August 6, 2008
By Rebecca Breeden
It's barely August and already Baton Rouge has lost a bite-sized chunk of its creative class this summer. Artist Clark Derbes whisked his bride Wylie Sofia Garcia to Vermont. Artist David Smith got a teaching gig in Montana. Writer Herpreet Singh and her architect hubby Chris Simon are in Austin. Spanish Town's hottest interracial couple, Kelcey Gosserand and Keith Goudeau, dared to take a bite of the Big Apple. And half of the city's best indie rock band, Harlan: Scott Campbell left to pursue graphic design work in Atlanta and John Norris left to teach art at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.
In their own special way, each person contributed to Baton Rouge's creative class, a term of endearment used to describe anyone this city doesn't want to see go.
Is this recent out-migration a symbol that Baton Rouge is stumbling along its path to become sexy to the young and the creative? Not quite, Norris says.
"Here, people seem mellow, more accepting of different things people do," Norris says. "It's already changed in a discernible way since I got here five years ago. I want to definitely come back and see what happens."
Norris found his artistic voice in Baton Rouge, more so than when he lived in New York because, there, everything in art and music changed so quickly. "Here, it was almost like in the wilderness, so far removed from a hip scene … I felt more free."
New York's constant evolution is exactly what Kelcey Gosserand wanted, however. She and her longtime boyfriend Keith Goudeau, who both work in the IT field, moved to the big city a week ago. "I just love the fact that it's 24 hours of constant something," she says. "We walked through Greenwich Village on Monday around 9 o'clock and it was vibrant. I just had to be a part of that."
As far as anxiety about making new friends in a new city, that's the last of Gosserand's worries. The couple's social network mostly consists of Baton Rougeans now living in New York, people they met at Baton Rouge High or LSU.
To a native like Scott Campbell, it's hard to knock this town because the experiences shape who you are. "It just seems that there's not a whole lot of support in terms of arts and music," he says. "Geographically Baton Rouge is in the middle of nowhere, as if we're in some sort of a vacuum, especially after Katrina."
Fans of Harlan should worry not. Norris will continue recording with his bandmates from afar, and will likely play again in Baton Rouge, he says. "It's only a 7-hour drive."
I'm a Baton Rouge gal from head to toe, and at times living here is so discouraging, especially when you see fun, intelligent people moving on to what seems like greener pastures. But then I consider that for every young professional who moves away, there's a newbie who has yet to discover the joys (and frustrations) of this fair land, and it's a pleasure to watch their journey.
Is Baton Rouge cramping your style these days? Have you noticed more people coming or going? Share your stories below.
Comments
Posted by por_deni on August 7 at 2:22 p.m.
A recent article in 10/12 detailed the infamous "100,000 unfilled jobs" in the state. But the more interesting statistic in that report was that there are more students pursuing four-year college degrees than there are jobs to accommodate their skills once they graduate.
So what do we do? Shift college students into skilled trades (how many pre-law students can you convince to become plumbers and electricians)? Lure highly innovative companies to the state (which LED has been trying to do, but has yet to land on a large scale)? Or create our own jobs and industries (but there must be a market for whatever we produce)?
So for now, Baton Rouge is the great proving ground, but not the permanent home, for the highly talented.
Posted by liberatedtiger on August 7 at 5:07 p.m.
I've never heard of any of those people that just left, so I can't say that I'll miss any of them.
I think we get way too caught up in worrying who is leaving Baton Rouge. I left BR in 1987 after finishing LSU with an engineering degree. There were few job prospects here in those days. I (and my new bride) left for a job in South Florida where we lived for 10 years very happily. After having children, we decided to move back here to be with the rest of our family (which includes many talented people that never left).
Baton Rouge is Baton Rouge - which happens to be pretty great in the grand scheme of things, I think. We are not and never will be New York, Palm Beach, Las Vegas, Austin, Atlanta, or even New Orleans. Why should we want to be? We are Baton Rouge.
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