Ink Stains from Katrina – Chapter 4 – Dan
Dan and the art of flight
Dan Tague
Artist
Dan was living in MidCity before the storm and decided not to evacuate. He holed up in his studio, where he did mix media, sculpture and photography, behind the Rock N Bowl instead. What started out as Dan and five others riding out the storm, quickly became a group of 16 people, 8 dogs, and 4 cats.
“The rain and wind pounded on the doors when the storm was coming through. The next day, there was a little bit of water on the floor, but when we went outside to take the plywood off, three feet of water came rushing in. We had a boat there as a joke, so we took it out and paddled around. The next levee breach came on Tuesday. The water was coming fast, rising 8 or 9 feet and eventually we were all on the roof.”
There were two filmmakers on the roof who were filming the entire time. “We took the boat out and started getting people off porches and bringing them to the end of Canal Street to higher ground so they could get to the Convention Center. There were already bodies floating in the water and by the third day you couldn’t go out because people were shooting and stealing boats. By day five there was too much diesel in the water and some chemicals and people were starting to freak out.”
Once rescued, Dan drifted around cities before finally heading to New York. He sought refuge at a Katrina hotel near JFK, where he stayed for eleven months working on 3D models of skulls, from words he found that said decomposition. He had a show in Chicago and did two shows in New Orleans.
“All of my work I had done in the last twelve months was gone. It was nice in a weird way to lose everything. When I came back to New Orleans the first time, Mid City still had no lights. I was here three days and went straight back and then did a residency in Santa Fe for about two months. I went back to New Orleans later and it stank. There was no law being enforced, people were being held up. So I went to Berkeley for two months and then France for two months for another residency.”
In August 2006, Dan returned for a show – Camelot after the Deluge at the Contemporary Art Center for White Linen night. He moved back in January of 2007.
His tattoo covers the entire surface of his chest. It is an eagle from the back of a quarter, the official American Eagle. “The neck ruffles and head are of a vulture preying on the dead. It has the look of an eagle with a banner that says NOLA. There is a whiskey bottle in one hand and a crown with a fleur de lys on the feathers. It symbolizes the destruction of things.”
“The tattoo took three sittings. It was painful. It was good that it was so painful. Kind of a cleansing.”