NEW ORLEANS — When you're out on the parade route yelling for beads, and partying with family and friends, stop and take look at what our local artists have worked on for more than a year.
The floats start out as a vision in an artist's mind, and then come life with a lot of talent.
We got a sneak preview at the woman behind the Rex floats.
Before you get to see the greatest free show on Earth, Caroline Thomas has been hard at work. She grew up in New Orleans and Baton Rouge and went to the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and at 38, she is the first in Rex's 152-year history who is both the designer of the floats, and as her paint-stained outfit shows, the lead painter.
“I don't think I really fully appreciated Mardi Gras until I went to art school up in Ohio, because when you live here, it's easy to just take it for granted. It's all around you,” said Caroline Thomas. Artistic Director of Rex.
Some around the Rex organization say this year Caroline outdid herself.
Working through the float production company Royal Artists, she designed floats representing the two worlds of Lafcadio Hearn. At the end of the nineteenth century, he was one of America's best-known writers. He lived in both New Orleans and Japan. So, she designed and created everything from sausages, alligators, irises, and roaches, to the colorful flowers, culture, and designs of the Japanese.
“That's the crazy thing, it's like you spend all year working on it just for one day, and then you take it all apart, and you start over, but I love it. I think that's thrilling. Some people, I think, would be driven crazy by that model,” she laughs.
But one million people line the streets and see your work on Carnival Day. Compare that to 30,000 who visit the Louvre in Paris on one day.
“I love all the history, and I love that I get to spend a lot of my year researching the theme. So, I get to learn all about mythology, and culture, and literature all the time.”
And in case you're wondering how long it takes to do all the work, the theme for Mardi Gras 2025 Rex, was approved in spring 2023. And Caroline already started working on next year's Mardi Gras last summer.
“It's so exciting to see it start to come together, especially once they start installing all the flowers. I feel like that's when you start to see the full vision,” said Thomas.
And for the rest of us, after Fat Tuesday, we have to wait a whole year for Mardi Gras, but not Caroline.
“So, I'll take a week off, where I mostly just like stare at my ceiling, and try to catch up on sleep, and then I'm right back into it,” she laughed.
And Caroline Thomas is also the designer and lead painter for Proteus.
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