My New Orleans
Beading Rhythms
Big Chief Demond Melancon explores history, passes the art and attributes of beading to the next generation of New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians
12/31/2020
Aretha Franklin
New Orleans is a gumbo of people of all different nationalities and races and all those people show a lot of love to each other,” says artist and Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief Demond Melancon. “I’m part of that gumbo.”
Melancon, who resides with his wife Alicia in the city’s Bywater neighborhood, is a prominent “contemporary bead artist” and Big Chief of the Lower 9th Ward Young Seminole Hunters Mardi Gras tribe. His beaded portraits and exquisite Mardi Gras Indian costumes called suits all made with thousands of tiny colored beads are mystical symbols of an African American Creole culture that courses through the city’s veins and historic neighborhoods like the rhythmic motions of the Mississippi. To him, they are spiritual connections to the African diaspora a