of the TXST Sculpture Club.
“We teach student demos and work with different materials in an expanded media sort of way. Sculpture Club is a creative outlet for people that don’t have it, for the people who need that,” Cotton said. The club is open to all TXST majors, faculty, and alumni and has a focus on teaching new creative skills to students who might not get the opportunity to create in their degree plan. There are art majors in the club but many students come from science or other backgrounds, using creativity as a shared tool for community and collaboration.”
The club partnered with the San Marcos Mardi Gras Krewe last Spring to help build onto their parade floats. In order to gain more skills the Krewe offered the officers a sponsored trip to New Orleans to learn authentic float making skills including paper mache techniques. After arriving in New Orleans, after many Buc-ee’s stops, the club officers met with San Marcos Mardi Gras co-founder Diana Baker who lives part time in San Marcos and in New Orleans. Baker hosted the club members during their stay in NOLA. Being a New Orleans native, Baker took the girls to iconic staples such as Antoine’s, a restaurant founded in 1840 in the French Quarter, which is famous for their Baked Alaska. The restaurant’s walls were lined with shadowboxes showcasing decades of Mardi Gras history from past kings and queens to the founders of famous Mardi Gras Krewes.
The next morning was spent at Mardi Gras World, which is a giant warehouse and art studio where many of the huge and elaborate parade floats and props are made. The officers walked through endless rows of larger than life props from famous characters like Shrek, King Kong and Mickey Mouse, to jesters and clowns, the studio was packed full of retired props and in progress creations being made for 2025’s Mardi Gras festivities. The tour guide walked the group through the foam based process of designing, carving, sculpting and painting giant props. Most work in the studio is done by hand, but a friendly robotic arm named Pixie helps carve larger complex designs before the float makers refine and detail the designs.
After beignets at Cafe Du Monde, the officers took a four-hour float making class hosted by New Orleans native, Domatron Graves. In the class they learned how to construct paper mache sculptures. The class was interactive and thorough, allowing the officers to make notes to bring back the skills learned to teach to their club members.
On the final day of the trip the officers spent a few hours getting lost in inspiration inside the New Orleans Museum of Art, including a stroll through the eleven acre sculpture garden. The club officers returned to Texas full of new skills, artistic inspiration and bellies full of beignets. “Our club meets every Tuesday at 6:30 [p.m.] at the Texas State University Art building, JCM room 1118. We are going to be doing float making until March 1.The rest of the year we will be focusing on demos such as jewelry making, stamp making and origami. We also have a lot of field trips planned. All TXST students are welcome to join,” Cotton said, “We just want to make it so everyone can have a creative outlet.”
One can find more information about the club on their instagram at @ txstsculptureclub. Find Mardi Gras updates on the Krewe’s website mardigrassanmarcos. com or their instagram @mardigrassanmarcos. Check out Domatron’s parade float classes and artwork on instagram at @carnival_ sculpture_classes.
Rebekah Porter is the staff reporter for the Daily Record and also an artist that was in the Texas State Sculpture Club and participated in this trip.
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