Ooti Billeaud is a man of principle, commitment, and hard work. At the present time, he is building a house from scratch, painting, and making money by riding a pedi cab and shooting weddings. In the future, he hopes to be an always-traveler, camera and BMX in hand, and learning how to tattoo in various cities across this fine nation.

Adam Montegut is a tattoo artist and one of the people behind the recently opened New Orleans Tattoo Museum. It’s a so-called “living museum” that was founded to preserve and promote the history of tattooing in New Orleans through research and education. The stories of multiple generations of tattooing that are soon to be lost, but Adam’s emphasis on creative documentation hopes to prevent this and preserve this part of New Orleans’ rich creative history.

Émilie Lamy is the French-born founder and proprietor of The Stacks, a beautiful little fine-arts bookstore in the upper 9th Ward of the city. Émilie noticed a plethora of galleries about town, but no place to find publications or books about art. With a background in publishing and design, and a desire for a life change, she decided to fill the gap herself, opening the store in the spring of 2014. Listening to Émilie talk about art was infectious. As she enthusiastically leafed through books, it wasn’t so much that she was selling customers on a book. It was more like a passionate plea to enrich their lives. In the end, I didn’t see anyone leave without a big smile on their face, and a book in their hands.

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