The Northeast Louisiana Arts Council presents BLEND, from 5-7:30pm Sunday, May 3, 2026, at Bayou Pointe on the ULM Campus.
This is the first time for BLEND to be at Bayou Pointe, but it returns it to a bayou setting with Bayou Desiard as the backdrop. BLEND features local cooks in addition to selected restaurants all serving tastings of their best culinary creations, a silent art auction featuring some of the area’s finest visual artists, along with exciting music round out the evening.
Ticket proceeds and a portion of silent auction bids benefit the Northeast Louisiana Arts Council’s programs and services.
The event centers around a wide array of food and beverages prepared and served by area professionals and business owners who generously volunteer their time and talents in support of the Arts Council. Included are select local restaurants and cooks.
Blend of the Bayou debuted in 1997 and is the granddaddy of arts fundraising events of its type in northeast Louisiana. Merging with the Arts Council’s North Delta Food & Wine Festival after COVID in 2022 to create BLEND, many of the cooks have been involved through the years, helping continue the legacy of Blend of the Bayou. Over the years a number of younger cooks have joined the ranks and are helping carry on the tradition.
Attendees have an opportunity to view and bid on original artwork by some of our leading Region 8 visual artists. The Bayou Gallery silent auction is hugely popular with attendees and affords them the chance to bid and win unique original artwork to take home that evening.
Music is an integral part of BLEND. This year the Arts Council is featuring Legacy Strings. An exciting and fun group of local string musicians…think candlelight concerts.
Local and area distributors will be providing select beverages to quench your thirst as you enjoy the beautiful setting of Bayou Desiard. Water is provided by King Springs Water.
For the latest information and updates, go to the Arts Council’s Facebook page and website at www.nelaarts.org/nela-arts-events/
Vote for your favorite arts organization:
Arts Awards 2026 Voting | Northeast Louisiana Arts Council
TRANSCRIPT:
**[00:00]**
**Cory Crowe:** Welcome to Lanyap, a program about events, issues, and people. I'm Cory Crowe. I'm here today with Barry Stevens from the Northeast Louisiana Arts Council. How are you doing, Cory?
**[00:15]**
**Barry Stevens:** I'm doing great, Barry. And it is that time of year, springtime. It's warming up, the birds, and it's all beautiful out on the bayou. And one of the biggest events of the year is coming up.
**[00:30]**
**Cory Crowe:** That's right. Springtime in Northeast Louisiana means Blend. Blend, for the folks that don't know, is what?
**[00:40]**
**Barry Stevens:** Blend is the Northeast Louisiana Arts Council's largest fundraising event. It's the oldest fundraising event for the arts in Northeast Louisiana. And this event brings together a whole lot of professional cooks and then some not-so-professionals.
**[01:00]**
**Cory Crowe:** That's right. And I think somebody in this room that I'm talking to was a winner of the almost professional category one year with the world-famous secret jambalaya recipe.
**[01:15]**
**Barry Stevens:** That's right. And you won't tell us what it was.
**[01:20]**
**Cory Crowe:** No, I will not. It was very good. I had a guy next to me, and he was making like a lobster and cream and whatever. And I was like, man, that guy's going to town. I had jambalaya. And he was like, that's the best thing here. Best thing I've ever eaten. And you won.
**[01:40]**
**Barry Stevens:** And we won. I've got them. I should have brought it. It's in the other room to prove we won.
**[01:50]**
**Cory Crowe:** Blend is coming up when?
**[01:55]**
**Barry Stevens:** Sunday, May the 3rd. It's going to be at Bayou Point here on the ULM campus overlooking the bayou there outside. We'll have the cooks out on the deck. So you'll be outside. Little cover there. So you won't have the sun bearing down on you, but it's going to be a beautiful backdrop, and we'll have music from Legacy Strings that'll be playing there. They'll be probably inside. We haven't actually mapped out how we're going to set things up completely yet, but it's going to be a great event. It's a beautiful setting there. And matter of fact, that's what's behind us right now. You can see the beautiful bayou is here. Just think of it from the other side. That's where you're going to be on May the 3rd.
**[02:40]**
**Cory Crowe:** Now, I remember Blend, and you can buy individual tickets, right? But you can buy tables to this too.
**[02:50]**
**Barry Stevens:** That's right. We were trying to simplify it this year. Tickets are individual tickets are $60. You can buy a table for $600.
**[03:00]**
**Cory Crowe:** And tell me what I'm going to get when I buy a ticket or a table.
**[03:10]**
**Barry Stevens:** When you buy either one, you're obviously going to get entrance into the event. You get to eat all you can eat. You can drink all you want to drink. You can listen to all the music you want to listen to and just visit with friends, old and new.
**[03:30]**
**Cory Crowe:** And this is going to be May the 3rd. And tell me a little bit about you're going to make some money that day. A lot of folks don't know what the Arts Council does. So the money that you make that day, what is the Arts Council going to do with it?
**[03:50]**
**Barry Stevens:** We work with 12 parishes in Northeast Louisiana. We work with artists and arts organizations and promote and support the arts. And so the money that we make, this being a fundraiser, goes toward the operations of what we do, supporting and promoting the arts in Northeast Louisiana.
**[04:10]**
**Cory Crowe:** One of the things that's been going on here the last few weeks, people will know about the brown bag concerts, right? That's been running. But you guys have your hands in all sorts of organizations helping them fulfill whatever their missions are.
**[04:30]**
**Barry Stevens:** We do. We administer a state grant program. We have the brown bag concerts. We just recently wrapped up a roundtable series of discussions with artists and arts organizations to find out where do we need to go as an arts community? Where do they think we need to go? And so a lot of that we have a gallery space as well there at our office on Cotton Street in West Monroe. So the funds help run all of this that we have going on.
**[05:00]**
**Cory Crowe:** So you can help out by buying a ticket, buying a table. But then there are some auction items going on as well. Tell me about the auction and how does the auction work?
**[05:15]**
**Barry Stevens:** It's a silent auction. We're going to have almost 30 artists represented. This year, we changed it up a little bit. There'll be one piece, one piece of art from each artist. So you'll have almost 30 pieces of art to look at, to admire, and to bid on. That's what we really want you to do is bid on it. Audie Maxey, who I think a lot of people around here know Audie as the bowl man. And we've got a beautiful bowl that he's given us to auction off. Brooke Foy, professor here at ULM, is going to have one of her sculptures there. And then, of course, we have a lot of visual art, 2D art that you can hang on your wall. We have such a great art community in Northeast Louisiana, and the artists and the work that they do is just phenomenal.
**[06:10]**
**Cory Crowe:** And I guess a lot of these, I mean, this is like a one-of-a-kind piece of art.
**[06:20]**
**Barry Stevens:** It is. You it's not like going to Hobby Lobby, no offense to Hobby Lobby, but you're not going to see this piece anywhere else. So if you want it, you got to bid on it.
**[06:30]**
**Cory Crowe:** All right. So Blend coming up May the 3rd, 5 to 7:30 p.m. at Bayou Point. Barry, tell me about I have some questions about just the Arts Council. And we're starting to see growth here in Northeast Louisiana. Is our arts community growing? I mean, I'm seeing more traffic downtown. I'm seeing more people out eating. What's going on in the arts community?
**[07:00]**
**Barry Stevens:** You know, it's funny you say that. The arts community here really is growing. It feels like everywhere I turn, there's something going on with the arts, whether we're involved in it or not. There's art activity. There's the symphony. There's the Strauss Theater. There's the ballets and all the visual artists that we have. So if you're looking for something to do that involves the arts, there's opportunities here to do that.
**[07:30]**
**Cory Crowe:** You also have a big award ceremony coming up.
**[07:35]**
**Barry Stevens:** We do. The arts awards coming up in June, and we changed that up this year a little bit. You can go on Facebook right now and vote for your favorite artist, arts organization in several different categories.
**[07:50]**
**Cory Crowe:** Barry Stevens, Northeast Louisiana Arts Council. I'm going to go ahead and try to sway the voting right now. Vote for KEDM. We're up for the BART award. That's right. And so you can vote and find out more about KEDM. And find out more by visiting the website, neilaarts.org. You'll find the voting there, and you'll find the info on tickets and more.
**[08:20]**
**Cory Crowe:** Again, Barry, time and place for Blend.
**[08:25]**
**Barry Stevens:** Sunday, May the 3rd, 5 to 7:30 p.m. at Bayou Point. Come out, have a good time, see your friends, make some new friends. And if you're new to the area, it's a great place to mingle and meet new folks.
**[08:40]**
**Cory Crowe:** And eat good.
**[08:45]**
**Barry Stevens:** Oh yeah, you're going to eat good. Find out more about this by visiting our website, kedm.org. And be sure to like and subscribe to our videos. And be sure to go vote at neilaarts.org.
