Jacob "Reptile" Martin

 

After attending the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Jacob enrolled at the Kansas City Art Institute, originally planning to study painting. After his freshman year, he went into Fiber Arts Department and it was there that he fell in love with textiles, wearable art, and paper mache. Ironically, it took leaving New Orleans to recognize his love for costume and how closely he belonged to the land of street parades and Carnival floats.

     Jacob’s artwork and passion has always been for animals and nature. (There was a time his pets were his best friends.) The celebration of creatures have been a focus in his work . A heavy dose of nostalgia comes out of his quilts made from recycled bed sheets and curtains. Whether he is making an appliquéd shirt, a sculpture or a costume, he is celebrating life and happiness. Each work has stories and commentary on today, while always dancing with frivolity.

      In 2011 he bought a gutted shell of a house in the Bywater neighborhood, and has slowly turned it into the Aquarium Studios. There are ten artist’s studios and a shared space that allows many different types of events ranging from fashion shows and vogue-offs to more conventional monthly gallery shows. The mission for the Aquarium is to provide a space for artists to experiment and follow their muse, no matter how strange.