Patchouli Concert in Memory of Bruce Hecksel

Join Julie Patchouli on Saturday, January 31, at the new Piazza Stage at Mercato-Naples for a concert to remember Bruce Stanton Hecksel, who passed away peacefully on July 28th 2025, from stroke complications and cryptococcus meningitis, after a three-year miracle healing of stage IV cancer.

Bruce was a master guitarist and performed over 5,000 concerts in the acoustic duo Patchouli and Terra Guitarra, which he formed with his wife, Julie, in the late nineties. The duo was very well known in Southwest Florida from all the events they performed regularly in the season at Johnsonville Night Lights at the Naples Botanical Garden, Marco Island Center for the Arts, Artis-Naples, Third Street South events, and many other venues in Florida and around the country.

Bruce was also a prolific visual artist and talented painter with a unique style, and together he and Julie created "The Landscape of Guitar," an animated painting concert they toured to theatres around the world, after its debut at Bonita Center for the Arts in 2016.

They also opened the Terra Guitarra Fine Art Gallery and Studio in April 2025, with over 80 of Bruce's original paintings hung on the walls, and where Bruce could paint on the days they weren't traveling for shows.

The duo had released 22 albums in their career and were almost finished recording their 23rd album when Bruce died.

Julie has recently completed the new album, "Everything it Takes," which releases in February on CD, digital formats, and streaming. You can learn more about it and purchase it from their website www.patchouli.net.

A Celebration of Life service was held in September in west Wisconsin near their home on the Mississippi River. The couple has spent their last 15 winters in Southwest Florida entertaining.