The Story Behind the 2026 NOLA Zydeco Fest Poster

When the NOLA Zydeco Fest team asked me to create this year's official festival poster, I knew it had to feel like a homecoming. For our community, this festival is more than music and food. It's where families come together and where young people learn where they come from.

Honoring two culture bearers

From the very beginning, the festival and I knew we wanted to honor two people who carry Creole culture everywhere they go: Robin Barnes and Rusty Metoyer.

Rusty picked up the accordion at 14, after both of his grandfathers passed, because someone in his family had to keep that music going. That's why he's in the pirogue, playing an accordion painted with the Creole flag. He's carrying the tradition forward.

Robin is the Songbird of New Orleans and a ninth-generation Louisianan. Her album Louisiana Love brings zydeco, Cajun, and Creole French music right alongside New Orleans jazz. That's why she's on the dock, singing, with her boot kicking up the water. She's joyful, free, and right at home.

Documenting where we are this year

Behind them are the Mardi Gras Indians, the dancers, and the festival stage. This festival keeps growing every year, and its setting changes too, so this poster documents where we gathered this year: Heritage Park in Slidell, along Bayou Bonfouca.

Bonfouca comes from the Choctaw words for "river home," and that's exactly what I wanted to paint. The oaks, the Spanish moss, the water lilies, and the Louisiana irises all belong here, because the bayou is where this music was born.

A festival that passes culture on

Creole culture is a lot like a good gumbo. It's made of many ingredients, African, French, Spanish, Caribbean, and Native American, all simmered together into something that's ours. NOLA Zydeco Fest serves up every part of it: youth workshops, Creole genealogy to help families trace their family trees, Kouri-Vini language preservation, the gumbo cook-off, and the Creole Music Jam. It's a place where heritage isn't just celebrated, it's taught.

How it was painted

The painting took about a month, in acrylic. I laid the paint on thick for an impressionistic feel, then built up layers on top with a palette knife. Those layers represent the layers of Creole heritage that shaped Louisiana's history.

And it had to be colorful. I'm a colorful artist, and Creole culture is just as colorful. Every bold color in this piece is a part of who we are.

I hope you get the same feeling I get every time I look at it, that same sense of pride and joy.

Thank you, God, and thank you to the NOLA Zydeco Fest team for this honor.

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Prints of the 2026 NOLA Zydeco Fest poster are coming soon. Join my email list to be notified the moment they're available.