Loveday Funck

There are few things the book community loves more than a good phrase, something that works as a wink, a badge, a sticker on a Kindle case. A little password between strangers who understand that reading isn't just a hobby but a personality with excellent lighting. For the last few years, "Hot Girls Read" has been that phrase. It was funny and a little ridiculous in the way the internet does best, flipping the old image of the lonely, awkward reader on its head. Yes, we read.

Long ago, in the strange and wonderful early days of Etsy, you could find almost anything. Handmade earrings. Vintage teacups. Dollhouse furniture. Spell jars. Haunted objects. Possibly a cursed brooch. Definitely at least one listing that made you pause and whisper, “Wait. Is this real?” One of my favorite little internet oddities from that era was the adoptable ghost cat. For a few dollars, a seller would send you a printable certificate confirming that a ghost cat from the

When I first started doing art markets, one of my early digital collage pieces was Poe and the Raven. It featured Edgar Allan Poe, naturally, because apparently I have always been exactly who I am. A woman came into my booth one day and got excited because she recognized him. Now, a sensible artist might have said, “Yes, that’s Poe! I’m so glad you noticed.” A wise artist might have talked about the piece, the process, the antique imagery, the raven, the whole haunted literar

Why cats keep appearing in my work, and what they seem to know before I do Some stories arrive with castles, ghosts, or ruined gardens. Mine often arrive with whiskers. Cats keep finding their way into my work, and not only because people love them, though they certainly do. A cat can hold a kind of presence that feels larger than its body. It can look elegant and feral at once. It can seem perfectly at home in a velvet chair, a moonlit alley, the corner of an old porch, or t

I fell in love with New Orleans when I was young, and I think that was always how it was meant to happen. She isn’t a city you admire from a safe distance. She gets under your skin: through the old houses, the hidden courtyards, and the music drifting out of nowhere. She seduces you with the feeling that even an ordinary street corner might be keeping a secret. When I was younger, I loved her for the drama of it all: the beauty, the mystery, all the endless beautiful details

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about evolution, about reinvention, and about third spaces; about the beautiful, strange fact that a life can keep opening long after you were told it was supposed to be settled. When I was a kid, I think a lot of us absorbed the same message: figure out what you want to do early, choose it once, and then stay in that lane forever. That idea felt enormous to me then, and honestly, it feels absurd to me now. A life is not a single choice. A crea

This past weekend, I had the joy of being part of BREC’s Arts Fest, and I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you. Thank you to everyone at BREC for creating space for local artists, makers, and dreamers to share what we do. Events like this matter. They bring people together, spark conversations, and remind me how much I love being part of a creative community here in Louisiana. I’m deeply grateful for the work that goes into making festivals like this happen. Thank yo

There are seasons where it feels like everything is stepping into the light at once, a little rain-soaked, a little nerve-wracked, and very alive. The biggest news is that my book, The Woman Who Wasn’t Always , is now available on Amazon. That still feels a little wild to say. This story has lived with me for a long time, and seeing it finally out in the world feels both surreal and deeply meaningful. If you love strange, beautiful, liminal stories with heart, I hope you’ll c

Ambrose Saltmere went to his forever home yesterday, after the Swamp Art Spectacular at BREC’s Bluebonnet Swamp. Some pieces arrive fully themselves. Ambrose always felt that way to me. There was never a moment where I wondered who he was. He carried that slow, watchful presence from the beginning, like something that had already lived a long life along the shoreline before I ever put ink to paper. The couple who took him home had reached out earlier in the week, just to make

From the Market Table to the Mic Tonight, I tried something a little different. I headlined at the Boomerang, and instead of a string of punchlines, I told a ten-minute story about Wales and colonialism. History braided through humor like it had somewhere important to be. Colonialism might not be the most obvious choice for a comedy set. It went… okay. Not in a catastrophic way. Not in a standing ovation, I have ascended to comedic legend way either. Just somewhere honest in

A Good Market, A Gentle Shift A Good Market, A Gentle Shift This past market was a good one. Not in a flashy, sell-everything way, but in the way that matters more to me: people lingered. They asked questions. They picked things up, held them, put them back down, then came back again. The Unbelongings were especially well received. A few of the prints sold for a reason I didn’t expect but loved immediately. More than one person said some version of: “It makes me smile. And y

There’s a particular kind of quiet that happens before the first market of the year. Not the calm kind, more like the hush right before something announces itself. Bins get stacked and unstacked. Corners of prints are checked with more tenderness than they probably need. Fabrics are folded, unfolded, refolded. Pieces that have traveled with me for years sit beside pieces that still feel almost too new to touch. This is the moment before the tent goes up. And this year, it fee

There’s a moment right before you do something brave where your brain starts offering very reasonable alternatives. You could wait. You could prepare more. You could decide this isn’t the right season. This week, I didn’t listen to that voice. I took the “Get Your Bit Together” class at the Boomerang Comedy Theater with JQ Palms (amazing experience!). I signed up for open mics. I stood onstage and did my first proper stand-up performance, with my hands shaking and my heart

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been sharing a body of work I call the Unbelongings . They are complete pieces. Finished, named, ready to go where they need to go. They don’t ask for context. They don’t require a backstory. They simply wait to be recognized. But they are not the only things I’ve been working on. The Unbelongings came from a place of drawing and discovery. Each one arrived whole, as if it already knew who it was. I met them one at a time. Gave them names. Let th

I hope the turn of the year has been kind to you. I took a small winter pause to listen, to make, and to gather my thoughts for the months ahead. What returned to me, again and again, was one word: Sovereignty. Not the loud kind.The quiet kind.The kind that means standing inside your own life and saying: This is mine. Out of that listening came a new body of work I’ve been holding close for some time now. I call them The Unbelongings. They are small, strange beings who never

From New Orleans With Magic: A Creator’s Reflection on Winter Work There’s a particular quality to winter light in New Orleans, softened, slanted, almost secretive. It feels like a season that leans in close to whisper, Keep going. There are stories here. I’ve been feeling that a lot lately, moving between my studio table, my microphone, and the chilly outdoor markets where I set up my booth before sunrise. December stretches itself across so many corners of my life that some

This week began with a strange little dream: a small three-headed alligator with mismatched eyes and bright jaws. A creature that wasn’t dangerous, just unusual. Just itself. In the dream, everyone wanted to destroy it “before it could bite,” while all I wanted was for us to simply walk around it, to coexist with something strange and beautiful rather than fear it. I’ve been thinking about that dream a lot as I prepare for this weekend’s Pop-Up at Perkins Rowe (Friday, Satu

Three Rivers was radiant. Maybe it was the touch of cool in the morning air. Maybe it was the crowds drifting past like migrating birds, each one carrying a story. Maybe it was the way Covington itself seemed to exhale magic: buildings humming, trees leaning in, the whole place whispering, “Yes, yes, come on then, let’s see what you’ve brought with you.” Or maybe it was simply this: Every time someone stopped at my booth, it felt like a small miracle. There’s something almost

The tents are folded, my Kia is half-unloaded, and there’s still a faint shimmer of salt air in my hair from Ocean Springs. The Peter Anderson Festival is behind me for another year, but the glow of it lingers: the laughter of fellow artists, the hum of live music drifting through the streets, and the kind faces who stopped by my booth to share a story, a smile, or simply to look a little longer. There’s a special kind of magic in those weekends. They’re long and messy and fu

Every so often, a creative challenge arrives at just the right time, that gentle nudge to see the world differently. Last week’s Paris Collage Collective prompt sparked one of those moments for me. The image we were given, a bright, graphic cactus, made me think about perception, color, and how we interpret the familiar through a new lens. So, I went wandering through my photo archives and found myself returning to my favorite New Orleans trees: the ancient oaks. But this ti