Une Anniversaire

Saturday afternoon, from 1-5pm, was a workday for me. This was the time I had scheduled to make prints in the gravure (etching) studio here.
I am not etching but making monotypes using the etching press in that studio. My way of working is to make the plates first, in the few days before my printing time, in my own atelier (also my living space) and then to use the press time only to print the plates. This maximizes my limited time well. To print monotypes has turned out to be a good decision.
I also had had the studio last Wednesday night from 5- 9pm and I get it again on Tuesday night and Wednesday après-midi this week. All negotiating and booking is done in French, so I have learned the terminology vite (quickly)!
> Saturday night, after printing, I went to a birthday party (40) for my friend, Minna Raskinen, from Finland. She gave herself a party at a restaurant near the Cité called Trumilou and it was so interesting that it was worth including here. She is a musician, a performer playing a Finnish harp called the kantele and she played at her party Saturday night with two musicians from Cameroon, one on percussion (Jean Calvin Yugye) and the other on the guitar (Valdo Muntu). After the sparkling wine and hors d’oeuvres there was the concert and then a Dutch treat dinner, which she had arranged in a private room for 22 Euros, including wine, per person. I was the only American there and was certainly honored to have been included. In fact, I was I was in charge of taking the pictures (needed).

There were people at the party from South Africa, Japan, Spain, Israel, Iran, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Egypt, Canada, England, Finland and France and I am sure I missed a few. The music was improvised. Minna had not ever played with the African musicians before they rehearsed and played on Friday and it quite an unusual performance with a unique sound. I am including a picture of Calvin Yugye and his percussion instrument, which was not like anything I had ever seen before.

One of the musicians from the Cité recorded the music so maybe there will be a sound track I could put with my new slide show of the evening. I took over 200 pictures. See me this winter.