A Chat with: Guylaine Lafontant Danache

Paralleling the train tracks, a neck extension away from hip downtown Hollywood Boulevard, lies streets of squatty chalk white storefronts. Nestled among spaces with papered for lease signs, is an understated studio thick with artists inside. There are no windows and a cylindrical pendant spotlight hangs from a cement overhang.  The number is a well worn bronze on a faded terra cotta door.  It’s no wonder I passed the address twice.  Inside, there is a wall with a display of ceramics and pamphlets interrupting the flow of traffic almost immediately. There is a light fog of dust hanging in the air.  The space smells like wet cement. To the left there appears to be a studio for classes, but Guylaine Danache Lafontant welcomes me to the right, where a large worktable with wooden legs painted in sun yellow, takes up most of the space.  The walls are lined with mismatched shelves of drying ceramics. Guylaine extends her wrist in form of a handshake as both her hands are gloved in a white powder.  I am met also by the innovator behind Haitianista, Rasha Cameau, and they immediately start in French, getting on and laughing, to which the trend continues and Guylaine answers, mostly in French, the entire interview. Guylaine has a few finished pieces on the square work station protecting a flattened clay piece slightly larger than a Frisbee. She keeps her focus on her latest project, carefully slicing, squaring off the edges, while answering the questions.  For someone who ‘awoke’ a year ago, she exhibits a confidence about her skills.  She is dressed in a long sleeved button down white shirt, jeans and wedged flip flops—in a ceramic studio!  The dirtiest thing in there was a clay smeared water bottle standing guard at the corner of her piece in progress. Clearly, she is a more controlled artist than I.  I would look like I worked in a clay mine all day, smeared eyelids and all working a piece the size of a tea light holder.Occasionally she turns away from her work to answer questions.  Her hands move as she expresses herself, eyes squinting when she gets excited about a question. Having an urge to provide some aid post earthquake, Guylaine volunteered in Haiti the fall of 2010.  She was working with organizing artisans, when during that process she realized, “Voila!  That’s it!”  Even though ceramics was something she was not familiar with, she had an innate artisanal sense. The one piece my eyes are continually drawn to is a deep garnet, beet colored vessel, organic in shape as if you partially opened a crumpled piece of paper.  This fire glazed bowl of sorts has scrolls and tendrils etched on the outside and the inside is a mottling of moss and seaweed greens.  The piece sits on an umber brown base, also fire glazed, but looks like she recreated a section mangled Banyan root from the everglades. “I can’t do anything symmetrical,” Guylaine says massaging her clay disk.  She’s pressing a strip she just cut away, back onto the edge.  “I have to express myself, the wheel annoys me.” She says she can do it, but always has to ‘add to it’ afterwards. The other pieces on the table, larger with grapes or sunflowers on them, are also decorative pieces.  Some of her pieces are functional, she says. The adjoining room she walks into is filled with a small village of busy artists working at the tables, all renting the space, gathering at a communal kiln. The divider wall is cut out and painted in what I thought were Gauguin inspired colors: cornflower, periwinkle blue and lime. She returns with a long rectangular piece.  “It’s a bread holder.” She delicately fingers the edges, smoothing out imperfections only visible to her.  The lidded piece, long enough to hold a Cuban baguette, has a thick handle resembling half a cuff bracelet and is embellished again, by Guylaine’s signature scrolls, leaves, and grape vines. “My pieces, if I were home with my own kiln take about a week beginning to end, but because we share the kiln and shelf space, each piece takes about three weeks.” When we ask what else she’s done, Guylaine rattles off events she’s participated in and how she’s been interviewed by Channel 2, NBC-6, Island TV.  She attended Women in Production in Miami, and plans to attend next year. She’s interested in designing jewelry. “I like oversized. For me, everything (at the convention) was too delicate.” Her issue, she finds when attending shows is that she’s too eclectic.  “They want me to create a line.”  Her hands gesticulate wildly.  “I’m inspired, I do something.  I don’t like to feel confined.” She also wants to design clothing that she would wear. “I love fashion.”  She continues to emphasize how her line would focus on designs that would hide, for her, stomach and thighs, yet be elegant accentuating other areas some women feel more confident about—legs, neckline. We continue to talk about the future, she squints, smiles and says she inherited property from her father and she would like her company, “Creation Ifé” a nod to African roots and a region known for terra-cotta works, to build an art school not restricted to ceramics.  “I love helping people.” She wants to raise funds to build the vocational school.  “I want my students to learn not to ask.  Produce and sell.  It’s taking a long time though,” she says sadly of the progress not moving fast enough.  Baby steps though.  First, she has to raise enough funds to build a wall around the property for security purposes.  “As a woman, I need to feel secure.”  She doesn’t want her future students work pillaged or vandalized. The interview ends with a visit to her house where every corner and ledge is filled with her unique creations: fruit platters, bowls, tall bottles and plant holders.  She shows us a set of tall decorative pieces. She lifts the top two-thirds portion of the bottle by the neck, an undulating edge masks where the bottle splits, revealing a wine bottle inside.   It’s another unique and an elegant gift idea. (I have racks and wine chiller, one of these would not suffice, but it makes for an impressive presentation, far beyond the fabric ones with a drawstring tie at the neck.) With her grown children long gone, Guylaine Lafontant Danache diligently works everyday at the studio, extending the edges of her talent, dusting them with creativity and a vision that rolls out beyond her philanthropist years. We wish her all the best. For more information you can reach her at: gdanache@hotmail.com