The Audubon "The sleaziest hotel on the most beautiful avenue in the world," in addition to nurturing undiscoveredartists, has a big reputation among cognoscenti of fringe subcultures.

Lawson subsequently moved out of the Dryades warehouse and, after a stint at the Audubon, landed at another transient-type hotel, also on St. Charles Ave., called the C Note. “I had to move out of there after a guy got killed in the stairwell,” says Lawson, who wound up moving back into the Audubon. In late 1996, a friend of Lawson’s from LSU, Clinton Peltier, along with a partner, Jonn Spradlin, bought the Audubon, then a seedy redoubt for rough-hewn merchant seamen, with the idea of transforming it into a hip hangout for creative types, while still preserving its “juke-joint” character.

So, after taking over, Peltier and Spradlin decided to throw a party and promote it as Sleaze Box, with a tagline about the Audubon: “The sleaziest hotel on the most beautiful avenue on the world.”

 Spradlin remembers the night vividly. A transvestite bartender performed to songs by Journey and Reba McIntyre. “And to the Journey song,” he recalls, “she did splits and was naked on that dirty floor, and we thought we were going to die. It was so hysterical."

Today, the Audubon has a well-deserved reputation as a haven for inspired kinkiness. Consider that in June 1999, 600 people paid a $5 cover charge to attend Fetish Fest. Sponsored by Mr. Blinky’s Adult Video store, and billed as “an erotically charged night of art, performance and fashion,” it featured an arousing collaboration between artists and fetishists. Thanks largely to minimal on-site management and a consciously non-commercial atmosphere, artists "sort of think of the place as their own."

Inside the Audubon Thanks largely to minimal on-site management and a consciously non-commercial atmosphere, artists "sort of think of the place as their own."

“We put up plastic over the doors of the hotel rooms and cut a hole, like a peep hole,” says Spradlin. In each room volunteers enacted, er, depicted, a fetish.

“We had a foot fetish, an old-man-in-high-heels fetish, the stocks-and-locks and all that—you know, the bind-you-up fetish,” Spradlin continues, not to mention fetishes involving feathers, drag queens and sex toys. Also presented, on stage in the bar downstairs: what Spradlin describes as “a major dominatrix show.”

Though the scene at the Audubon has certainly taken on a higher profile of late, attracting a procession of photographers, videographers and other cognoscenti of fringe subcultures, Spradlin, who also owns the swanky Red Room on St. Charles Ave., says the “underlying theme” has remained constant: “It’s the place where you walk in and no one’s going to turn their head, whether you’re , white, pink, purple or etcetera.”

Beaded antique mannequin Commissions for pieces like this provided Lawson with some of his first real income from beadwork.

Amid this milieu of misfits and struggling artists—which in some ways is reminiscent of Night of Joy, the French Quarter bar depicted in John Kennedy Toole’s novel Confederacy of Dunces—Lawson took it upon himself to keep a watchful eye out for his brethren. Noting that the artist has a “kind of has this fatherly, authoritative side to him,” Spradlin says he took to calling him “den mother.” “How’s the den mother today?” Spradlin would ask. “Tell me how the children are. ”Truth be told, the Audubon’s hipster “children,” just like the crowd that hung out at Andy Warhol’s fabled studio in New York in the 1970s, at times have exhibited a tendency to overindulge. And sadly, in February 1998, the hedonistic lifestyle promoted by the establishment wound up claiming the life of co-owner Peltier.

Before he died, Peltier, a serious collector of works by undiscovered artists, had commissioned Lawson to bead two antique mannequins. Lawson completed the pieces, along with a third mannequin, for Spradlin, who wanted them for his private collection.

With the money Spradlin paid him, Lawson was able to afford to have a phone installed in his room at the Audubon. “It meant so much to him, having some money,” says Spradlin. At the time, Lawson didn’t even have a bank account, so he wound up entrusting his funds to his patron. “I was his bank,” says Spradlin, who maintained a ledger to keep track of Lawson’s debits.

Continuing to hone his craft, Lawson began beading other objects, such as bongo drums and skulls, as well as flat panels. One of the panels, depicting legendary New Orleans voodoo priestess Marie Laveau, found its way into Bryant Gallery on Royal St. Lawson had a prospective buyer in mind—an acquaintance who owned Marie Laveau’s Voodoo Bar on Decatur St. But Marlene Durel initially resisted the idea of even visiting the gallery, let alone buying something off the wall for her bar. “I never had to walk out my door to get anything special in that place,” she says. “I never had to go out my door to look for one thing. People came to me [with] special, priceless things, and let me have ‘em.”

Beaded bongo drum A decorative object d'art that can still produce a pleasing sound.

Durel not only wound up buying the Marie Laveau panel, but became enthralled with the idea of having Lawson bead a piano for her. This after having seen Junco Partner (which, at the time, was on display at the same gallery).

About a year-and-a-half later, Durel was looking to open a new bar, Marie Laveau Voodoo Two. The owner of a bar at 346 Baronne St., in the Central Business District, had decided not to renew the lease. Durel, who has a gift for telepathy, felt a good vibe about the place, in part because it had an antique Stuyvesant baby grand piano, and acquired the lease. It took some convincing, though, to get the guy who was giving up the space to part with the piano. He was emotionally attached to the old Stuyvesant and initially rebuffed Durel’s offer to buy it, then finally gave in (without knowing what Durel had in mind to do with it). Price: $5,000. (next page)