Balustrade Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic on linen SOLD
Shadows in the allee/Luxembourg Gardens Laurie Fox Pessemier Acyrlic on linen SOLD
Dr Gachet's Garden in Auvers Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic on linen 18 x 18 inches
Alley in the Park Blair Pessemier Acrylic on linen SOLD
ARTNOTES: Sugar in the Soup
The line extended around the corner of rue Guynemer, from
rue Vaugirard, leading to the Luxembourg Museum last night. It was the ”night of the museum” throughout
Europe -- museum visits were free to the public until 1 AM. Judging by the crowds, I believe people would
like to visit museums, but are discouraged by the cost.
Thanks to Artnotes, I get to go in for free as a
journalist. Blair pays the big fare,
which seems like half as much when we go together. So we decided to wait until this morning to
see the Chagall show. “I’ll bet nobody
will be there at 9 AM,” I said. I was
nearly right.
Many people I talked to complained about the Chagall show
not being so good. There was a poorly
lit section of Chagall’s more somber, religious work which I breezed through at
the start. But the large colorful
paintings were very nice, further along the route. It was a oddly curated show – there were
certain paintings hung in narrow rooms which you could not see in one solid
glance – too big to fit in your eye from where one had to stand. But in general, very lovely yellow, reds and brilliant
blues: Liberation, The Dance, the Dream. Chagall was an essentially happy man, in spite of living through two big wars.
We made a day of it today after a long, hard week of lessons
and the Vernissage for our “He loves me, he loves me not” flower painting
show. We had more than 100 people at the
opening on Thursday night, hot on the heels of a full day of painting Wednesday
in the Luxembourg Gardens. I have been
working in such a detailed date-oriented way, my drawing perspective is
improving.
After the Chagall show, we bought bus tickets and went to
Chinatown for lunch. We had not been out
there for more than two years. The Empress Trees were in flower all along the
route – beautiful lavender blossoms looking a lot like wisteria but 40 feet
tall. The gardens looked nicer than I remembered, and when got off the bus the escalator was
actually working up to the retail plaza and Paris store.
There were more decorative accessories for your i-pad, but otherwise
merchandise is not much changed in the little stores. Rice (basmati) was 9.70 for five kilos (we
just paid 5.60 for one kilo in our market!), and I got a spaghetti strainer,
stainless steel, albeit a bit sharp in spots (small holes, I might use it for
couscous,too).
We admired the homemade donuts in the Vietnamese restaurant,
and the owner brought us one. They were real
donuts, long fried cake-dough affairs one split in half for two. They gave us a little dish of “crème anglaise”
to dip in. I saw another couple eating
them with their soup, into which they also poured sugar. I am not sure about that.
