The Pure Light of Franck Danican: "créatif dans l'âme"

I met Franck Danican because he liked my art, which he'd seen on Facebook. He approached me with the request to do a drawing for him - using him as a model with complete free reign to do anything I wanted with the image. I did so - and found it absorbing. So have dozens of other artists he's asked to do the same thing, with the result that he has an amazing virtual gallery of extraordinary work. 

To meet Franck is to understand why we all succumbed so freely to him: he is a pure light. I admit to being wary at the beginning: most models and fashion designers (both of which he is) are stereotypically prone to me-me-me "Ego" difficulties, to put it mildly: Franck is not one of them. He radiates a sense of joy and freedom which are contagious. His story which begins in his having been born in French Guadeloupe, takes him to France and now to New York, is one of the more inspiring New York stories I've encountered. Here's his intro to his 2018 calendar "Marogani":

"When I first saw the Statue of Liberty, I didn’t see her holding up a flame. “C’est un pinceau!” is what I thought: a paintbrush. Born in the French island of Guadeloupe, moving in my early teens to France to study fashion and become a designer, and now in New York, where I am a model, designer and am further exploring the interface of art and fashion, I realized, more deeply, not only in my own life but to uncountable others, liberty can be reached through art.

My grandmother would have been amazed at the journey I’ve taken to this liberty. She called me Marogani, creole for Mahogany, because my skin was the color of that wood and I was as strong as mahogany – hence the title of my new 2018 calendar. I selected twelve colors and asked artists with very different styles to collaborate with me (using me as the model) on the images you see here. How readily and gladly they agreed! Their generosity and the quality of their art powerfully moved me. Through their art they revealed aspects of me I had never before been able to see. Now arrayed into a calendar, each month a celebration of a different artist, I hope these images will underscore another and far greater message: if the paintbrush is to bring us to any kind of freedom, one way it can do so is by giving us the widest possible range of points-of-view of artists who hold that brush, and evoke angles of vision we’ve not before encountered. Our vision widens as the happy result."

Franck's curiosity about and interest in and desire to aid the careers of artists bespeaks his generous nature. Since he's been in New York he's staged three fashion shows in Times Square, met with and worked with the biggest artists and designers in New York, and in general has made himself increasingly known in the fields of both fashion and art. He's regularly featured in European magazines and interviewed. Two YouTube videos are here affixed - one of a sort of 'day in the life' of Franck Danican, interview in French (his native language):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpjou5QuM6I

the second an array of the artist Manolo Yanes' depictions of him as "The Black Clown." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF7OrnjR0AA

Here's the cover and January layout for "Marogani":

and an interview done with Franck in Elle Magazine:

one of his monthly features in Polis, this for August 2017, some of the drawings done of him by numerous artists (a few, including mine - upper left, will be found in "Marogani")

Here he is leaping in a Levis ad, New York

here's a link to his designs for french singer Joelle Ursull in Fashion Republik: 

http://www.fashionrepublik.com/franck-danican-for-french-singer-joelle-ursull/

and about his haute couture collection also in Fashion Republik:

http://www.fashionrepublik.com/franck-danican-brings-back-old-glamour/

and a piece in French about him appropriately titled "créatif dans l'âme"

and then dive into the Google feast of info about him:

https://www.google.com/search?q=franck+danican+fashion&oq=franck+danican+fashion&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i160k1.6560.7461.0.7956.8.7.0.0.0.0.332.917.0j1j2j1.4.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..4.4.915...33i21k1.0.yNWoPbyYSgo

Let him into your imagination! And if you speak French, meet him - talking with him will make you want to speak it: you'll get better at it.

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If you're interested in contacting him directly, he invites you to do so: FranckDanican@yahoo.com or by phone or text: 917 340 9932

He has a capacious and brilliantly illustrated page on Facebook, continually updated with pics and info: feel free to friend him and contact him there too: 

https://www.facebook.com/franck.danican?lst=604217898%3A1192585289%3A1507999928

I'm not only Franck Danican's friend; I'm his assistant. If you'd like to order the 8x8 wall calendar Marogani, please contact me - Guy Kettelhack - 212 253 9709  -  GuyBlakeKett@aol.com.  Or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/guy.kettelhack

I can arrange to send you the extrarodinary exhibition on a wall Marogani (2018) really is. It sells for $40, plus mailing. Of course, if you're in New York, I'm sure I can arrange to hand it to you personally, so no mailing involved. You may have to shake my hand or something however.

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It's rare that I feel so strongly about wanting myself to help give someone the spotlight I think Franck Danican deserves. You know this is true if you know me. But Franck Danican is a burst of pure light. To be with him is to feel more alive than you did before you met him. He deserves heralding.