Artist arrested for graffiti on New Orleans building offers to paint a mural in its place

Artist Josh Wingerter found himself locked up in the Orleans Justice Center on Tuesday. He and a fellow artist, Paco Lane, had been arrested on Franklin Avenue in broad daylight, accused of defacing the former Frankie & Johnnie furniture store with graffiti. “The whole experience was pretty horrible,” Wingerter said in an interview Thursday. The NOPD officer who hauled the pair in “was a really nice guy,” Wingerter said. But jail was awful. He said he was confined in a room with 21 other detainees. His roommates, he said, were cool, but the place was chilly and blankets were scarce. In the course of his roughly 26-hour stay, he said he ate only a slice of bread. The hot meal – a hot dog on rice – wasn’t especially appetizing. Artist Josh Wingerter in his studio in Westwego, La., Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. Matthew Perschall An art star is born Wingerter, 38, is a star on the New Orleans art scene. He first made his mark at the start of the COVID quarantine. When the Frenchmen Street entertainment was shut down, Wingerter painted a series of popular small murals on the plywood panels over the windows of the nightclubs and...