Artnotes: More Sunshine PLEASE

  Bay  Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  9 x 11 inches

 Trees  Blair Pessemier  Oil/canvas  21 x 26 inches

Darse   Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  9 x 11 inches

 Clouds over Cap Ferrat   Blair Pessemier   Oil/canvas  12 x 12

 View Citadelle  Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  9 x 11 inches

 Orange Boat  Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  9 x 11 inches

 Ventimiglia  Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas16.5 x 11 inches

Mandarins  Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  9 x 11 inches

Boats under cover    Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  12 x 12 inches

Umbrella Pines Park Ventimiglia  Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  9 x 11 inches

Artnotes:  More Sunshine Please

Clouds are NOT something one usually associates with the French Riviera.  Turquoise, pink, palm trees:  no clouds.  But at 7 AM  I see the outlines of clouds as the sun emerges  from Italy.   This is not at all what we planned, but it is what we got.  We adjust.

Maybe it is better that we have some rain.  I stay indoors, read, think, work on the Artnotes book/portfolio.    I paint still life.  I write to you.

I am thinking about my life quite differently than I was in Paris.  I am seeking MORE INVOLVEMENT, not less.  It is clear to me that I need to interact with people, and not just on the Internet.   With less to do, I dwell on things past --never good.  

Many people think you learn from the past, but I feel just the opposite (thank you, Artemis).  I want to reach into the future.   I need face-to-face conversation with people to thrive.

 I feel resolutions coming on.  One will be NEVER TRAVEL WITHOUT A RAINCOAT.    How about: TALK  face-to-face with someone new and/or conflicting  at least three times a week (come to my house to argue?) .

I tried on a raincoat at the market in Italy yesterday – the arms terminated below my fingers and I have very long arms;  and the rest of the coat was too short, too narrow.  What kind of person could wear that?  Ichabod Crane?    It was a terrific material – a mesh covered with clear plastic, in a trench coat style.  The vendor asked me, “why not the black one?” I told him it wasn’t happy.  He had to concede.

Harika is hunkered down as only a dog can do in the rain.  Playing possum is the concept.  We drag her to coffee in the morning, often her only foray if rain ensues.  Today there were five dogs at the café:  a vicious large black model, relegated to the out-of-doors; a long haired dachshund; a dirty Westie who has obviously spent many a Sunday with his junk-dealer family;  a naturally congenial Havanese;  and Harika. Normally a boxer is there, but maybe we were too early.  

I have been reading John Ruskin.  He was a 19^th century art historian who taught working men to draw, just so they would learn to SEE.  He had ideas about society and mostly about art and how it affected people.   He said:  The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.

More sunshine please!