Garden Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on canvas 13 x 8.5 inches
Straw Hat LFP Acrylic on canvas 12 x 15 inches
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Purple Tree Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on wood 4.5 x 20 inches
Cooling off Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on canvas 9.5 x 9 inches .
Artnotes: Mischief
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A man sat beside us I nursed my “Vittel Citron” and chatted with Blair and a friend. It was too early for lunch, and I couldn’t see through to have another cup of coffee. The thickly featured stranger settled in, casually hanging his jacket on the handle of our companion’s suitcase. “Hey,” our friend protested; then the fellow tried to switch suit jackets. His cell phone rang and he charged out of the café. It was clear the suitcase zipper had been opened, but luckily, nothing was lifted.
At Gare du Nord yesterday, the gypsies were numerous. Opening taxi doors, offering “assistance” -- I had been watching from my perch inside the brasserie, feeling immune to their advances.
“Why do they always wear those skirts?” our friend asked, gesturing to the women, “ Isn’t it just a tip off to people that they are gypsies?” I explained it was a cultural thing with them – gypsy women always wear skirts. I didn’t mention how I was admiring that very item: a flower print skirt with a sport t-shirt and a tight yellow vest – Kenzo, eat your heart out. Once, in the Tuileries, a gypsy asked if she could BUY my skirt – I was flattered at such a compliment.
Blair and I have learned to never make eye contact – once you’ve engaged a gypsy, you’re the victim. We do know a number of gypsies around town, and they don’t bother us anymore. We’ve even shared our picnic dinner with one who feigns a limp. I know the “ring” trick and various others, and we always have a hearty laugh when I tell them so.
Later that afternoon, I see from my balcony, on rue de Rennes, a group of four handicapped people straighten up, start twirling their crutches: a passerby screams. The gypsies head for home on the metro. In this weather, home is usually a collection of trailers alongside a minor highway. From time to time they’ll hook up to a water line, and you’ll see a washing machine in their midst.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned before the gypsies are such named because they were thought to come from Egypt. In fact, they were entertainers imported from India to Persia. Eventually expelled from Persia, half went north to become the “Rom” people and the other half to Egypt, where they lived in the desert as the “Dom”.
In any case, they are modern day nomads, inhabiting virtually every corner of the globe. They provide a certain relief to an otherwise predictable life in Paris. Don’t get me wrong, I am not about to take up petty thievery as a living, but society (and its mores) is a completely man-made thing. Our own rules seem equally absurd to me sometimes – when did it become OK to say “it’s just business”, or to destroy someone else’s livelihood in the quest for petroleum? Harika will never comprehend the idea of eating slowly, and I, for one, will never understand why men wear ties.
The guards at the station joke with three pretty young girls as they toss them out off the terrazzo and we escort our friend, spared from the clutches of their mischief, to his train.
Feeding the pigeons Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on canvas 7 x 12.5 inches
Umbrellas: Luxembourg Gardens Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on canvas 14 x 9.5 inches
Tangerine roses Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on canvas 16 x 20 inches SOLD
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Drummer Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on canvas 12 x 16 inches SOLD.
Artnotes: Cool Generation
This sweltering Thursday evening, my art opening was sparsely celebrated. Among the attendees were my friend S and friends, from Tunisia. I refer to the four as “women of the desert”: a mere 90 degrees farenheit didn’t bother them.
Paris has very little air-conditioning. We only experience two seriously warm months here, and then more than a week of really hot weather is rare. So we open and shut shades and windows, use hand fans and tolerate a little body odor. Things slow down. I actually like the fact I can feel the heat when it’s hot out. I don’t get those air-conditioning headaches like I do in the US. Seattle formerly didn’t have so much air-conditioning either, but the last twenty years of development have put them into the HVAC league. Just try to air condition an apartment with French windows.
We’ve been spending lots of time in the park where I sit in the chair and Harika lies on the ground. Even though it isn’t grass, she finds the tamped earth much cooler than the macadam which surrounds us. I have been painting pictures of musicians there, and enjoying the bonus of free entertainment.
Not all the musical groups have been good. I heard one recently which bore resemblance to a broken music box. At one point, I thought it intentional, but after the third or so song like that, I knew it couldn’t be. How could they be that bad and have been selected? They had a color poster (well, printed on letter paper) and everything.
The winners for me this week were the Wisconsin “Ambassadors of Music”, performing such diverse works as Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever and a bucket number from Stomp. They played a Belgian march and an Andalusian favorite we all know but I am not sure of the name (it’s a little like the old Marlboro theme, with a Spanish mariachi twist). The musical entourage had 180 members, including a large choral contingent who sang the Star Spangled Banner. Everyone stood up.
S is moving back to Tunisia, along with her friend, R, an artist. Paris has become decidedly less generous in its quality of life: there isn’t as much to go around in the way of jobs and money. I am not the only one who notices. French friends have said to me “it is very bad here”. They are raising the retirement age to 62, amidst serious protest. And my Tunisian friends, after 28 years in the French capital, are taking the plunge back “home”.
Harika, Blair and I are enjoying our French summer. Harika encourages us to frequent cafes (especially those with cool tile floors), and we order “Perrier Citron” or some other summery mix. On Thursday and Friday the market strip was planted with ten-foot neon flowers celebrating the opening of the “Mini Cooper” store on the corner, and we hung around making believe we, too, were part of the cool generation.
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