Paintings by Blair + Laurie Fox PESSEMIER

On the Deck:  High Point Party   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas 12 x 24 inches

Artnotes: Party on the Deck

“We need to be ready two days early; everyone is in church on Sunday morning; did you hear that so-and-so isn’t showing this market; will the daiquiri cart be set up on Hamilton?”  So goes the chatter at High Point Market.   It is a ritual – we all sit together and say the same things every year.  Some years good, some years bad, and the current year rarely eclipses markets of distant past (there’s a Bentley dealer in this little town!).

Thanks to a friend, we are in a new showroom, in the elegant 200 Steele Building.   I painted today’s painting on the deck behind the showroom, during a party hosted by the building.

I have been admiring the small upholstered chairs/table at  Dorya Interiors,  across the corridor from us.  It has the look of tea tables in an Eastern country:  and lo and behold Dorya is from Turkey.  It is a contemporary look that is Istanbul and beyond.  There are some great light fixtures, and a fainting couch reminiscent of a 60s Chevrolet.   Somehow, I see Orhan Pamuk’s house furnished in Dorya.  I hope I make a million dollars and can buy something for my Paris apartment.

Another “drawing card” in this building is Selva.  It is a furnishings company from Spain, with very cool contemporary furniture.  Nobody just makes furniture anymore – it is lighting, fabrics, and a way of life.   It is the wave of the future:  these design houses are from around the world, offering something more than the US furniture company (now manufacturing in China) has to offer.   Harden, in this very building, is an exception, with manufacturing in the USA.

Legacy, the company we are showing with, quintessentially American, has its product made in neighboring Mexico.  I love turning that tradition of Mexican metalwork into outdoor tables and chairs in a transitional and modern look.  Fluffy cushions in chic fabrics come as part of the chairs (seems obvious, but not all outdoor furniture is sold with).

We got here a couple of days early to hang our artwork.  It is a challenge to get our 100 pictures onto a 39 plus 12 foot wall…  I have a large collection in the neighboring storage space, to complement our repertoire.   It has turned out to be our most productive area:  what we chose to hang is not necessarily what sells.

I introduced myself to the girls in building reception.   (they call themselves girls, one about 25 and the other at least 60).  My cards are on the big round table there – urging customers to come see our paintings.

Blair and I have been coming here since 1980, and it is a tradition like summer vacation or dinner at Grandmas.   In fact, I sit at a table with a man from Florida talking about that.  He admires our baseball paintings, and surprisingly, knows about Torrington, CT where we painted them.  He, too, spent summers on a lake there, and talks of it being the perfect summer.  The lake has changed and times have changed, but those warm sunny days and mosquito nights created the perfect memory. 

So it is with the market.   I see some of my dearest friends when I come here.  Over meals of  hot venison sausage and ramps,  a bowl of chicken soup, a side of fried okra, Huguenot pie,  we catch up on our lives.