Buzz   Laurie FOX Pessemier   Acrylic on canvas  10.5 x 16 inches

ARTNOTES:  BUZZ

Christine, Canaille’s mistress, was talking to a most unusual man in the garden when we arrived early on Monday.  He had eyeballs so large, I could barely see any whites; his eyebrows were completely shaggy and encircled the top of his eyes; he was round.  He was as taken with me as I was with him, and came over at once to introduce himself.  He was the beekeeper at the hives at the Luxembourg Gardens.

Blair and I have painted the hives, and the bees innumerable times.  There is a collection of antique hives, and there are new, beeswaxed teak boxes with copper roofs which seem to please their occupants.

We  sang our praises of the bees and hives to the beekeeper.  I asked how the bees were doing.  In fact, he told us his bees were among the healthiest and most prolific in all of France.  Why?  No pesticides. 

 We discussed the current nemesis of bees:  colony collapse.  There was no sign of that here.  “Because of industrial farming, insecticides and pesticides are now integrated in the seed:  at levels 2,500 times that of “crop dusting” – the former method for eliminating pests.  Bees are fragile creatures – they have to remember where they are, how to get back to the hive and how to direct the other bees to the flowers – that’s too much to do when their bodies are compromised by pesticides.”

As he related this story, he buzzed with passion.  “Here, in the gardens, we replace our queens every 2-3 years; in America, queens are replaced 2 or 3 times each year.”  Life is hard for the industrial bee, even if you are royalty. 

At Tuesday’s open air market, the flower man had exemplary specimens:  we settled on 18 pale pink and pale green roses and a meat-colored chrysanthemum (in retrospect, perhaps we should have visited the butcher first).  He had other equally beautiful flowers:  multi-colored anemones, carnations and cyclamen.  He had a wizened look:  a painfully thin nose, wire rim glasses and he was smoking home made cigarettes.  He worked slowly, wrapping each purchase.   He was the antithesis of the bee man, but perhaps just a drone instead of a royal bee. Or he could have been a wasp.

While walking by St Sulpice on Saturday, two honeybees seemed to be engaged in a fight, one pursuing the other, first here, then there.  They were  flying at what seemed to be the purported 20 miles an hour a bee can achieve, not carrying pollen (Someone once told me you can outrun a bee, but anyone who has stepped near a nest knows that is not true).   After lunch with friends we walked back and found the two splattered on the sidewalk, engaged in a fatal embrace.   I wondered if they were bees from the Luxembourg Gardens.

Market Man   Laurie FOX Pessemier   Acrylic on wood  6 x 10 inches 

ARTNOTES:  An Eye to the Future

"The future you see is the future you get." Robert G. Allen

I ate the most delicious fish of my life on Monday night.  I hadn’t really thought about the Saint Pierre, that fish from French waters, for years – I used to have a recipe for it.  The St. Pierre is a flat, upright fish with spiny fins and a thumb and fingerprint on each side where St. Peter picked him out of the water to remove the gold piece from his mouth.  

Generous friends took us to the Dome, where we had the fish.  They were seeking sole, themselves, and the Dome reputedly has the best.   My meal was so good, I wanted to cook a Saint Pierre myself, and set out for the market on Tuesday to buy one.   When my fish monger told me he had none, a woman customer sniffed, “it’s too expensive”.  I examined my dress, and was looking a little down-at-the-heel.     Oh, well, I went on to the butcher and bought a wild hare, which I soaked overnight in red wine and spices.  

On Wednesday, friends took us out to a “les Halles” restaurant which served hearty French fare.  I had sheep’s brains, which were cooked “meuniere” – they were lightly breaded and fried producing a crunchy outside and  a remarkably light center.   I endeavor to eat differently than at home, whenever we go out, so I can expand my menu repertoire.  There was a table of Chinese people next to us, who ordered what looked like everything on the menu.  They were drinking red wine, so when it was our turn to order the wine, we said, “we’ll have what they are having.”  “Are you sure?” the waiter asked, “it’s 120 euros a bottle.”   They had four or five bottles while we were there.   Upon closer inspection it was a 1979 Bordeaux.  We opted for a respectable ’09.

I cooked my rabbit (he had the biggest legs!) for about 4 hours, with onions, cepe mushrooms, and carrots,  and invited over some French friends.   I needed to practice my French.  We’ve had a back-to-back English-speaking visitors since the 6 September when we returned from vacation.   I’ve alternated between feeling delighted, overwhelmed, tired, but it is clear to me Americans are at their best here in Paris.   We live in the one place that brings out creative thinking and joy in everyone.  It especially works well for artists, musicians and writers, but that’s for another artnotes.

I couldn’t be happier here, I don’t think.  We visited with Voyeu, the dog’s, mistress in the park Friday morning.  A bright sunny day and we are talking about food; more specifically, about blood, and how and when one introduces it to a recipe.  Can you imagine such conversation?  I took it a step further to the butcher .  "Yes," he said, "I remember when my grandfather would slaughter the pig, then removed his eye to capture the blood.  It’s really wonderful in a coq au vin.  You must put a little vinegar in with the blood to keep it liquid."  Both Mme. Voyeu and Christian, the butcher, made reference to pig blood. " I’ll bring you some," Christian offers.   "Oh, no," I protest, but sort of hope he has some on Tuesday.

When I walked by the fish stand on Friday, there were three Saint Pierres chilling on ice.  I chose the one with the clearest eye.

 On Tap  Laurie FOX Pessemier   Acrylic on wood 6 x 10 inches  SOLD

 Patron  Laurie FOX Pessemier   Acrylic on wood   6 x 13 inches 

 Luxembourg Gardens:  First Trees without Leaves   Laurie FOX Pessemier  Acrylic  on canvas  10.5 x 16 

Luxembourg Gardens:  Chairs    Laurie FOX Pessemier   Acrylic on wood  6 x 10 inches  $250.00 SOLD

Baby Bird   M. Blair PESSEMIER   Acrylic on paper  21.5 x 29 inches  $175.00

 

Luxembourg Gardens:  Bees    M. Blair PESSMEIER  18 x 22 inches    SOLD

 

 Luxembourg Gardnens:  woman with bicycle   Laurie FOX Pessemier   10 x 12 inches 

 Eiffel Tower:  Yellow Tree  Laurie FOX Pessemier  12 x 12 inches 

 Giverny:  Fuschia Tree  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER  Acrylic on canvas  12 x 12 inches

 Montmartre:  Vines   M. Blair PESSEMIER  Acrylic on wood  7 x 10 inches   SOLD

 Luxembourg Gardens::  Lavender Trees  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER  Acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 "  SOLD

 Notre Dame Park:  Romance    Laurie FOX Pessemier  Acrylic on canvas  12 x 12 inches 

 Luxembourg Gardens:  Fall Weather   Blair PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  11 x 16 inches 

Ile de la Cite   Blair PESSEMIER  Acrylic on canvas  21.5 x 15 inches 

 Pont Neuf  and Henry IV   Laurie FOX Pessemier   Acrylic on canvas12 x 24 inches   SOLD

 Luxembourg Gardens:  Orange Sweater   Laurie FOX Pessemier   Acrylic on wood  10.25 x 5 inches SOLD

 Luxembourg Gardens:  Queen   Blair PESSEMIER   Acrylic on wood  9.5 x 7 inches

 Montmartre:  Vineyard   Laurie FOX Pessemier   Acrylic on wood 5 x 9.5 inches 

Giverny:  Creek   Laurie FOX Pessemier   Acrylic on canvas  18 x 15" 

ARTNOTES:  Smell the Flowers

A friend called on Sunday night to see if we’d like to paint at Giverny, Monet’s gardens, on Monday.  It turns out that the gardens are open after hours (and before hours 6AM) to painters.  If we arrive after 5:30 in the evening, we can paint until 8.  We packed up our supplies and headed away from Paris at 4.

We paid our (artists’) entry fee as the guards chased out the stragglers.  Blair set up his easel in the main garden, and I crossed beneath the road to the pond.

Giverny is a wonderful place, but in summer is chock-full of visitors;  this painting opportunity was like a dream.  It is a good reason to take my painting class – you, too, can inspect the dahlia up close and personal.  I took this week’s two students to paint: both chose the water lilies.

I am looking at a deep yellow petal-ed flower, its edges beginning to turn brown.  In this fading light the withering  border looks purple.  A small snail makes his way toward the center of the flower.  I suspect this flora to be a sort of sunflower variety.  The sunflowers are magnificent – the entire garden is a riot of yellow and purple.  For the first time ever here, I can smell all the flowers as the dew begins to form.  I can almost taste the nasturtiums which line the main allee.  A pink rose shocks my eyes with its brilliant color.

I feel tremendously lucky to have had this experience.  It’s not that I don’t like painting in the nether-reaches of the garden on a regular afternoon, but this day I am one with the water lilies.  There’s a photographer also present –  she sells her photos in New York.  She sometimes arrives here very early to capture the fog on the pond.

The sun streams across the water – picking up just the edge of a lily pad.  I can’t do it justice in my painting.  The reflections in the water and the water lilies are really too much for me.  I paint quickly, almost madly, trying to freeze time as the light changes.   Every time I visit this place to paint, I bite off more than I can chew.  Monet was truly a master.  I am just a page.

Blair has more luck – painting in oil – with his overview of the flowers.   Our painting companion makes several gouaches – she paints longer than we do.  Blair and I collapse on a bench, in a daydream :  after just one hour and a half I am “all in”.  I want to go home and drink red wine and plan on another day with the flowers.

On Tuesday evening, our students are happy.  We pack up our tools and take one last longing whiff of the flowers before the trip back to Paris.

Sunflowers in a vase  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER  Acrylic on linen   16 x 10.5 inches 

Trouville

Streets Trouville   M Blair PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  16 x 20 

Big Waves  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on wood  7 x 10 inches   SOLD

Apple Orchard  Blair PESSEMIER  Acrylic on wood  5.5 x 13   SOLD

Heavy Surf  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER  Acrylic on wood   $200.00

Wading in the surf  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER  Acrylic on wood

Le Havre  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER  Acrylic on canvas  12 x 12 SOLD

After the Swim  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on canvas12 x 12 inches 

Trouville Sea  Blair PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches 

Trouville Scene  Blair PESSEMIER   Acrylic on canvas  11 x 16 

Houses at the beach  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER  Acrylic on canvas  9.5 x 12 inches

ARTNOTES:  A Short Leash

Harika is mad at us.  She doesn’t want to wear her leash.  She spent three days “en liberte” (free!) in Normandy and now there is H-E-double-L to pay.

Earlier this week, we took a self-catering studio apartment in Trouville, on the English Channel.   After signing the papers for the small, but well equipped room in the Trouville Palace, we stepped outside onto the sand.  Harika ran around wildly as I committed a couple of swimmers (yes!) to canvas.  Blair painted the corniche with its wonderful Victorian architecture.  Our hotel/apartment, in the same lyrical style, was built in 1918.  It matches the original casino, intended to serve the English gamblers who’d won enough to buy a boat to take them across la manche.

A group of people gathered around a fishing boat at the quai.  We joined the fray and found the boat to be full of scallops.  We bought ten big ones at once, to take home to cook for dinner.   I seared them and set them in a sauce of bacon, garlic, crème fraiche and blue cheese.    

I woke up feeling refreshed and we set out the next day to find more great seafood.  We settled on a dozen oysters each and a glass of white wine for lunch (with a baguette).  For dinner, I made fresh sole Meunière, using true Dover sole fished out of the water that morning.  This was something I could get used to.  I bought fresh fish soup, served from a slushie machine, with accompanying rouille and croutons.    As a nod to the Calvados region, I bought fresh picked apples and local sausage.

There are postcards in our room at the beach.    Not only could we rent this studio, but the same people have a floor in a pink Victorian house on the beach, and another in a Victorian building I just happened to paint, with a turret.  I take one postcard, I promised to send to a friend moving back to America.

At 6:30 AM on Friday, we hop in the car to drive like mad to return the car at Avis at 10.  Rush hour.

Come to think of it I am a little disappointed to be back, too.  My leash is pretty short.   That is why I am thinking of  renting out our fabulous Paris apartment for the month of December,. 

Painting at Giverny

 Flowers Giverny   M. Blair PESSEMIER oil on canvas  15 x 22   SOLD

 Yellow Flowers at Giverny  Blair PESSEMIER  Oil on canvas  15 x 18 

 Water Lilies Giverny  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER  Acrylic on canvas  15 x 18  SOLD

 Study Lily Pads  Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic on wood  6 x 10 inches 

Marsh Flowers Giverny  Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic on wood 6 x 20 inches

2 October in Paris

 Bridge morning   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on wood  7 x 19.5 inches  

Louvre  Blair PESSEMIER   Acrylic on linen   15 x 18 inches  SOLD

Louvre and Seine  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on wood   7 x 13 inches     SOLD

Artnotes: a wink and a strut

Even though Paris is thought of as a dog-friendly place, it is very difficult to find a park which accepts dogs.  The little corner parks have a sign sporting a dog on leash, with a big red “x” on it.  In our neighborhood, only one corner of the Luxembourg Gardens is designated dog-friendly, and then all canines must be on leash.

Don’t get me wrong , Harika isn’t suffering.  Yesterday she went to three cafes.  For breakfast, at the Tourne-Bouchon,  where Omar greets her in Tunisian.  For afternoon “tea” we go to the Fleurus where Pierre plies our little beast with cookies and a bowl of water.  And this Friday evening, we went to the Hippocampus to hear a new combo – Harika only goes for a bit of the last set, on her last walk of the evening.

Things have really perked up at the Hippocampus (not to be confused with the Hippopotamus  all-you-can-eat restaurant chain – honestly, wouldn’t you feel a little bad about a turning into a hippo?  Maybe that’s the strategy…).  Our “Hippo” is a jazz club. 

It is my idea of a perfect jazz club, that is:  imperfect.  It is accessible, yet with professional musicians.  The food is mediocre, at best.  But I can go there, be a regular, and enjoy the crowd as much as the music.   A middle-aged French woman with red hair wears a blue flare-skirted dancing dress, with red and white piping;  I know she hopes to dance, but the men are glued to their seats.  I encourage two Americans to leave a good tip for JB, the waiter.  He’s the only waitstaff left, and now he has more than a dozen tables to serve.   The lights are a little too bright, and the interior has the sense of a designer who never saw New Orleans (neither have I, so maybe IT IS authentic?).  There are pictures of Jazz musicians in 3-D, plantation shutters, a neon saxophone, and the ceiling looks like the night sky with sparkling stars.    The music is still playing when we leave at midnight and walk around the block – it’s still warm enough to be wearing a sleeveless dress.   I think of New Orleans.

I never think “perfect” things are perfect.  A Louis Vuitton handbag may be perfectly turned out, but does it have any character?  I never like those showdogs at Westminster – give me a mutt with a wink and a strut any old day. 

Impressionist painting made painting “imperfect”.  John Singer Sargent’s portraits tell a more interesting story than Gainsborough’s.    One wonders what goes on in the mind of an “imperfect” Toulouse Lautrec painted performer.  Imperfection leaves room for interpretation and hypothesis.

I paint the Seine, and the hideous Bateaux Mouche (tour boat) floats by:  worse yet, at night, its  spotlights blinding passers-by.  But it is Paris: a perfect city riddled with crazy French ideas.  A homeless man gave me two hot pink Eiffel Tower key chains the other day – the idea of a beggar giving me something, much less the icon of the city we live in was, well, imperfectly perfect.