Artnotes: Heaven is a Place on Earth

 

Dog Rose   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/paper  23.5 x 17"   60 x 43cm  275.00

The other morning I woke up and tried to look at the weather report.   When I illuminated my screen, the phone burst into “heaven is a place on earth”, accompanied by a film of a German shorthaired pointer (Berlino’s closest breed relative) dashing about a field in Eastern Washington.  It was ever so much better than seeing the weather report.  Red Roses in a Vase   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/paper  23.5 x 17"   60 x 43cm  275.00 Berlino wakes every day in a state of joy.   He gets up, shakes his giant jowls (it’s like a round of applause), and jumps off the bed, waiting to be let out.   I, on the other hand, wake up worrying about completely useless things like renewing my driver’s license; did I pay the gas bill; should I adopt Berlino’s brother Denver.  Honesty, I wish I woke up like my dog.   Blue heaven is a place on earth. Long Eggplant  Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/paper  23.5 x 17"   60 x 43cm  275.00   Blair turned 72 this week.  We went out for a delicious Chinese lunch and bought him the new briefcase he wanted.   At the same thrift store, we got THE best ever tabletop easel covered in shells, that seemed like it had been sitting in Neptune’s living room for at least 72 years.  It will be harder for Blair to renew his driver’s license these days.  There’s nothing like thwarting old folks. Fork/Object   Blair Pessemier  Wood  10"  25cm My best friend from high school turns 70 this month.  Her goal is to be the youngest looking 70 year old in the world.  My thoughts immediately turn to turtles, one of whom I saw on the Instagram just turned 140.  He didn’t look a day over 25, near as I could tell. The best news I got this week was that Berlino’s brother, Denver, who’s been in the klink for almost 4 years, got the call, and went to live in a “forever” (god willing) home.  It gave me a tremendous relief.  And I wrote a poem about it. After nearly four years Denver got the call. A beautiful woman inside and out, Rescued him from his cage Does it matter who we love? Man, dog, child, Mother Nature We all need LOVE Blue Heaven is a place on Earth Berlino hoping the rain stops... to see his brother Denver's "rescue" click here.

Artnotes: Progress

4 May 2024  Roccamalatina, MO  ITALIA

Iris  Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/paper  23.5 x 17"   60 x 43cm  275.00

We drove to the beach on Friday – not one of those perfect turquoise-water places, but the closeby, rainbow light, dog-beach at Porto Garibaldi on the Adriatic.   One drives to Bologna, on to Ferrara, and voila – the sea is out there.  Crossing the Po Delta, we saw lots of flamingoes, in and around the risotto ponds.  There are actually 6 species of flamingoes, and these near Ravenna are migrating up from Africa, stopping in Italy.       Berlino was duly impressed with the beach (we didn’t stop to show our bird dog the flamingoes) and he dragged us a good kilometer, with his goofy smiling face leading the way.   He finally dug a hole and laid down.   Tuna Can  Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/paper  23.5 x 17"   60 x 43cm  SOLD There were a few people, like us, embracing the sunshine after a week of rain.   I have never seen so much rain here before this year.  The garden is jung le-y.  And it’s fairly cool outside.  I am not complaining as we sit on the brink of a hotter than ever summer.   We are fighting an ant invasion as they leave their flooded homes; we use salt and laurel leaves, which actually look kind of pretty surrounding the windows.  Next we will paint our window casings “no fly” blue.   Blossoming Iris   Blair  Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  16 x  12 "   40 x 30cm  450.00    I am reading Homer’s Odyssey at the moment.  I hadn’t read it for fifty years, and this translation is ever so much better.   Dawn is no longer “rosy-fingered”, but places her rosy fingers on the earth, which sounds better.  Pallas Athena seems sexy.  Little is actually known about Homer, a one-named writer.  I tell myself there were fewer people alive then, so maybe you only needed one name, like having a four digit phone number in the 1950s. Eglise Auvers-sur-Oise (Van Gogh Village/Paris Collection)  Blair PESSEMIER  Acrylic/inen   18 x 10.5"  45 x 27cm   450.00 Progress has been made on selling our Paris paintings (although I did almost get scammed this week on Instagram, and had to change all passwords).  We sent about 20 paintings to a reseller at the flea market at Porte de Vanves.  He’ll be there today with our work.  Jean-Jacques is his name, and his wife Claudine.  They are near the center of the market, and sold a lot of our things in the past; we bought a lot from them for our Paris apartment, too.  People go to the flea market to buy, as opposed to just being Olympic game fans – that sounds right to me. We are also selling a painting each with a group in California called Smack-Happy, which includes artwork on websites.  Read about it here: Sign up for Artnotes by contacting me at lfpessemier@gmail.com INVITING All Artists to present their Work:   Paint, Literature, Crafts, Food.... Pessemier's Sunday Salon Weekly on Sunday  No Reservation Necessary   How it works: Bring a piece of your ART: that could be visual, like painting or printmaking; or literary, as in poetry or prose; or crafts, like metalwork or knitting; or food, or music.  Something you made, or feel particularly inspired by.  You have about 5 minutes to present, and we'll ooh, ahh, or answer questions you have.  You can also come and see how we work before diving in.  Just show up on Zoom at a minute or two before the hour.    No selling, no networking until after everyone has presented. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88093708954?pwd=M04zNHB4dFZkREp3bThweUd1YnVDZz09 Meeting ID: 880 9370 8954 Passcode: 886402 Rome 8PM; NY 2 PM; LosAngeles 11AM

 

Artnotes: An Old Friend

 

The Blue Horse    Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/paper  17 x 23.5"   43 x 60cm  275.00 I have been writing poems lately.   It feels more comfortable than painting right now.  Painting can make me feel exhausted.  It’s not holding the brush, but the feeling of moving what I am seeing from my brain onto the paper or canvas. Is it good enough?   With the poetry, it flows, and as it does, more flows.  It’s not good enough, but I don’t care. On the way to Bologna today, I explained this all to Blair, who is a much more fluid person than me, and does what comes naturally.   I think this is the difference between type A and type B people.  I am compelled to paint or write poetry or cook food for 14 people like a madwoman.   I am not abandoning painting, just rethinking it until I can see through. at the museum Raccolte di Cardinale Giacopo Lercaro At 9AM, we were on our way to the “Raccolte di Cardinale Giacomo Lecaro”, an art museum attached to an art residence.  When we got there, the woman at the desk told us Cardinal Lercaro (d. 1976 at 84 years) was a most unusual man, and she hoped we would enjoy the museum.  We did.    There were many unusual items from fossils, to work by Picasso, to Renaissance madonnas, and very contemporary sculpture.  We were the only visitors, and the museum was free (donations accepted). Of course, when I got home I had to look up Lercaro, and he was a very unusual man.  He was nearly elected pope, and would have been a pope very much like the current Francesco.  Lercaro’s motto, which he had inscribed upon the altar of the Cathedral of San Pietro in Bologna, was, “If we share the bread of heaven, how can we not share our bread here on earth?”   He had 70 underprivileged students living with him, and he was an outspoken liberal, a bit like Bernie Sanders.  His undoing was his opposition to the Vietnam War, when he was asked to step down by the pope.  You can just imagine how good it felt to know about all this, and visit the museum, and think you found an old friend.   Wildflowers   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/paper  17 x 23.5"   43 x 60cm  275.00 I wished hard for something to do not just today but always  A river of words started to build Filling with ideas, expressions Until it spilled over the edge And splashed Into this great pool of Poetry   The Pool    Laurie Pessemier  acrylic/canvas16 x 18"  40 x 46cm    550.00   Sign up for Artnotes by contacting me at lfpessemier@gmail.com INVITING All Artists to present their Work:   Paint, Literature, Crafts, Food.... Pessemier's Sunday Salon Weekly on Sunday  No Reservation Necessary   How it works: Bring a piece of your ART: that could be visual, like painting or printmaking; or literary, as in poetry or prose; or crafts, like metalwork or knitting; or food, or music.  Something you made, or feel particularly inspired by.  You have about 5 minutes to present, and we'll ooh, ahh, or answer questions you have.  You can also come and see how we work before diving in.  Just show up on Zoom at a minute or two before the hour.    No selling, no networking until after everyone has presented. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88093708954?pwd=M04zNHB4dFZkREp3bThweUd1YnVDZz09 Meeting ID: 880 9370 8954 Passcode: 886402 Rome 8PM; NY 2 PM; LosAngeles 11AM

Artnotes: Miracle

 

Yelow Flower in Spa Bottle  Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/cardboard  14 x 10"   35 x 25cm  190.00

Miracle of miracles, after 30+ years of living in the European Union, Blair and I finally got a 10 year visa. We are good to stay until 2033, God willing we are still alive.  It’s ironic, no?  In any case, it is cause to  celebrate, or at least to breathe a long sigh of relief. It’s a funny feeling, and our first impression is:  do we really want to be here?  We have a permit of long stay for the European Union.    Italy? France?  or someplace else? I thought at once of a Polish/French friend from Paris, whose family would clandestinely visit Poland, under cover, to see family.  As soon as the iron curtain was lifted, they never visited again. Shadrak, Meshak and Abednego   Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acyrlic/cardboard   17.5 x 21"  44 x 53cm in my pizza oven   I can’t really imagine my life will be so different, although there is a certain peace of mind knowing one can’t be thrown out of Italy without good reason; that I can invest in being able to stay here, or elsewhere in Europe. Tree Woman    Today at the Questura, Blair and I were very much the odd men out.  People stared at us, and I realized for the first time, maybe we were the only white people wanting to live in Italy; or maybe the only old people.  I stared back at them, amazed at how interesting we all were to one another.   Black skin, yellow skin, chattering, silent, all of us dressed in Italian clothes, with telephones.  The man ahead of me in line turned and spoke to me in English.  I wanted to take a picture of us, all from someplace else hoping for the same positive outcome. Blalr's Carved Spoon 10"  25cm long Times change.  Our best friends in Paris, Thierry and Quentin, have both passed; my girlfriend/illustrator Y, who I painted with almost daily, has moved to the countryside.   A friend we made here in Modena invited us to her house to celebrate.  At 9:30 this morning we were drinking champagne.  Viva Italia! Life goes on, and new friends and ideas flood our lives.    We take long walks with our Italian dog, Berlino, and eat pasta daily.    Blair is carving wood, I am writing poems.  We’ve made friends from America, online, who have already visited with us in Bologna.   The flowers are blooming and we’re getting ready to barbecue in our yard.  Is it Dinnertime?  Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/paper  17 x 23.5"   43 x 60cm  275.00 My dog rolls in the grass Smells like the outdoors He scratchs in the night  I dream of the woods Sign up for Artnotes by contacting me at lfpessemier@gmail.com INVITING All Artists to present their Work:   Paint, Literature, Crafts, Food.... Pessemier's Sunday Salon Weekly on Sunday  No Reservation Necessary   How it works: Bring a piece of your ART: that could be visual, like painting or printmaking; or literary, as in poetry or prose; or crafts, like metalwork or knitting; or food, or music.  Something you made, or feel particularly inspired by.  You have about 5 minutes to present, and we'll ooh, ahh, or answer questions you have.  You can also come and see how we work before diving in.  Just show up on Zoom at a minute or two before the hour.    No selling, no networking until after everyone has presented. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88093708954?pwd=M04zNHB4dFZkREp3bThweUd1YnVDZz09 Meeting ID: 880 9370 8954 Passcode: 886402 Rome 8PM; NY 2 PM; LosAngeles 11AM

Artnotes: How Broad Life is

Tulip   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/paper  23.5 x 17"   60 x 43cm  275.00

It’s hard to eclipse the ECLiPSE for news this week.  It was a non-event in Europe, where we didn’t have as much as a blink, but as my heart is often in the USA, I paid attention. The eclipse has always been a major event in my life.  I experienced a total solar eclipse with friends, Yo and Del, in Eastern Washington state in 1979.  It was a moment of big change in my life:  I had just moved to Seattle, and my serious adult life had just started.  A couple of months later I met Blair and my life was changed forever.   Blair and I experienced our next solar eclipse together in Paris, France in 1994.  It was May, and the eclipse could be seen through the arch of the Arc de Triomphe.  To view the eclipse, I had built a box camera, the only one on the street, it seemed, and a photographer took my picture for the newspaper.  We joined another hundred-some thousand people on the Champs Elysees, and while it wasn’t a total eclipse it was enough to catapult our lives into Europe.   Our most recent (partial) eclipse viewing was in 2017, while we were vacationing at Hemlock Lodge in Winsted, Connecticut.  It marked the last summer we visited with my Dad.  I watched the progress of the eclipse through the shadow of the leaves on the tree near the porch. Cherry Tree    Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  16 x 12"  40 x 30 cm  450.00 While I know all of these events are the result of science and mathematics, there is a certain mysticism about them, too.  Maybe it just draws our attention, and in the words of Ram Dass, make us “Be Here Now”. It preserves the experience in amber.    Blossoming  Laurie Fox  Pessemier   Acrylic/cardboard  20 x  27.5 "   50 x 70cm  375.00    Right now, I am shifting my focus slightly from painting to writing.  I have been making poems that I hope to put into book form this summer.  I am finding so much inspiration in nature, from wild flowers to my dog; experiences with people and memory.  I continue to be astonished at how broad life is, and the turns it can take.  Lilacs   Laurie Fox  Pessemier   Acrylic/paper 17 x 23.5"   43 x 60cm  275.00

Artnotes: Cookies Will Do

 

Mimosa   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/paper  23.5 x 17"   60 x 43cm  275.00

My best friend isn’t coming to visit in April as planned.  Events beyond our control have upset the apple cart; pie will not be served.   Life is full of surprises.   Berlino, meanwhile, is happy we came back to Roccamalatina.  He loves his yard, and for the first time, we are here to see different wild flowers in bloom. We heard the cuckoo this morning, perhaps the earliest ever.     Spruce Tree    Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas   20 x 16"  50 X  40cm  590.00  We had a long list of wonderful things we were planning to do with Sal – Blair and I will press on with many of them.   We will likely go to Naples – we meant to when we were at Pompeii.  We will visit the museum at Perugia, and see “Crusader” art.   And oh, yes, we’ll visit Nike Saint Phalle’s Garden in Tuscany.  If our wanderlust is still not satisfied, we will to return to San Sepulcro to see Piero della Francesco’s Jesus emerging from the tomb.  View Balugani   Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas   12 x 16"  30 x 40 cm  450.00 I love Italy for the fact we can go lots of places, just two or so hours away. Berlino del Bosco is happy to accompany us as long as we go to a meaty restaurant on the trip.   We managed to get our favorite meat platter at La Vineria Piccina, in Castiglion Fiorentino, this week – dog approved and ever so delicious.  Fuschia   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  8 x 10"  20  x 25cm  275.00 We’ve been working on new recipes.  Today I made a Spaghetti alla Bottagra (fish roe), and tomorrow I have French Fish Quennelles on the menu.   I am keen to learn new culinary things – Blair has a nice cantucci (biscotti) recipe in the wings.   We may not have apple pie, but cookies will do. Photo of Stimigliano Sunset Early This Week Sign up for Artnotes by contacting me at lfpessemier@gmail.com INVITING All Artists to present their Work:   Paint, Literature, Crafts, Food.... Pessemier's Sunday Salon Weekly on Sunday  No Reservation Necessary   How it works: Bring a piece of your ART: that could be visual, like painting or printmaking; or literary, as in poetry or prose; or crafts, like metalwork or knitting; or food, or music.  Something you made, or feel particularly inspired by.  You have about 5 minutes to present, and we'll ooh, ahh, or answer questions you have.  You can also come and see how we work before diving in.  Just show up on Zoom at a minute or two before the hour.    No selling, no networking until after everyone has presented. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88093708954?pwd=M04zNHB4dFZkREp3bThweUd1YnVDZz09 Meeting ID: 880 9370 8954 Passcode: 886402 Rome 8PM; NY 2 PM; LosAngeles 11AM

Artnotes: Tricked Out

 

31 March 2024  Stimigliano RI   ITALIA Baffled Bunny   Laurie Fox Pessemier    Acrylic/canvas    9.5 x 12  24 x 30cm  250.00  Walking up the street today I noticed someone’s name on their mailbox.   It was big letters, edge to edge “FARAONA”.  It had the sense of being cut out of a newspaper.   When you see big letters like that, placed near one another, on paper, it gives a different sense than reading it on a screen. I enjoy type a lot and recently downloaded a font "Barbra" on my computer, which I used with the Pompeii book. Three Peppers  Laurie Fox  Pessemier  Acrylic/newspaper 17 x 23.5"  43 x 60cm  250.00 We bought the Repubblica this weekend, with the “D” (for Donna (woman)) section.   There were in fact two extra sections, in an extra large format.   They had the best styles in there I’d seen in a long time, from gossamer prints to sequined handbags.  Some styles made me laugh out loud, others were clearly AI assisted, but a vast majority of them were just wonderful.  I can spend an hour now, looking at the rotogravure, deciding what is AI or not.  I think that publications should be required to list if they are AI, or photoshop-ed, or in some way technologically tricked out.  It doesn’t have to be on the photo itself, just a section in the back of the publication.  Today I saw a model’s lower leg that rivalled the length of the upper leg and torso combined (and it wasn’t the angle).  Who cares? You might say.  Maybe I don’t have enough to do. Easter Egg   Blair Pessemier    Acrylic/canvas  12  x 12"  .30 x 30 cm  350.00 We are in Stimigliano for Easter.  I watch the little girls in their frilly frocks going to church; men wearing white shirts.  I am wearing my Easter dress, which purported to be embroidered, but in fact is a photo print of embroidery.  You could be fooled if you were drunk and the room were dimly lit.  We met friends and their friends over coffee.  A honeybee, in a boon for the fruit trees, is flying through the corridor of our house.  He’s a beauty!  We are inundated with flowers and budding leaves:  pale green, pink and white.   I wore my new dress of those colors, and a hat when we went out to walk Berlino del Bosco this morning.   Those Repubblica models have nothing on me. Luigi's Begonias  Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  16 x 13"  40  x 33cm  450.00