Art

Ryan Tramonte’s watercolors exist within that elusive moment when a glimmer of sunlight escapes through the majestic oak trees that shield New Orleans from the brutal summer sun’s rays and pierces the eye. Ryan’s unique use of vibrant colors, light, and perspective plays with the viewer and even tricks the hypothalamus into thinking one’s own body temperature is rising. His works speak to the tender, benevolent side of the The Big Easy.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think there is something to the old adage “opposites attract.”

Take my sister Neely and me for example. We go to together like peanut butter and jelly, but separate us and you see just how different we really are.

It all began when I got my first bike and permission to leave the safety and overprotection of my family property to drop a letter at the post office for my Aunt Tina. It was like the whole world opened up and there were people everywhere. After I placed the letter in the out-of-town box, I decided to take advantage of my parole. I sat on the inside steps of the post office and watched as everyone from my small Louisiana home town came in and out dropping off packages, buying stamps, and picking up their mail.

Besides raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, flowers are a few of my favorite things; dubbed, by yours truly, as nature’s labor of love. When the dog bites or the bee stings, it is flowers that we use to pull us up out of the dumps and help us to “get it together Mary”, another saying dubbed by yours truly.

The best part about growing up in small town rural Louisiana was plotting to leave as soon as I could. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great childhood. I had my cousins as my best friends, my Maw Maw Toni’s home cooking, I went to private school, took art lessons, slept late, and didn’t have a care in the world. Life was perfect, except that it was there in that small town. I would sit in my bedroom and wonder what the rest of the world was like. I would imagine joining African safaris in the summer. In the winter, I envisioned myself surrounded by snow—anywhere.