Jim Phillips
Opelousas, LA
Storyteller, performer & folk artist—writing, building, and sharing culture with humor, heart, and a love of sustainable fun.
Message
I am an educator, artist, builder, and lifelong advocate of “sustainable fun.” With a master’s degree in Education, I founded and ran both a private Montessori school and The Gourmet Language School for Children in Northern California. These ventures taught me the power of hands‑on learning and community‑centered education. I later became certified to evaluate Louisiana’s Special Education and Gifted and Talented arts programs, broadening my expertise across visual art, theatre and music.
My creative work spans folk art, design, and construction. As a portrait artist, I specialise in watercolour and charcoal—sometimes enriched with oil pastels—and have completed more than forty commissioned portraits. I’m also a photographer; since the 1970s I’ve been developing “Mandala Photography,” a technique I’ve explored in both film and digital formats. The first public glimpse of this method was at a 1991 Open Studio in San Francisco.
Starting in 2006 I designed and built The Whirlybird Tower Studio and Artist Residency from recycled and repurposed materials. It serves as a home for my art and stands as part of a multi‑year folk art, design and architectural project. Alongside my wife, I also helped create The Whirlybird, a folk‑art honky tonk in South Louisiana. Since the early 2000s we’ve hosted more than 300 cultural and artistic events there, celebrating music, storytelling and community. All of these endeavors reflect my belief that art and education can coexist with sustainability—that creativity is at its best when it leaves space for joy, reuse, and a little mischief.
Statement
I am an eclectic folk artist whose work spans painting, photography, writing, building, and performance. My focus is to reflect and celebrate cultural richness—both in my local community and across the wider world. Whether through watercolor and charcoal portraits, my distinctive Mandala Photography, or the folk-art structures I design and build, I aim to honor the traditions, values, and stories that shape human experience.
My practice extends beyond visual mediums into writing and live performance, where I explore consciousness, memory, and community through storytelling and music. At The Whirlybird—a folk art honky tonk in South Louisiana that I built with my wife—we have hosted more than 300 cultural events. These gatherings bring together voices across genres and generations, embodying what I call “sustainable fun”: art that reuses, reimagines, and regenerates joy.
Blending traditional handmade craft with recycled and digital materials, I experiment constantly—pushing toward fresh images, new rhythms, and shared moments of connection. Across brush, lens, and voice, my art is one ongoing invitation: to see more clearly, to listen more deeply, and to find harmony in the vibrant mix of human stories.