Manuel Ponce

Leviathan Dragon float, Krewe of Orpheus

Except perhaps for Rio de Janeiro, there’s nothing like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It’s a visual orgy of brightly-colored floats drawn through city streets in the fiery glow of flambeau torches or in bright revealing sunlight. Thousands of uninhibited revelers look on as Carnival “krewes” make their way along the avenues like some bacchanalian pageant from the ancient world. They might be surprised to learn, however, that much of what they see begins in a crowded little room in a ‘50s-era ranch house just across the river in the town of Gretna. That little room is artist Manuel Ponce’s studio, a space he shares with Kiwi, his loquacious blue-crowned parakeet.

With pen-and-ink, paper, color markers and computer, Ponce designs floats for many of the city’s prominent Mardi Gras parades, including Bacchus, Orpheus, Endymion, Iris, Cleopatra, Hermes and Alla. In years’ past, he also designed floats for Rex. Although Ponce conjures these mystical images at his home studio, he actually works for Kern Studios, the much-celebrated Mardi Gras float-building company in New Orleans since 1932.

Not that the 58-year-old Ponce, who was born in Harvey, Louisiana, has been there that long. He joined the organization in the early 1980s after graduating from the University of New Orleans, or UNO, with a degree in fine art, specializing in graphic design. While at UNO, Ponce had the good fortune to meet fellow student Blaine Kern Jr., the son of Blaine Kern, founder of Kern Studios. Introductions were made and a career was born. He now designs all of Kern’s big parades.

Edgar Allan Poe, Krewe of Endymion, 2023

“He saw my work and he said ‘You need to come work for me and my dad,’” Ponce recalls. “It was late 1983 and they were getting ready for the [1984 New Orleans] world’s fair. It was an exciting time. They were also getting started with Mardi Gras World on the West Bank. I didn’t illustrate at first. I worked in the prop shop, worked on figures and painted floats. Once I graduated, I started full time, and I’ve worked for them pretty much ever since. This career kind of fell into my lap. It’s been great.”

Since falling into his lap four decades ago, Ponce has designed thousands of floats and throws, cups, and medallion beads. As one can imagine, reaching such staggering levels requires efficient communications between Ponce and Carnival krewes and, in some cases, their art directors. Here’s how it usually goes. Each year krewe captains, working with their art directors and members come up with a theme for the parade. The theme is then sent to Ponce who executes thumbnail sketches to show the captains what their floats will look like.

Avarice Hoards Itself Poor, Orpheus 2023

Once approved, he does the final black-and-white drawings in ink, scans them into his computer and adds color. Some krewes, he says, still prefer his hand-colored illustrations. The completed designs then go to the float builders. Before computers, he rendered each drawing in watercolor, a process that took about three days for each float. With the computer, he can do a full-color float design in one day, which is a big help to krewes.

“We’re working further in advance,” he says. “I’m now working on Mardi Gras 2025, which will be completed before the 2024 parades roll. It’s good for the krewes because a lot of throws and novelties come from overseas. If they have the theme, they can get their costumes done and throws so much earlier.”

Thinking back over his long career, Ponce does have his favorites.

“I’ve been designing Orpheus since the beginning, about 1994,” says Ponce with the ever-present smile of a man who loves his work. “I guess my favorite design was the ‘Leviathan Dragon’ float because it raised the bar. It was in about 1999 or 2000. Before that, they weren’t doing any kind of fiber optics. It’s a huge float in several sections. After that, other krewes had to have animation.”

Another favorite is Hermes in 2018. The theme was “New Orleans Arts and Letters.” Each float represented a New Orleans writer or artist such as John Kennedy Toole, author of “A Confederacy of Dunces,” famed but eccentric potter George Ohr, 19th-century writer Lafcadio Hearn, and Swedish-born New Orleans artist Bror Anders Wikstrom, known in the 1880s and 1890s for his beautiful watercolor sketches of Mardi Gras floats and costumes. “That was a fun parade for me,” says Ponce as he fingered through a stack of drawings.

The public will get its first crack at seeing this year’s floats in January when his designs are published as bulletins in New Orleans’ The Times-Picayune/The Advocate, much like the city’s newspapers did back in the late 19th century.

“I do all of the designs for the paper,” he says. “It’s like a big puzzle. I do it for Hermes, Bacchus, Endymion and Iris.”

Although Ponce has designed thousands of floats, the inevitable question arises — does he still go to the parades?

“Most of the time my wife Denise and I leave town,” he says. “When I do go to a parade, I look at the painting, the props. I’m a little critical, but I have to let that go. I just enjoy watching the people have fun.”

And that, of course, is what Mardi Gras is all about.

Exhibits

Cajun
Martin Payton: Legacy of Form
Sculpture celebrating music and artistic improvisation, through Jan. 13. Acadiana Center for the Arts, Lafayette. acadianacenter-forthearts.org

Central
Connected Visions: Louisiana’s Artistic Lineage
Overview of Louisiana’s artistic heritage, ongoing. Alexandria Museum of Art. themuseum.org 

Plantation
Art in Louisiana: Views into the Collection
Overview of art in Louisiana, ongoing. LSU Museum of Art. lsumoa.org

New Orleans
Debbie Fleming Caffery: In Light of Everything
A career retrospective, through March 3. New Orleans Museum of Art. noma.org

North
Sisters in Art: Women Artists from the Norton’s Permanent Collection
Historical and contemporary women artists in museum’s collection, ongoing. R.W. Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport. rwnaf.org