Flower from Macy's Seeds Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 20 x 8" 20 x 50cm 475.00
2020 has been bad and good. Bad is the news and the frustration of not being able to do much about it. Good is having time to think, and to pursue things which interest me. That’s how I ran into the Jason Reynolds “poem about the trials and triumphs of a creative life for difficult crossroads” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOHxiN9wsfY ). It came through a graphic arts group called Creative Mornings.
Photo of the Sassi di Roccamalatina Blair Pessemier
This creative morning we rose at 6:30 to record bird songs in the park. IT was a dud, although Blair captured a wonderful photograph, and taking an alternate route home we found a stand with a box of 6 terrifically ugly large tomatoes for 2 euros. We walked around the Pieve di Trebbio (11th century church) and then I painted the tomatoes at home.
Tomatoes in Newspaper Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/paper 17 x 25 41 x 63 cm 325.00
I have more ideas than anyone I’ve ever known. It isn’t that I wanted them. As a child in catholic school, I used to pray I didn’t have a vision – I didn’t want to be forced to become a nun, or have to live a “prescribed” life. As an adult, I just wanted to be “normal”, although some niggling voice would say, “do you really want that job?” “do you really want children?” I was plagued by ideas of what I could do, and none of them were mainstream.
Two Tomatoes Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 7 x 9.5" 18 x 23 cm 275.00
So I did many different things. I went to Seattle all by myself from Connecticut and met Blair and we have had many, many projects and businesses together. Mostly creative. I don’t think we are meant to do the same thing all of our lives. Ideas and passions come and go: we painted, sold things, worked in a Paris restaurant, designed hotels and restaurants.
Group Dinner Blair Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 18 x 15" 46 x 38 cm 575.00
We’ve had what seems like millions of ideas: Foxhunt, a furniture location business; making and selling dog biscuits; The American Design Center in Paris; writing romantic letters; running a painting workshop – and this in only half of them. Once these ideas take root, I wake up thinking of them and I have to follow it until the end. Do they succeed?
Apple Tree Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 20 x 12" 50 x 30cm 450.00 with apples photo (then I made apple chutney)
Therein lies the rub. A lot of ideas were folly – but the events along the way were fabulous. We moved to Paris, we had our own art gallery, we traveled, and entertained, and drank champagne every night with the most exciting people in the world. “Making it” is overrated. The making OF it, beats the IT.
Romantic Letters Blair Pessemier Commission
We are trundling along, a little more soberly than in past. I love the Sunday Salon. It isn’t moneymaking, but I like every aspect of it. It exposes me, and everyone else, to fabulous art ideas. It’s art in all its forms, it’s fun, it’s incredibly positive. It doesn’t use hot, physical strength, like leading plein air painting workshops. I don’t have to hold a brush in a frozen hand. It’s ok rain or shine, as long as my internet connection holds up. And WHO KNOWS what’s next?
Pessemier's Sunday Salon Sunday, 8:00 – 10:00pm Weekly on Sunday
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