Frenchy first noticed Steve Gleason in 2001, his first season as the Saints' live sideline artist, because of the energy Gleason brought to the field. Their paths kept crossing off the field too, on Monday nights at the Maple Leaf Bar, where Frenchy painted Papa Grows Funk while Gleason danced.
In this Artist Waves collection, Frenchy remembers the night the Superdome reopened after Hurricane Katrina, September 25, 2006. He cried walking onto the turf before kickoff, traded a low-five with Gleason, and afterward headed back to his Oak Street studio across from the Maple Leaf. Later came fundraisers together, and a session painting with the Gleason family in Frenchy's gallery while ESPN filmed a Monday Night Football special.
“When I think of what Steve means to this community it's one word, 'hope'.”
Frenchy, in Artist Waves
