• By ROBIN MILLER
• Arts writer
• Published: Jun 14, 2009

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They didn’t paint the town on their girls’ night out; they photographed it.

Painting would come after discovery of the other girls, those standing in the shop window frozen in time and space. Literally.

The story is almost like a movie plot, where mannequins somehow come to life. And life, in this case, emerges in bright watercolors.

That’s when shop girls take on expression and attitude, when they appear to be of the world, not just merely in it.

Which is the intent of the five girls who originally set out to photograph the town. They specifically were photographing scenes in New Orleans’ French Quarter when they happened upon the Fleur de Paris.

That’s the name of the shop where the other girls were frozen in time, mannequins who were so lifelike in vintage outfits from the 1920s and 1930s.

Anyone who has wandered the Quarter from time to time probably has seen the shop’s window on the edge of Pirate’s Alley, just behind the St. Louis Cathedral. It’s since relocated a block away on Royal Street, this time with no front window.

Which is kind of sad for anyone on the lookout for the mannequins, curious as to what they’d be wearing next.

But don’t despair. Fans of the shop girls will be able to get a glimpse of them throughout the summer when the exhibit The Four Seasons: Watercolors opens today with a 2 p.m. reception in the West Baton Rouge Museum in Port Allen.

The exhibit runs through Aug. 30 and features more than 35 watercolor paintings by local artists Monica Bishara, Carol Creel, Karen Larmeu Stakelum, Kathy Miller Stone and Jan Wilken.

They’re the ladies who stepped out on the town that particular night, the ones who saw possibilities in frozen faces.

“We’re all members of the Louisiana Watercolor Society, and we were attending a watercolor workshop in New Orleans,” Stone said. “Our instructor was from Missouri. He talked to us about photographing scenes and told us if we wanted to go into the French Quarter that night, he could help us with the photography.”

Eight artists took up the offer, walking the narrow bricked streets, photographing people, street scenes and exteriors of Bourbon Street bars. The group took a turn on Royal Street somewhere along the way and ended up beside the wrought iron fence where Jesus raises his hands high above the cathedral’s prayer garden.