Paintings by Blair + Laurie Fox PESSEMIER

Diving In   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches

ARTNOTES:  DIVING IN

Here in France a new year starts in September.  After a month of vacation everyone is re-inspired and ready to go.  Somehow you know you can make it until Christmas, the next big holiday time.  I know I can. 

 I am full of new ideas:  a website for selling paintings, with a shopping cart and the ability to take credit card payments.  We are about to sign up for a real studio/small gallery space.   I am going to make a catalog of my tree paintings.  

Already I made a new delicious recipe with Lotte (monkfish).  I am thinking of starting a blog of recipes and food ideas.  For this, I’ll need a partner, maybe my nephew who is going to cooking school.

And what inspired me so?  A month in Connecticut, a place I am never keen to be, but I had such a great time this year I couldn’t believe it.  It was swelteringly hot, great for swimming.  I think water brings out the best in me.  My friend K and I used to talk about how we would get great ideas in the shower.  Well, the lake is even better.  He could sing in the shower, and did.  I am not a singer.  

We left the state only a few times, to sell paintings in New Jersey and visit friends in New York.  The New Yorkers have a great cottage they’ve invited us to stay in and paint – at the edge of a marsh leading to the sea.  I can’t wait.

We sold paintings in one of our shows in Madison, Connecticut.  It was the most beautiful setting we’ve ever sold in, on a grassy hotel lawn backing up to the sea.   

I visited my father every day except two. He turned 85 while I was there, and I made a carrot cake decorated with raisins.   I played cards and swam with my nephews, one of whom can now swim faster than me.  I am still taller.   We made lobsters twice, and clams three times, not counting eating the fried clam bellies at the Clam Castle.

It was an idyllic American summer, always hard to catch, but when you are in it, it is as if pixie dust has been sprinkled on you:  absolute magic.  No movie director ever captured that slant of the sun or the smell of the water.   Hemlock Lodge was free of bats, bears and other pests. No sunburn.

Harika made the ride home in the hold of the plane without trouble.  In fact, her water didn’t even slosh out of the bowl and there was no evidence of nervous indiscretions.   She’s seen Shakespeare, Canaille and Astor since she’s been back and they sniff her with envy.