St Sulpice Plaza April 2013 Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic on linen 10 x 13.5 inches
Tulips 2013 Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic on canvas 15 x 18 inches
Magnolia in the Park Blair Pessemier Acrylic on wood 10 x 14
Artnotes: A Walk in the Woods
I found a large tuft of platinum blonde hair (I hope it was
just an extension), and a cheap gold hoop earring. An inexpensive handbag was thrown in the
bushes, with nothing of merit inside. I
pocketed a kind of nice madras plaid hat which I’ll wash and use for
summer. I’d been looking for a new
painting hat. Blair isn’t keen on it, but I can see the potential. We
were on a walk in the Bois de Boulogne this spring Sunday morning.
Harika was also on the hunt – there was evidence of rabbits
and moles, which she sniffed for, to no avail.
Finally, she came upon the strangest of prey: a football sized prickly mass that simply
would not move: a herrison, or
hedgehog. I am sure she never saw one
before – growling at it, jumping around it produced no response. Blair thought it was dead, but I pointed out
it was very successfully “playing possum” – it did wriggle when he gently poked
it with a stick. It was a find we were
all happy with: Harika, the great
huntress, obviously subdued it, and we
didn’t have to worry about blood.
We were in the woods because we have a rental car: a big
van-like contraption so there’s room for our painters and paints. Our
painting workshops begin in earnest this week – on Monday we will paint like
Monet in Giverny, and on Tuesday we’ll be alongside Van Gogh in
Auvers-sur-Oise. I believe I am the most
enthusiastic workshop participant – I can’t wait to go.
We’ve passed the cusp of frigid winter – now it is frigid
spring. A mere 50-something degrees Fahrenheit (13 or so Celsius)in the
morning, but sunny. It is my favorite
time of the year, with the introduction of green leaves but not the full,
shade-producing cover. It’s all about
light and dark, or light and movement, which brings me to the show “DYNAMO”
which we went to at the Grand Palais this week.
At first, we thought the show was in the big glass-covered
Palais, so we didn’t get there until after dinner, 8:45 or so – in fact, DYNAMO
occupied huge space in the official gallery side of the Grand Palais – it was
nearly 40,000 square feet! It was too much to get through in an hour,
but I had the sense of being in a 1960s wild, hypnotic, spinning wheel atmosphere as urgent-looking guards would say,
“you’ve three large rooms to go!” Like Patrick McGoohan in “the Prisoner” I had
to make it to the outside by 10PM. And
EVERYONE was so HAPPY at the end of the show – smiling attendees who just
didn’t want to leave.
Classic artists like Vasarely, Agam, Flavin, Turrell opened
the show. But there were also people I
was not familiar with, including Carlos Cruz-Diez who created big rooms of
light produced color.
It made one think about art differently: not painted on a canvas, or sculpted from a
block of wood, but our participation was required to make it be art. I would call the show a blockbuster just for
the fact is was so different, so thought-provoking. I liked it very much and will go back to look
in greater detail.
I sat outside the gallery in a chair this week, it was so
warm. On Saturday, I was painting
outside with Harika at St. Sulpice. A
crazy woman in apparently normal French dress appeared with her dog, a shepherd
of somesort, and a big playground
ball. She throws it up in the air and
the dog bats it back with his nose.
There are about 100 people in the square, I am sitting on a bench. Several people are hit by the ball. Harika is having a nervous breakdown – for
her, we may as well be in Syria – the
sky is falling! She hides under the
bench. As I am painting the trees, the ball bounces
off my very wet paint-filled palette, onto the painting. The woman doesn’t apologize, makes some comment
like it is my fault. She must need the
attention or just a walk in the woods.
