Pan-African Film Fest Brings Local Craftsman Home
22.02.12
Lavalais relies on his iPad to keep him connected to the larger world, and he peddles his wares on his website, Bamboozle .
But he saves some of his best one-of-a-kind pieces for his in-person customers. “You can’t just buy everything online, you know,” he said.
Lavalais, who now lives in Louisiana, attends about nine trade shows every year. But more than his colorful, curtained booth, people remember the sculptor’s buoyant charisma.
“You’ll absolutely notice him,” said Chandra Ursule Brown, who met Lavalais in Chicago about a decade ago. “You can’t miss him. Look for a man wearing a vest and a hat, with these big, beautiful green eyes.”
When Brown met the artist, Lavalais was just beginning to develop his jewelry collection after a somewhat illicit entrance into the art world.
“I actually started by making bamboo blunt pipes,” Lavalais said. He chortled. “I was out here seeing a friend of mine and he had a piece of bamboo, and it had a hole in it, and I was like, ‘this is sweet, I can use it!’ So I took some back to New York and I cut up pieces, and I started making these little bamboo pipes for people to smoke.”
Source: NBC Los Angeles