Pond, Borghese Gardens Blair Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 11 x 18 27 x 46cm 250.00
Pond at Borghese Gardens Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas Sold
Madagascar Circus Blair Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 14 x 29.5 35 x 75cm 325.00
Circus Vignola Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 16 x 24 40 x 60cm 395.00
Chickens Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/paper 17 x 25 41 x 63cm
Last Beach Day Blair Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 14 x 16" 35 x 40cm 295.00
Portrait by Blair
There’s the most attractive moth on our front doormat right
now. He is a camel color with totally
fuzzy head and long backward turning antennae (I try to find his technical name
on Internet, but moth information is somewhat limited. As near as I can tell, he’s a Wainscot Moth,
or Mythimna pallens). It’s the time of
year insects are struggling to live, to reproduce, to last as long as possible
or hunker down for next year. Butterflies,
bees, and whatnot are extracting the last bit of nectar from the flowers that
are just barely hanging on. Yellowjackets
are after my lunch.
It happened overnight, it seems, this transition from
sweltering hot to surprisingly cold. I
look forward to taking walks in the morning again, and am happy to be wearing
socks. Mosquitoes are diminishing.
I am getting ready
for a big show at our house on the 13 and 20 October, to coincide with the
Castagna (chestnut) festival. I am trying to figure out how to leave doors
open for light and air, but keep the heat inside. I’d
like to find a yurt (ger) I can set up in our dining room and live in it, here,
for the winter.
We’re painting outside again, and yesterday we stood on the
street to paint the circus tents in Vignola.
Everyone from the circus came and admired our work. They asked us to be their guests at their
performance, but we had a prior engagement at a show in Guiglia, part of an
event there. I refer to it as “The Gruel Festival”, but in
fact, it’s the Sagra della Polenta, where you eat tasteless corn based slop
covered with ragu or cheap cream, served in a plastic bowl with a plastic spoon
(washed down with bubbly red wine: Lambrusco). People here love it. It
makes me think of prison (but that would be gruel without topping), or
something medieval, not totally inappropriate in the shadow of the 13th
century castle in Guiglia.
I actually like polenta, prepared and served well, which is
a rarity. I prefer grits, the Southern
US “polenta”. Grits are made with white
corn (hominy), as opposed to polenta, which is made with yellow corn. Grits have a finer texture, and either grits
or polenta can easily be made to resemble wallpaper paste. One of my most memorable meals, eaten with my
friend Vicki, in High Point, North Carolina was a Shrimp and Grits dish. Those grits had the slightest crunchiness, the
shrimp were perfectly cooked, served with a grinding of coarsely ground
pepper. I can still taste it.
I’d love to take all this Italian food like Mama used to
make, and add fresh, new 21st century tastes. Pizza with duck breast and cherries; a tuna
and lemon frittata; polenta with shrimp and ground pepper. Maybe next week.
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