What a big day! With our visit to Item still firing our imaginations, Ron and I hopped a train to Marseille to visit our very dear friend Claire. Claire met us at Cafe Danaides with a group of old friends and we made a plan to see San Francisco band, Lords of Altamont, who were coincidentally playing that night at l’Embobineuse a cool punk rock watering-hole. Bonus, Pakito Bolino of Le Dernier Cri – the masterful silkscreen printer, film-maker and book publisher was showing new works at the club too! Now that is timing.

The festivities opened with anarchic rockers Daniel Burros:

Lords of Altamont. Keyboard went on the blink – so they rocked out while Ron and I supplied fresh beers…

Pakito Bolino, me and Ron

Next day Claire and Indra picked us up to go to Danielle Jacqui’s studio, then on to Danielle’s home for a delicious home-cooked dinner. Danielle has been incredibly prolific in the years we have missed visiting with her. She is in the process of making a monumental work of ceramic art in pieces which will be constructed into an enormous building in a park outside Marseille in the village of Auberge. The pieces are assembled on the floor and numbered, packed away to make room for the next huge outpouring of amazing art! Danielle is the most inspiring artist! The picture below represents a fraction of the total, monumental work of art, all created over a two year period. (Click image to see larger) Unbelievable!

Our little tradition – when visiting Danielle – is that we bring dessert…

Danielle’s beautiful works on paper

Danielle sews these most imaginative dolls and writes beautiful poems – there is no end to her creativity!

Thank you Danielle for such a delicious dinner and deeply inspiring visit! Your art is hanging on my wall in my studio to guide me!

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And after all this we went swimming from the rocky coast at Cassis, had a light meal and a walk home past some graffiti to Claire’s.