View from window ca'mingoia    Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas

 Christmas in Bologna   M. Blair PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas

 View from the room Ca Mingoia   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER  Acrylic on canvas

 Christmas in Italy    Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas 

 Persimmon tree    Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  SOLD

 Orange and pink trees   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas

Winter Ca Mingoia   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas

ARTNOTES:  SPAGHETTI

Spaghetti.  Tortellini.  Ravioli.  Taglietelli.  I ate all kinds of pasta in Italy, in Modena, Pistoia, Bologna…  Imagine gorgonzola tortellini with a big glass of fizzy red wine in a café at 11:30 Sunday morning.  Heaven.

We spent last week in Italy, with an American friend who just rented a large villa there.  We christened the house, built in 1524, with many dinners and cups of tea in a chilly kitchen.  It snowed more than six inches, and I painted the Leonardo da Vinci landscape with and without  snow.

 

A seven hour train ride from Paris, we arrived in Milan.  The speed of the TGV is finished at the Italian border, where we pick our way through the countryside.     The Milan railroad station is  an art deco mishmash of styles  -- still it is of a breathtaking scale and I feel as though I’ve “arrived” when I get there.  Harika is thrilled to bounce out of the crowded car.

 

We drove up to the mountains after a fortifying dish of ravioli “en brodo” and boiled beef with green relish and bread.  I felt like a new person as we made the 75 minute trek from Castelfranco to Vergato.   

 

We took a number of short jaunts from base to nearby attractions.   We traversed the mountain pass before the big snow to visit Pistoia, a Florence-like city in Tuscany.   I ate taglietelli with endive and orange peel.  The baptistery was of the famous dark green and white stripe marble motif.   The agriculture, the terrain, the architecture all changed from Emilio-Romagno to Tuscany.  Palm trees, and large building overhangs heralded our arrival in “sunny Italy”.  It was clear to me how Italy retained its sovereign “city-states” clear up until its unification in 1860.   

 

We decided to make a trek to the Adriatica:  what would vacation be without the ocean?  It was the deep blue-turquoise which one associates with Venice.  We drove around Rimini seeking the Malatesta temple, but never found it.  We drove up the coast, Harika playing with a number of Italian dogs on the beach, to see St. Apollinaire in Classe, a Byzantine cathedral from 549 CE.  It was impeccably restored, with gold and glass mosaics of sheep and the sky:  happy motifs before the punishment phase of Christianity.    I could hardly believe someone stood and looked at the same marvelous art as I was,  1461 years earlier.   Before Columbus, before Ghengis Kahn, before Charlemagne,  before Mohammed; I might have looked like a giant, but would have been dead by 55 surely.

 

The highlight of our trip however, was our visit to Bologna.    We parked the car in a no parking zone, and both painted the downtown tower in illuminated regalia.  With the windshield wipers on “mist” we painted lights of the town before us.  Our muses satisfied, we parked the car in earnest and continued on foot to the Christmas fair booths.   The NOUGAT booth was the most impressive, sugary delights in all colors and flavors from orange to limoncello to nuts.  The foaming cakes sparkled, as people lined up to purchase.   Blair and I went for the Christmas light stand.  While most strings were 3 to 5 Euros, the man quoted Blair 45 for the one we selected; it was just too much thievery to even approach a bargain.   We continued on, admiring the animated figures for the crèche, the pizza man perpetually inserting and extracting the pizza from the fiery oven.   We walked with Harika, eventually turning into the Café Accademia for pasta, wine and coffee before noon. 

 

We returned next day, through Milan (in Lombardy), enjoying an Italian “cafeteria” dinner.  At midnight we pulled into Paris, where we will spend the remainder of the holidays.

 

We’ve had two sets of guests since our return three days ago.  From America, France and Iran, they bring us bits of culture we otherwise might miss.   Travel is good, but I equally like what travelers bring to me, a new outlook in the comfort of my own room.

 At the bar   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on wood  6.5 x 13 inches

 Limelight   LFP  Acrylic on Wood   6.25 x 10 inches

 Behind the Bar   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on wood  6.25. x 10 inches

 Tea   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on wood  6.5 x 13 inches

 Coffee    Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  5.5 x 13 inches

 Afternoon cocktails   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on museum board  15 x 10 inches

 By the Window  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on museum board  15 x 10 inches

Tourist   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on museum board  15 x 10 inches

 Starlet  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on museum board  15 x 10 inches

Cafe au lait    Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on museum board  15 x 10 inches

 Fallen leaves   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas   9 x 13 inches

 Yellow vista   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas   20 x 10 inches

 Fall in the Garden   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on wood     14 x 7 inches

Over the Thistles   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER  Acrylic on wood  10 x 7 inches

 View from the window  Collioure      M. Blair PESSEMIER   Oil on canvas 18 x 15 inches   SOLD

 Boat  Port Vendres    M. Blair PESSEMIER    Oil on canvas 18 x 22 inches

 Hillls Collioure/Port Vendres   Blair PESSEMIER    Oil on canvas  14 x 10 inches

 Hills Collioure/Port Vendres   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  20 x 10 inches

Trees Downtown Collioure   Laurie fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  20 x 10 inches

 Port Vendres    Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  20 x 10 inches

 Moorish Boats     Laurie Fox PESSEMIER    Acrylic on canvas   20 x 16 inches  SOLD

 After the Catch Port Vendres    Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  14 x 10 inches

Villa    M. Blair PESSEMIER   Oil on canvas  18 x 15 inches


Artnotes:  Fly over

A thousand birds are perched on the edges of the airplanes parked at a large aeronautical manufacturing plant in Toulouse, France.  It is as if the planes are the “Buddha” and the birds are flocks of the faithful.  They want to be close to their leader, the BIG BIRD.   The birds (all breeds) jockey for position, atop the wing or mainframe, ultimately seeking that spot on the crest of the tail.

We jockey for another position ourselves:  we are at the wrong building, and must drive another few minutes to find the site of Blair’s appointment.   Luckily we started out  early.  We stayed overnight in a hotel near the airport – Toulouse is seven hours from Paris.  We will continue on later this day for a weekend at the Mediterranean, just two hours away.

Our friend Francois, in Paris, asks about what we do, our future.  He says we are just like birds on a twig, singing beautifully for a short time on that twig, but later all that remains is the trembling of the twig after our departure.  At first I think he is saying we are “fly by night”, but with greater consideration, I realize it describes our life.   We are just “us two”:  never really sinking our roots very deeply into the ground.  Like perpetual children, we are always seeing life for the first time.

A woman I met at a recent coffee klatch bemoaned her new life with her husband, in Paris.  She imagined, at 55, she would be enjoying her "established" life and home in Washington, DC, not having to adjust to new things.  "Look around", I told her, "we're all so young.  Change keeps you alert, vital."  We exchanged looks of wonderment.

We drive to Collioure on Thursday afternoon, arriving as the sun sets over the vineyards.   We rent a cheap house for the weekend, situated on three floors overlooking the city.  Blair paints (hooray!) from the window, and I walk downtown to paint the trees in the morning sunlight, the Moorish boats in the water.  Our house is cold, with terrazzo floors, and I am warmer outside than in.   We buy a chicken at the store to take to the waterfront at Port Vendres for picnic.  Harika revels in the sand and water of her ocean, the Mediterranean.

I see unusual birds as I am painting the vine-covered hills between Port Vendres and Collioure – there are about 10, flying like swallows, in formation, but substantially larger specimens.  They are black and white.  I long for a bird book, or an informational sign:   the town is scattered with “frames” through which one views a famous scene painted a century ago by Derain or Matisse, but no news about the fish in the sea or birds in the sky.   We get up super-early, and drink coffee in a café populated with old men telling hunting stories.   Harika joins in.  I am tempted to ask them about the birds.

There was a time Blair and I considered moving here, to Collioure.  It is a painter’s paradise, with marvelous light, as you might see in our paintings.  These towns lack the depth of Paris, however, or maybe the residents are just not as profound.  Many branches quake from the changeover of weekly rentals on Saturday morning, to the jingle of coins.  

We will take our leave on Tuesday, stopping at Nohant to see George Sands’ house: Blair has an appointment nearby.   I am looking forward to lining my winter’s nest in Paris with beautiful colors. 

PS.  I think the birds might have been migrating Mediterranean Puffins.