Introducing Pont Thibodeaux

Pont Thibodeaux is a Lafayette-based multidisciplinary artist. Pont specializes in prayer-song writing and performance, playing the djembe, aerial movement arts, puppetry, and writing. Pont’s work is centered on recovery, and their artistic approach begins with a conscious connection to a power greater than themselves and materializing the present energy. Pont believes our creativity is rooted in and always leads to truth and love. Pont’s community seems to resonate with their art because, in life, they strive for liberation and to abolish the notion that art is rooted in suffering and that autonomy must be sacrificed for the sake of the ensemble.

Pont will be performing at the Magic in the Mundane Final Exhibition this Saturday, March 14th! Join us at Basin Arts during Second Saturday ArtWalk to see Pont, along with other performers, bring Magic in the Mundane to life.

Magic in the Mundane Final Exhibition

🗓️ March 14th | 5:00-8:00pm

🎭Live Performances | 5:30, 6:30, & 7:30pm

📍Basin Arts | 126 S Buchanan St.

🎟️FREE Admission

Who makes up your art circle?

Fellows and friends in my The Artist's Way creative cluster, at Basin Arts, in the Acadiana Center for the Arts' PACE teaching program, and truly any artist I meet who practices nurturing their artist!

How do you expand your art circle?

One baby step at a time. I began to consciously expand my art circle fairly recently, about eight weeks ago. This is an incomplete list of places around Lafayette where I've shown up and talked to people, which resulted in artist circle expansion:  yoga classes at the library, Basin Arts, Wonderland Theatre, Cité des Arts, Vermilionville, Longfellow-Evangeline Memorial, St. Martinville Cultural Heritage Museums, any flea/art market, and Acadiana Center for the Arts. If you're lost like I am, show up somewhere (like a café, library, theatre, or one of the aforementioned places) that feels cool and safe, and ask someone who gives you that same vibe for help. Or reach out to me lheauxheld@gmail.com)

What value do you see in having a creative community?

Honestly, having friends, and "finding friends with whom we can safely vent our pain" (Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way). Community nurtures the human being, the artist, and helps us do the necessary work to heal childhood wounds, intergenerational trauma and recode negative programming. It is also ~super fun~. It perpetuates healing-- reinforcing that we must be in community to recover, to live. The value of a creative community is the people, space, and energy within that community, which transforms reality from a creativity-denying, shame-soaked one to a liberating, healing, and evolving one.

How does your artistic approach contribute to your community?

By sharing love. My artistic approach begins with a conscious connection to a power greater than myself, feeling that connection resonate within my core/heart, and materializing the present energy. Our creativity is rooted in and always leads to truth and love. My community seems to resonate with my art because in life, I work for liberation and to abolish the beliefs that art is rooted in suffering and autonomy must be sacrificed for the sake of the ensemble. I say, "non merci!" and instead do my best to create spaces and art which nurture and reinforce healthy work with each other and greater powers, however we label that power. This modus operandi pretty much plops me where I need to be to contribute mutually with my community in intimate and surprising ways-- bringing forth light and understanding.