Thursday, June 30, 2011

TURNING POINT

Though Cuculapraline-Frenchic has been pouring its spirit since a little more than one year now, things are about to change a little bit. Little by little, we are developing different aspects of our dreams.
Very soon, the Arts & Crafts workshops will start, bringing a whole community of people in love with the making to our doors, and we are so impatient to meet all these potential, sometimes still shy powerful artists. Everybody has skills in the inside, sometimes even not suspected, and we are here to reveal these talents, that is our goal.
Shells in progress


Then, we are also working on the project of building old styled kind of primitive pieces of furniture, responding to the wish of many of our customers. The flea markets are of course full of gorgeous pieces, these are sources of inspiration for us and we want to stick to their primitive, recycled, convenient and efficient, but still beautiful qualities. The new versions will allow us to please people who can't afford the vintage or antique stuff. The economical crisis will not deprive the least fortunate ones. This is a work in progress and we will let you know what is going on later.


Cuculapraline-Frenchic's furniture


We will continue the special orders for customers, since it is a good way to respond to a specific demand and to learn from it each day, your imagination becomes ours as much as we can, and with our own means, nothing is impossible. You will paint Sunflowers if you love Sunflowers!




Art, always in our store, mine, yours, all kind of Arts, we love all the sincere artists. Passion must be there, without passion, there is no Art. We have a thing for artists who recycle, Art is everywhere, the one who knows to recognize beauty in trash is blessed.

And beside the visual Arts, we are passionate about Music, all kinds of musics, yes, I am rather a Pop/Rock person, and the 60s have been the main topic in many of my paintings, especially about The Doors and The Who, more specifically Jim Morrison and Keith Moon, without forgetting Jimi Hendrix.
I precise I am not specialized in dead artists, inspiration comes to me I don't how, it just comes in my dreams, my imagination, a whole world of unexpected images intruding in my mind. They are so real, it's like if I suddenly belonged to the images themselves, and I have to translate them on canvas or in paper mache, it is a very powerful call, I am just the vehicle of this thoughts.
Music has not always been a language for me that I had to translate in strokes of paint, it also belongs to my background : my whole family is musician, I grew up in music, I sang before speaking, I watched the world through harmonies and drums.
That is why I welcome my old friend RON KANE to DJ most of our Artwalk evenings and nights. His musical knowledge in Music is beyond what anybody can imagine. He is a musical encyclopedia all by himself. We have so much fun playing music once a month with different themes each time, and suddenly musicians joined us, and not the least. CRAIG CASEY and his drums was the first one, but then, the amazing violinist DAVID STROTHER added his talent to our already weird and joyful nights. CUCULAPRALINE-FRENCHIC was not anymore only another little French Boutique in the big Los Angeles, it became the place to be, to see, to listen to, to watch, to discover, where the Fun and the Art and the Magic and the Sacred meet.
We plan to explore this magic again with our "musicians family", with other musicians hopefully and we really would love you to join us for our next events to come. Don't hesitate to spread the word, I will let you know what's next.


Ron Kane
David Strother 


David Strother's 1st CD is on sale at Cuculapraline-Frenchic' s. The second one is to come soon.

David Strother's 1st CD

Thursday, June 16, 2011

HOW MUSIC SUITS TO ARTS AND CRAFTS!!!


These last two months, we have had the opportunity to receive in front of our doors, wonderful musicians like David Strother, Craig Casey and Bradley Cook and our favorite DJ Ron Kane to play for us during the Artwalks.
That is amazing how Music creates such a wonderful ambiance in the dark of the night, under the candles light, how our Arts & Crafts creations and vintage items take suddenly a whole other appearance.
The weird thing of the story is that we also got the firetrucks sirens playing for us the whole last June 11th, probably not funny for someone else, but it added to the mysticism of the situation, a horde of cyclists passed by and applauded us, a dog danced for us, a woman came to cry the loss of her old friend, little girls came to make a present to their Mum, old highschool friends re-met after years of separation, it's like if all the magic happened there :
The Magic of Music, the magic of a sacred moment when everything is possible, where beauty is alive, where all the hearts speak.



 Ron Kane in his Glam Rock outfits and David Zimelis, drummer.




 Cuculapraline-Frenchic in the night... 





 David Strother playing, view through Cuculapraline-Frenchic window.
 




Craig Casey and David Strother playing. The pic is blurry but everything is in the movement...




Even blurry, this photo is amazing as well, wish I could put the sound on!

Cuculapraline-Frenchic wants to promote the Arts as much as possible, especially Music, and more CD, more events, more wonderful moments are to come. We hope to see and meet many of you and share with you the Magic of a wonderful night.

David Strother' s CD on sale in our boutique,
More to come soon.