SHREVEPORT, La. -- The Red River Revel is gearing up to bring big crowds to downtown Shreveport starting Thursday. While Festival Plaza has not yet been fully transformed, artists are already deep into their preparations.

Among them is Emily Welch, whose work has graced platters and now even the pages of a storybook. Her latest creation draws inspiration from seasonal ballet and is titled, The Nutcracker: A Swamp Tale .

“So this piece I’m going to call The Pelican . And while I know it doesn’t look like a pelican, in the storybook it talks about the pelicans dancing while camellias and gardenias floated in the air. So this piece is going to be glazed white when it’s fired and it has the camellias and the gardenias,” Welch explained, while working on a piece in her atelier.

For Welc

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