The visuals behind the vote: what shaped Louisiana’s ‘I Voted’ sticker

Artist Terrance Osborne, 52, spoke with Lens editor Katy Reckdahl about this year’s voting sticker for the state of Louisiana.

The Lens: On Tuesday, when Election Day voters across Louisiana put on the “I Voted” sticker that you created, what are we carrying with us? Like what sort of sense of the city and its culture? Let’s start with the trumpet.
Terrance Osborne: The trumpet came from artist Richard Thomas, who taught me and always inspired me. That’s where the idea was born, because he had an art gallery called Visual Jazz. That was his whole philosophy. So I borrowed that. I thought: what would jazz look like as it exited the bell of the instrument?

The Lens: So you created a horn emitting a gorgeous jazz bouquet. How did you balance New Orleans and Louisiana in your artwork?
Terrance Osborne: When I was hired to do the sticker, they said that they wanted it about Louisiana. But they did say that they were open to a potential Mardi Gras influence. So what I did was start with the trumpet, then added the flowers representing Louisiana, because the magnolia is the state flower. And then there’s a bead, a Mardi Gras bead that runs southeast.

The Lens: Right. I have the artwork on the screen right in front of me.
Terrance Osborne: And New Orleans is in the southeastern part of Louisiana. So that was my nod to New Orleans. You know Governor Landry had conveyed the idea that New Orleans was not special. So that part of the piece was born out of that idea. I wanted to express how special New Orleans is.
The Lens: I see it — the string of gold, purple and green beads moving south and east from the trumpet. 

The Lens: During early voting, I saw you post on Instagram that you’d give people an autographed Terrance Osborne print if they brought you their voting stickers.
Terrance Osborne: That’s what I posted at first. That’s what I intended to do. But the state called and said, “You can’t give something of value for an ‘I Voted sticker.’” I thought the whole thing was strange because they are giving stickers to people for voting. It’s an incentive. So I said, “Isn’t that the same thing?” They said as a private citizen, I can’t do it, but they can. So I did an updated post and explained that.
The Lens: That’s curious. Hmm.

The Lens: Let’s get back to your artwork. What about the colors you chose for your sticker
Terrance Osborne: Those came from my painting class with Ron Bechet at Xavier University. I developed my sense of painting from dark to light in his classroom. That’s something that’s remained with me. I also got my palette together in his class. Before that my colors were everywhere. Nothing was uniform. It was in his class that I refined my eight colors that I work with even now. All of those colors are in the voting sticker.
The Lens: I get that. So when you’re painting, that’s the Terrence Osborne palette. Your wife Stephanie’s initials are in this piece? Don’t you usually add that?
Terrance Osborne: Yeah, I usually do that, in about a third or half of my paintings. It’s not in this one though. It was hard to find a place for it.

The Lens: Understood. What about elections? Who instilled in you the power of the vote?
Terrance Osborne: The power of the vote? I’d say Richard Thomas again, because he was always an advocate for addressing whatever needed to be addressed, and for making our voices heard. He’s always been a fighter for the arts and for what’s right. So I just took that spirit and that got me involved to do my civic duty.

The Lens: What part of town did you grow up in?
Terrance Osborne: I grew up in Tremé and the 7th Ward.

The Lens: Did you come through Tamborine & Fan?
Terrance Osborne: I wasn’t in Tamborine & Fan. But I appreciated how Big Duck led young people. I saw him at work, because I hung around there. I went between St. Mark and Hunter’s Field. And I did my first mural at Hunter’s Field. I went around with Richard Thomas doing murals. By then, Mr. Thomas had moved his gallery nearby, to 2337 St. Claude Avenue, at the corner of Spain Street. It was there that he developed this group called Pieces of Power. It was an afterschool program for high school students where we did artwork and sold it. That’s where I got my first canvas and brushes and where I did my first painting that sold.

The Lens: How old were you when, when that happened?
Terrance Osborne: I was 17, I think. 16 or 17.

The Lens: Nice. Were you one of the Richard Thomas kids who painted the pillars under the Claiborne bridge?
Terrance Osborne: That was later. I had started working with Richard Thomas in 1991 and by the time I graduated from high school in 1993, the paintings under the bridge hadn’t been done yet.

The Lens: What did you paint in your first mural, on Hunter’s Field?
Terrance Osborne: It was almost like a collage. Mr. Thomas got each student to work on their own section and find a way to tie your piece into the piece that was next to yours, so that it reads as a cohesive mural. My portion of the mural was these figures breaking through the wall. It was on a brick wall, so I painted bricks on it as if they were falling off and had figures coming out of the bricks. I guess it was about the freedom that I find in art.

Osborne has run the Terrance Osborne Gallery on Magazine Street since 2017. He is a graduate of the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and Xavier University of Louisiana. Before Hurricane Katrina, he taught art at Alice Harte Elementary in Algiers.