Kiss 2   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  12 x 12 inches

 Kiss 1   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  12 x 12 inches

 Harika gone red     Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on wood  10 x 6 inches

 Spring Tree    Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  12 x 12 inches

Springtime in the garden  M. Blair PESSEMIER   Oil on canvas  13 x 16

 Kissing in the garden   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acyrlic on wood  6 x 20 inches

Good morning   M. Blair Pessemier  Oil on linen  51 x 32 inches

Dappled Light   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  16 x 13 SOLD

 Senate sketch Luxembourg Gardens   Blair PESSEMIER   Oil on linen 18 x 21.5 inches

 Lilacs  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  24 x 12 inches  SOLD

 Chestnuts in blossom   Laurei Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on wood  20 x 7 inches

Grandfather and child    Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on wood  10 x 8 inches

Artnotes: a Job to Live

“It’s our job to go on living,” a dear friend of mine told me not so long ago.  Her sagesse came from years of sadness about the early demise of her parents, when she was barely a teenager.  She used to spend hours at my house, around my own mom and dad, perhaps living vicariously with my family.  It was with this wisdom in mind I just left my own mother, dying, in Connecticut.

When I left Paris on 22 March, there was just a hint of spring with daffodils and tree buds; on Thursday, 14 April, a canopy of green covered the park.  To Harika’s delight I insisted on sitting on a bench in the park when we alighted the train at Luxembourg Gardens.  (she came to the airport to meet me!)  The chestnuts are in blossom.  My azalea tree on the balcony is past full bloom and my jasmine has flowers.  I’ve red and yellow roses.

The gypsies are in the market, bearing lilacs.  Aromatic in tones of purple and violet a large floral bouquet sits in the center of my living room.  I am so happy to be home.

I spent three weeks in the US, apart from my dog, and mostly apart from my husband, who was visiting his own mother and then returned to Paris.   I spent a week at High Point Market, leaving early, to get back to my mother’s bedside in the nutmeg state.   We had three major crises while I was there, to the edge of the grave and back.  I was crazy with worry and living out of my suitcase.   I made the decision to return to Paris. 

Now, I am struck with an urgency to live.  Three paintings on Friday, cookies, artnotes to my beloved readers:  I have missed these parts of my own life.  My mother, 25 years my senior, lay dying, a victim of the world’s cruelest disease, alzheimer’s, which robs both the victim and the family of joy.  I want to make every day count and I force myself out of bed early, despite jet lag to paint and write.

My painting workshop begins in a month.  I have a really wonderful job possibility which we interview for on 27 April.  I am eager to paint again with my girlfriend Y, hopefully on Monday.

The usual folks and dogs are at the park.  Some of us are sneezing, and pollen dusts the benches in the early morning.  Blair and I have been bringing dog cookies to Harika’s friends.  Atlas has had to take a pill because this is the time of “heat” for many female dogs and he can’t eat or sleep (despite the fact he is castrated).  His counterparts are equally anguished, and some girl dogs just don’t come to the park in that condition.  Neutering is not a popular option here, despite its benefits for longevity or the unlikely event of breeding one’s dog (personally, I think people are too cheap or lazy to schedule the operation).

The windows are open in our apartment and birds fly by.  I am hoping for a new, great idea to enter on the wind and I await a beautiful summer.

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.