Artnotes: On Top of the World

 Rose in a Vase    Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/panel    14 x 12"  34 x 25cm

 View from Pieve   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas   20 x 32"  50 x 80cm

Church at Pieve de Trebbio  Blair Pessemier    Acrylic/canvas  18 x 24"  45 x 60cm

House next door with beehives  Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas 20 x 16"    50 x 40cm

Roses in the Rain    Laurie Fox Pessemier   12 x 14"  25 x 34cm

Artnotes:  On top of the World

We live on top of the world here -- not the Alps, but the Apennines.  We have so many painting vistas to choose from, it is hard to pick the best.  Even more difficult is selecting one out of the sun, which is why we just bought a pavilion style tent, delivered today.  

That said, today it is raining of all things, and despite the tent, we are forced to be indoors, from where I paint roses growing in the back yard.  We have at least a dozen bushes, all different colors (so Italian) from pink, to red to pale yellow.

 On Wednesday, a very sunny day, we drove up  50 more meters from Rocca Malatina to Pieve de Trebbio.  There's a church there, various outbuildings, a small cemetery and open space.  At four in the afternoon the rays of the sun are at such an angle, it is a composition of greens, blues and purples across the valley.

Harika gave her seal of approval, jumping out of the car and running around in big circles.  As we were taking our supplies out of the trunk, another car pulled up and started to unload.

The alighting woman was quite beautiful, wearing a rather skimpy garment.  Hmm.  The older man took photography equipment from his car.   Harika was intrigued, but we kept her near us as we committed the landscape to canvas.  

Blair and I painted for 90 or so minutes, and the other people disappeared among the architecture.  As I was near the finish of my canvas, the man asked if he could photograph the woman with me and my canvas in the background.  Shoot on, I encouraged him.

It turned out he was a photographer and she was his model.  He is an excellent life model photographer (she kept her filmy dress on next to me, though).   More astonishing than simply bumping into him and her  was that he spoke English, and had lived in Holland, Pennsylvania for part of his life.  Now he was a photographer, living in Modena.  We traded stories of Paris and Rocca Malatina, Holland Pennsylvania, and Modena,  and then traded business cards.