Cooking at the Alpini Lunch Blair Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 16 x 16" 40 x 40cm
Spotted fish Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/newspaper 16 x 23" 41 x 59cm
Red Octopus Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/newspaper 16 x 23" 41 x 59cm
At via Mauro Tesi, 967 Zocca (BO) Italia
Every morning I try to think of three things to be grateful
for. This is to counteract the frustration and impatience and anger that
can consume me. Does it work? No. In
fact, I think things just build up and then I have a worse fit. By Friday this week, I could recall every
dirty Italian swear word that my friend Sal’s grandmother used. And I could actually understand the meanings.
When we got back from vacation, we went to check out our “gallery”
space in Zocca. In July, we were awarded
three weeks of a free store space in downtown Zocca in October. When we arrived in September, with our
camera and tape measure, we were surprised to see the place was rented to a
real estate company. We huffed and
puffed, wrote to the politician in charge.
V had said to me, when we moved to Rocca Malatina, “you’ll
soon see what Italy is really like. Not
good, not bad, but not anything like the Anglo Saxon world.” I was beginning to get the picture.
Last Monday, we finally talked to the official, who said, “We’ve
got a place for you.” On Wednesday we were there, shoes shined. It wasn’t right. Maybe Friday or Saturday. The show started on Saturday afternoon.
On Friday morning we finally got the key and the control to
operate the roll-down shutter. I thought
at once, this is something that could
easily break. She insisted we put
the shade down whenever we weren’t there.
Halfway through our installation, we needed to leave for another
appointment; we rolled down the shutter, and bang: it would not open again. So, here we sat awaiting repairs. Over 50 paintings, our supplies, my notebook
and pens, all closed up in a time capsule.
“The electrician will come on Saturday at 11:30,” we were finally
told. Show starts at 2:30.
We were supposed to hang more paintings at another place
with our art group on Friday. NOW, not
only could I not hang our show, but we couldn’t participate in the group show
because all of our belongings were locked away.
Which all started the Italian cursing lesson. I also try counting to 100, but the last
thing I feel like doing when I am cursing in Sicilian-Italian is to count. In fact we just went home to cool our
jets. I polished off the remainder of
the Ballantine’s scotch. We went out for
pizza. I felt better.
On Saturday at noon, the electrician pried open the rolling
shutter; the doors opened to the show at 2:30.
I had several customers who were delighted to talk about painting. People recognized Blair’s portrait of our
neighbor; everyone loved the vermillion fish.
I didn’t sell anything, but it didn’t seem to matter. I am
grateful. I am in Italy. Sto grato.
