Charles Mammarot Archives

Primus Santa Barbara, California

Friday, October 21, 2011

17.75 x 25.25

Edition of 200

3 colors on archival white paper

Signed and Numbered

SOLD OUT – Thank You!

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I drew my Primus design the first thing in the morning the day I arrived in Paris, literally waking up after San Francisco’s Rock Poster Society’s Festival of Posters, in France, a little stunned, drinking morning coffee with my friends Léna Balacco who owns Sésame where I had my Paris poster show last Thursday. I started drawing right away laughing and rapping with Léna and husband Charles and their daughter Elvis, my god-daughter. Elvis likes dinosaurs and mythical monsters – so I drew this poster for her on a scrap of paper.

My good friend and former apprentice from the Beaux Arts, Alexandre d’Huy (who printed with me in Milan when I worked there) came over as I finished the drawing and color seps. Alex handed me a motorcycle helmet, and I hopped on the back of his Vespa and we flew across Paris to the silkscreen film-positive maker (a place with thousands of 1950s and 60s French movie posters hanging all over the walls) and made poster film separations. We buzzed south through Paris along the river on his Vespa to his studio in Vitry-en-Seine, a commie town with PCF posters everywhere, and I joked at a stoplight that we should use red, yellow and black like the commie posters pasted all around us, because you just can’t go wrong with that color scheme. Here’s a few photos of Alex and me printing in his secret graffiti lab in Paris.

Alex and I left the posters to dry and went to a little funk club called Les Oubliettes near Notre Dame on the Left Bank and climbed down a steep stone stair case to the catacomb cellar where Hemingway listened to jazz in the 1920’s, and we drank a couple beers in celebration. My San Francisco friend Jorge Gamboa put it nicely, “Chuck came outta cartooning. He hangs out with ultra uber wierdo French cartoonists in France. Him doin’ this in France makes sense. I like it. Primus is a goofy band anyway.”

Primus once called their music psychedelic polka. I was feeling the absurdity of that. Check this out – I flew from San Francisco to Paris to make a poster for a band from San Francisco – and then overnighted the poster back to California the next day – now THAT is goofy!

After making our show for a week at the Glastonbury Music Festival, Ron and I took the long train ride to Paris from Bristol. We had been out of contact for a week or more and we were driven to show up right on time for our big Paris show at Sesame, the restaurant / gallery owned by our very dear friend Lena Balacco, at 51 quai de Valmy, Paris 75010. Good news, Lena has extended our very successful show at Sesame until September 6th, 2010.

We arrived by cab just in time. Lena gave me a running hug that just about knocked me over! The show looked beautiful! What a fantastic night! It was so great to catch up with all my old friends there. Lena and her husband Charles Mammarot and their daughter (my adorable God-daughter Elvis) have made such a beautiful life here at the edge of the canal St. Martin. We stayed here in Paris for a week, and really fell into a sweet life, hanging out with Lena and Charles and brother Jin Balacco, criss-crossing Paris on moped, playing petanque in the square nearby, having great dinners, visiting old friends, like my very good friend Alexandre D’Huy and his girlfriend Atsoupe. Here’s some pictures of the show, life with Charles and Lena and fun evenings at the edge of the canal.

Jin and Lena – Sesame and show (click image for larger view):