Australian Country

The art of life

The éclairs are inedible. It’s not that the cream is sour or the pastry has lost its puff, or even the chocolate has melted. It’s more that the sheer scale and size of these gooey planks of deliciousness makes them impossible to eat and maintain even an iota of decorum. We’ve only just met and are sitting down to tea with creative royalty, aka Lin van Hek and Joe Dolce, when we discover there’s nothing like slathering yourself in cream and chocolate to break the ice.

Ever the gracious hosts, Joe and Lin sense our discomfort and scurry back to the kitchen to find spoons and forks and napkins. We settle in for the story of a personal and artistic collaboration that began almost 40 years ago and is still going strong. It’s an amazingly colourful and event-packed journey, proof indeed that truth is indeed, sometimes stranger than fiction.

Lin is an artist, songwriter, singer, author and performer. Joe is a poet, musician, song writer, performer and a passionate

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