It’s two in the afternoon at Lake Fausse Pointe. I’m here on a photoshoot with frank relle. Frank’s asleep in the cabin, resting before we head back out to shoot tonight. I’m walking a narrow boardwalk through the swamp, talking to myself—or maybe to you—trying to put words to what the last few months have felt like.

The story I’m trying to tell is about what happens when the floorboards of your life start to rot, both literally and otherwise.

I’ve been calling it Trouble in Paradise, though by the end, I’m not sure that title holds.

The Setup

After deniz and i got married, the plan was simple: stay close to my family in New Orleans for the wedding, get our footing, and then head out into the great unknown. We didn’t know where. We were both trying to build creative lives that didn’t depend on geography, yet we still needed a place that could hold us. and a place from which to procure a paycheck.

We daydreamed about the Pacific Northwest—the forests, the fog, the rocky coastline. We loved the idea of upstate New York and the Hudson Valley too; all that art money floating around, old barns turned into studios, the smell of pine trees and paint thinner.. We loved the Southern coastlines — St. Augustine, fl.. Savannah, ga — and the misty folds of the Smokies and the Blue Ridge.

We’d seen a total eclipse in Arkansas that felt like some kind of omen, though for what, I still don’t know. that’s either sacred ground or some sort of portal to hell. depends on who you ask i guess.

My family has roots in Montana, and I grew up going to Colorado almost every year. I know the smell of that crisp mountain air, the crackle of the aspen leaves, the altitude in your blood.

So, yes, the map was open but blurry. We were trying to find somewhere to land, to make work, to start becoming the people we said we wanted to be. no place was calling us, in particular, but we felt called to be somewhere different, or better, or i don’t know what, but somewhere that’s not here, wherever here may be.

The Big House

At the time, I was working for a gallery in the French Quarter and living in a small one-bedroom near the Marigny. deniz and i were doing long distance, waiting for visa paperwork to clear. When Deniz arrived in new orleans, at long last, we had about 2 months until our wedding day. she has a crushing zillow addiction, which often leads to trouble. mostly tire-kicking and the wasting of multiple middle-aged-melissa’s time. but one fateful afternoon, We toured a big, relatively cheap house in Mid-City near City Park.

It had everything: a clean studio upstairs, a messy clay space downstairs, driveway, attic, big green yard. It felt like the first “real” chapter in our lives as artists, and a big step toward taking ourselves seriously. We could build furniture, paint big pictures, make a mess with clay, plaster, and epoxy, and still have a place to sleep that didn’t smell like turpentine.

It felt almost too good. Spacious in a way that made us lazy. Cushy. We expanded into it the way air fills a room. And yet, for all that space, we didn’t make as much ACTUAL ARTWORK as we thought we would. I TOOK ADVANTAGE OF A BIG OPEN DRIVEWAY TO DO SOME MUCH NEEDED MAINTENANCE/REPAIR WORK TO MY CAR, AND BUILT SOME NICE FURNITURE FOR THE HOME, AND WE ABSOLUTELY WORKED OUT SOME WORKFLOW KINKS WITH OUR ART-MAKING SETUPS… BUT, AGAIN… DIDN’T MAKE ENOUGH ARTWORK TO FEEL LIKE THAT’S WHAT I WAS DOING… That started to gnaw at me.

REALLY, IT BECAME CLEAR THAT MY PRIORITIES WERE IN THE WRONG PLACE, AND I WAS WASTING VALUABLE TIME.

MORE ON THIS LATER, BUT MAY ROLLS AROUND, AND THE INITIAL TERM OF Our lease EXPIRES, AND THE LEASE GOES month-to-month, TO INFINITY AND BEYOND, and we thought, this is perfect—flexibility. We could travel, scout, and maybe find A NEW ARRANGEMENT THAT WOULD SCRATCH THAT ITCH.

CAN-KICKING WHO?

The Search

Summer came, and we joined the great migration of artists fleeing New Orleans heat.
I signed up for a painting workshop at Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia. We flew up, and it was everything I wanted—a real atelier environment. People who cared about drawing, tone, discipline. CONTROLLED LIGHTING. FUNCTIONING EASELS & TABORETS. WHO’D HAVE THUNK IT? But I didn’t feel AT home.

From there, we took the train to New York City, then up to the Hudson Valley.

We stayed with friends near Catskill, camped FOR A FEW NIGHTS BY A BABBLING BROOK, AND rented a cheap Airbnb from an GRAY-BEARDED PAINTER with stories FROM SoHo in the seventies. The light was beautiful. The air smelled like possibility.

Then came New York City—DeniZ’s cadaver workshop for sculptors, our stay with a friend in A TINY Harlem APARTMENT, THAT WE LOCKED OURSELVES OUT OF AND BROKE BACK IN THROUGH THE FIRE ESCAPE. I walked thirty thousand steps a day, subway to subway, street to street, GAWKING through the whole thing.

It was my first time in New York. I respected it, but it didn’t enchant me. The density, the concrete, the rush—it felt like noise. People call it a playground for adults; to me it felt like an arcade, bright and expensive and loud. DISTRACTING. And maybe one day I’ll live there, when I have the body of work to justify it, AND THE CAREER GRAVITY PULLING ME THAT DIRECTION... But not yet. I’ve always said midsize cities are where you build something real, and I still believe that.

HITTING The EJECT Button

We came back to New Orleans thinking we’d regroup. Instead, we INSTANTLY freaked out AND NUKED OUR LEASE. WHAT DO THEY SAY ABOUT CANOES?

We hit the panic/eject button & told the landlord we were leaving before we had anywhere to go. It was impulsive. I thought we’d save money by moving QUICKLY, AND NOT HAVING OVERLAP BETWEEN LEASES. That kind of logic only works on paper.

We talked briefly about van life — buying a Volkswagen camper and renting a big industrial studio WAREHOUSE SPACE to live out of part-time. We even found AND BOUGHT a van for DeniZ, a manual Vanagon that she’s still learning to drive. But sanity prevailed, and we decided on the conventional path: findING a small apartment and a separate studio.

That’s how we ended up in the Garden District, a block off St. Charles. Oak canopy, streetcar tracks, soft light through the windows. It was beautiful — A LITTLE too beautiful, maybe. When we toured it, we noticed what looked like old water damage. The landlord — an architect OF 20 YEARS, MIND YOU — assured us it was “eight years old, long fixed.” He made us feel silly for asking.

So we moved in. I set up a makeshift studio in the dirt-floored basement. The landlord said I could “do whatever I wanted down there.” I took his word for it.

ShockINGLY BAD

Two weeks in, my sister came to visit. DenIZ met us at the door, pale AND shaking. She’d been electrocuted. Two pans on the stove, two burners, one bad circuit. She couldn’t let go. 120V current through the body, THE LONG WAY.

I START flipping breakers, TRYING TO TROUBLESHOOT THE ISSUE, AND NOTHING workED. NO LIGHTS WENT OUT, AND MY MULTIMETER was DETECTING PEN was CATCHING STRAY CURRENTS on the stove.

We TRIED callING the landlord immediately, BUT It was Labor Day weekend. They finally came by, reluctantly, and I showed them the live voltage with a multimeter.
They replaced the stove. Said it was “weird.” And that was that.

Then the leak in the shower started again—the one we were told was long GONE. Water in the closet. Mold behind the walls. I ordered a seven-pack of test kits: five came back positive for black mold, including the air sample.

We sent him the results. His response: you have to move out.

The Spiral

TO BE FAIR, THAT’S PROBABLY THE PROPER RESPONSE TO THE SITUATION. HE DIDN’T WANT HIS GUYS TO WORK AROUND HAVING OUR STUFF IN THE APARTMENT, AND MAYBE DAMAGE THINGS.

EITHER WAY, Ten days to find a new home. No relocation help. Still expected to pay rent… I argued over email, trying to be professional, but he wasn’t budging. I began to suspect he just wanted to renovate and re-list. Maybe raise the rent, maybe bury the evidence.

Meanwhile, we already had a trip planned to L.A. to see DeniZ’s cousin SINAN, AND HIS WIFE ASHLEY, WHO HAD JUST HAD THEIR FIRST BABY. Nonrefundable tickets. OTHER FAMILY IN L.A. FROM ISTANBUL. We couldn’t cancel. So we toured apartments until the morning of our flight, and applied for one the day we left.

sinan, alper, nolan cem, and ashley in redondo beach

Somewhere AMIDST ALL OF the chaos, we made a decision: LET’S take the curse and turn it into a blessing.

If everything’s ALREADY falling apart, LET’S rebuild with intention. Rethink how we live and work. Simplify.

The Revelation

I realized then how fragile our creative rhythm had become. When you lose your workspace, you lose momentum. And momentum is everything.

Photography saved me. It’s flexible. Portable. Adaptable to chaos. While painting and sculpture require stillness, photography moves with you.

SOMEHOW, We staged several shoots in the middle of thIS WHOLE mess — one of them a full-scale water shoot with a crew of 5 people on 3 boats; rigging, drones, on-water lighting, the whole 9.

It reminded me why we do this: to MAKE THE images that couldn’t OR WOULDN’T exist otherwise. To PULL A CRYSTALLINE GEMstone FROM THE CHAOS & RUBBLE OF DAILY LIFE. TO CHASE AFTER THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE.

The deeper realization was this: as an artist, the single most important thing you can have is a workspace that doesn’t depend on your circumstances. You can sleep anywhere. You can eat DOG SHIT AND ramen, skip the air conditioning, AND live out of CARDBOARD boxes. But if you don’t have a place to work, AND YOU AREN’T IN THERE WORKING REGULARLY… you’re not an artist — you’re just a person who used to make things. MAYBE YOU USED TO BE AN ARTIST, AND YOU MIGHT STILL BE AN ARTIST FOR HALLOWEEN… BUT AS AN ARTIST, YOU’RE ONLY AS GOOD AS THE PROJECT THAT YOU’RE ELBOW DEEP IN AT THE MOMENT. AND YES, THAT GOES FOR YOU TOO.

The Landing

While we were in L.A., we got the CALL: our apartment application was approved. We signed the lease digitally, from A COFFEE SHOP ON THE BEACH, AND THEN WENT WALKING KNEE DEEP IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN. SWEET RELIEF!

The day we got back, we unloaded from the airport straight into a new life.

At the same time, DeniZ found a listing for an artist warehouse in Gentilly — a subdivided space filled with woodworkers, sculptors, CNC fabricators. We toured it, NOT FULLY REALIZING THAT IT WAS an audition of sorts... WE WERE READY TO SIGN RIGHT THEN, AND GET TO WORK! BUT The manager WANTED TO SHOW THE PLACE TO A FEW MORE PEOPLE SHE HAD BEEN MESSAGING WITH, EITHER OUT OF GUILT OR MAYBE SHE WASN’T FULLY SOLD ON US… ANYWAY, WE GOT THE PART.

By Sunday, we had both leases signed. Home and studio, separate and VERY real. We moved out of the mold unit THE day before the tile crew ROLLED UP WITH THEIR jackhammerS AND SHOVELS.

The New Arrangement

Now the setup feels right.

**Home:**

a 500-square-foot STUDIO-loft WITH a leafy courtyard. Brick path, BANANA trees, small yard, kitchenette, AND SOFT light. $1,000 a month, utilities & WIFI included.

**studio:**

a lockable, CLIMATE CONTROLLED unit in a shared warehouse. Concrete floor, high ceiling, air conditioning, full of sawdust and energy. $650 with utilities, split between us—$325 each.

THIS COMBO deal IS cheaper than the big house, cleaner than the mold trap, and more conducive to DOING the GOSH-DAMN work than either of them. At home we can breathe; at the studio we can make a mess.

It’s a small thing, but it feels like SWEET VICTORY: to lock the studio door, AND DRIVE home WITH THE WINDOWS DOWN, through the humid night, knowING that both worlds are in balance.

The Reflection

People might call it a luxury to rent both a home and a studio. I call it a necessity.
If you can’t invest $300 a month in your own practice, WHATEVER THAT MAY BE, maybe you don’t want it badly enough. That’s not judgment — it’s clarity OF PURPOSE.

Because the work is the thing that matters.

Without the work, everything else collapses in on itself.

Now it’s 2:47 p.m. Frank’s still asleep. The swamp is silent except for the cicadas. In a few hours, we’ll be back out there, shooting under moonlight, neck-deep in the muddy water.

Life is good, man.

Time for a nap.

and Volume two of Frankenstein awaits.

trouble in paradise