Artnotes: Way to go, Universe!

Commission   Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  18 x 12   45 x30cm

Nuclear Plant Commission   Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  16 x 24"  41 x 60cm

 Pear Blossoms   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  12 x 12"  30 x30cm

Dinner Included   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  32 x 47  81 x 119cm   

The Universe must have been reading last week’s Artnotes, when I talk about not feeling included:  we have had a multitude of engagements this week.    One was completely in Italian language, one half and half, and today we spoke English with some of the most sophisticated people I have ever met.  Right here in greater Rocca Malatina, Italy!

Our Italian lunch was at a great house only to be found in Italy – it was an old vinegar factory, with a grand porch that was ever so slowly renovated into a beautiful entertainment room.  I love the scale of houses here – big square spaces.  This family had some of the most wonderful paintings I’d seen in a long time, and it inspired me to come home and paint.   Too bad I ate so much lunch it had to be postponed until the next day.

I got out my biggest canvas and set up the dining room like a dinner scene.  I invited people over who cancelled the last minute (actually they told me it might not work out), so now everyone in the scene has the gestures of Blair, or friends from pictures years ago.  The ideal dinner party:  drama, refinement, beauty and ease.   We now have 7 pounds of coq au vin, and are steadily working on it.

We had English guests to dinner, who came to our show over the last weekend (did I tell you I was a success?  Last minute someone with a hotel showed up and bought 4 small works).  An Italian English couple joined in, and we ate and drank with abandon.

Today we went to a house in the area for tea.  The man is a great collector with interesting objects from Central and South America, Turkey and Afghanistan.  Of course there were fine Italian paintings, and lovely furniture, again in in a house built in that marvelous, grand square Italian architectural style.   I felt a bit of a fool for bringing my 10 cent print of Monte Cimone, but the thought was there.  They were planting a jasmine tree, guaranteed to smell delicious on hot summer nights.

Blair is busy with commissions, which he really likes.  He painted someone’s mother, and a nuclear power plant in Saudi Arabia (this is the rejected one, which I actually liked the best).  

 I was outside painting blossoms and talking about negative space on your painting minute this week, anticipating a workshop student this coming week.  Way to go, Universe!