Artnotes: An American in Italy

 

Bravo Spring Flowers   Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/paper   11.7 x 16.5"  30 x 42cm  16 x 24"  190.00 We spent the last few days, three (sometimes 4) old American fogeys and an Italian dog, visiting the Lucca region.   A guest arrived and I had an idea to go to the seaside, which is sunny, if not too warm.  We stayed at the beach (just steps away) in Viareggio, home to one of the largest Carnevale-s in Italy.   The Carnevale in Viareggio  was started in 1873 by artisans and sculptors.  There is a terrific museum where 65-foot high parade figures stand, along with costumes and paintings.  The building they are housed in is likewise interesting, two wings, covering a large footprint.   This Citadelle del Carnevale has 16 hangar workshops, 2 museums and an arena that hosts events.  The floats created here are the largest in the world.   Everything starts with paper mache, which inspired me no end. It was great to see something so positive:  celebration, pure and simple.  I smiled and laughed.  Imagine it.   My heart felt light.   Just being on a trip was good:  walking in the sand, or out onto the pier extending into the sea is a pleasure.   The salty air feels marvelous on my face and in my lungs.   Berlino digs holes his entire body disappears into.   I cast my worries to the wind.   Spring in a Teacup  Laurie Pessemier  Acrylic/paper 17x 25”  41 x 63 cm   290.00 We stayed in a most interesting Airbnb, in a structure particular to that area.  It was a “palazzino” with 14 foot tall ceilings (which did make for very tall Carrara marble staircase – Carrara was the next city up the road).  The house itself, with garden/patio front and back was just a room wide, with very tall windows.  The style was “Liberty”, Italy’s Victorian, with a painted frieze on the stucco just below the roof.   It was painted, inside, with muted colors that changed with the time of day.  It was full of very personal tchotchkes, including lots of Buddhas, which I painted.  I could live there. Buddhas (there are actuallly 6,, the last at the end of this)  Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/newspaper  12 x 8.5"   30 x 20cm     75 each or the 6 for 375.00 We visited the interesting little city of Lucca on the trip.  The walls of the city were adapted, a couple hundred years ago, into a park.   You can bicycle on top of it, observing the countryside and the city, in just 30 minutes.   Lucca isn’t as spectacular as Florence, but it has a similar feel – Florence is more “Renaissance”, whereas Lucca still has remnants of a coliseum, adapted for housing and commerce. A favorite medieval/early Renaissance church is in the center of town.  We ate regional dishes, including tripe.      Basilic di San Frediano Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  14 x 18"  35 x 45 cm  490.00 On our way home from the four day sojourn, we walked Berlino at the Piazza Michelangelo in Florence, so our guest could get a good view of the Ponte Vecchio and Brunelleschi’s dome.   We bought Florentine scarves, for gifts, and to wrap ourselves in, when back in chilly Roccamalatina.  Home sweet home.  I love being an American in Italy.                   The Best Year for Violets   Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/paper  16 x 11"  40 x 30cm  190.00

HOUSEKEEPING:  We make art to order, including portraits by Blair Pessemier.    Follow us on Instagram @lauriepessemier See all of our paintings at https://paintfox.com Most of our work is available as reproductions, custom sized and framed. Write to me at lfpessemier@gmail.com   sign up for Artnotes, our weekly art missive, by contacting me at lfpessemier@gmail.com or https://mailchi.mp/341f508cecf8/artnotes INVITING All Artists to present their Work:   Paint, Literature, Crafts, Food.... Pessemier's Sunday Salon Weekly on Sunday  No Reservation Necessary   How it works: Bring a piece of your ART: that could be visual, like painting or printmaking; or literary, as in poetry or prose; or crafts, like metalwork or knitting; or food, or music.  Something you made, or feel particularly inspired by.  You have about 5 minutes to present, and we'll ooh, ahh, or answer questions you have.  You can also come and see how we work before diving in.  Just show up on Zoom at a minute or two before the hour.    No selling, no networking until after everyone has presented.  No politics, no sales pitches, please. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88093708954?pwd=M04zNHB4dFZkREp3bThweUd1YnVDZz09 Meeting ID: 880 9370 8954 Passcode: 886402 Rome 7PM (for US daylight savings time)  NY 2 PM; LosAngeles 11AM

Artnotes: SOMETHING

 

7 March 2026   Roccamalatina, MO   ITALIA Join us for Sunday Salon 8 March (see below)

In the Ruins   Bliair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  16 x 24"  40 x 60cm  490.00 I made the mistake of looking at my telephone at 4AM (when Berlino needs to go out).  I was expecting a message from a friend who lives on the West Coast, USA – he didn’t write but I (accidently, you know how the screen lights up) saw how Netanyahu is threatening Europe with retaliation if they show sympathy to Iran.   Honestly, what ever happened to human sympathy and kindness?   I went back to bed but didn’t sleep. Wild Daisy Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/paper  12 x 8.5"  30 x 20cm  90.00 Instead, I thought about the books and records I had when I was young.  “How the Circus Learned to Smile”, “Bongo”, “Beep-beep, Outta’ my Way” were among my favorites.  They were instructive, funny, sometimes beautiful (of course, I had all the classic fairy tales, too, like Red Riding Hood and the Three Bears; The Christmas Tree).  My absolute favorite thing was being read to, mostly by my father and my Aunt Franny.  In Beep-beep, the character is sick of being pushed around and acquires bigger and bigger conveyances, starting with a bicycle (beep-beep, outta’ my way, I’m a bicycle, horn tinkling) and ending with an ocean liner (giant foghorn honk), that can’t get him to the store.  Eventually he learns how good it is to be kind and patient, to let people pass, and to be able to get around easily.  I also learned that being a little bigger is advantageous as long as it doesn’t go too far.  I had a significant collection of “Golden Books” with cardboard covers, “gold” bindings, and colorful illustrations.  Years later I would go to the Beardsley Memorial library, or the school library. I could read by then, and I took out books which had hard covers and illustrations made of real lithography (those thickish crayon drawings, usually just filling up to black outlines – the paper was a little fuzzy and porous).    Eventually we got an encyclopedia (the Golden Encyclopedia), a volume of which came free weekly with shopping at the First National Store.  That kept me busy till the next issue. Peace March (Buddhists in USA)  Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  24 x 8"  60 x 20cm  490.00 Where do people learn to be sympathetic, kind and generous now?  These are truly characteristics which need to be pointed out -- taught.   In fact, what seems most “taught” on my Instagram is to “manifest”.  That is, set your eye on the prize, and kick everything (everyone) else to the side.  There are actually mini-lectures about not worrying about other people, but how it’s your job to set your quantum physics psyche on where you are going and it will change the world.  Well, it seems to have worked, just take a look around! Our gallery is a giant ocean of fish -- Under Water.   Almost finished. I am reading about the life of a Polish man, Josef Czapski, who lived through World War II.  Despite all the horrors, he continued to be kind, generous and true to himself (he did not kick others aside).  He was a hero.  There are no heroes now, just bullies dropping bombs from above.  Who were their mothers?  Why weren’t they taught to be better?  Why do we let them take over? New England House Portrait  Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas panel   10 x 14" 25 x 35cm  290.00 In response to all this I am trying to teach AI to be kinder.  It’s where AI gets its ideas, its “personality” --from people.   I can tell the Bot about how good it feels to give up your seat on the bus, pay someone’s tab, help out your neighbor.  Imagine, if we could make AI be the kindness of the world?   That would be SOMETHING.                         Violets from the Garden   Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/paper  12 x 8.5"  30 x 20cm  90.00

HOUSEKEEPING:  We make art to order, including portraits by Blair Pessemier.    Follow us on Instagram @lauriepessemier See all of our paintings at https://paintfox.com Most of our work is available as reproductions, custom sized and framed. Write to me at lfpessemier@gmail.com   sign up for Artnotes, our weekly art missive, by contacting me at lfpessemier@gmail.com or https://mailchi.mp/341f508cecf8/artnotes

Artnotes: One Great Thing

 

Sea Monster     Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/cardboard We hear more birds every day when we walk Berlino.  I bring “Merlin”, my birding app from Cornell University (they have several thousand birdsongs online, you can listen).  We are hearing: European Robins, Eurasian Blackbird, Song Thrush, Eurasian Green Woodpecker, the Great Spotted Woodpecker, three Tits:  Marsh, Eurasian Blue and Great;  Eurasian Scops Owl, Little Owl, Goldfinch, Blackcap, Chaffinch and Goldcrest; Magpies, the Jay, the the Jackdaw.   We usually hear about 10 or 12 birds per day, the owls earlier, followed by robins, and eventually the jays and corvids. I am looking forward to going to the coast to see and hear the migrators, like flamingoes and ibis, some of which make permanent homes there. Similarly, there are more flowers blooming daily.  We see forsythia, violets, Christmas rose, snowdrops (a variation, in fact), yellow primrose, lungwort, veronica, wild daffodils, we are just days away from tulips, hyacinth and crocus.    Rose   Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/paper   17 x 12”    42 x 30cm  190.00 I am working on a new installation in the gallery, “underwater”:  painting walls and making fish, accumulating materials to create a human fish bowl. Blair has made a sea monster.   I feel madly enthused when I work on the project – it is a giant distraction, commanding.  The gallery is a folly.  We have no visitors, it makes no money (luckily we only pay 50 a month for it).  But we really enjoy staging these exhibits, more like installation art than a classic painting show.  It is not so different from the studio at Stimigliano, where I work more than I open the door to visitors.  In both cases, it’s something we love to do, and if not now, when?   I am following my bliss. Wall with Octopus beneath the Sea A friend talks to me about boredom; I avoid it, which is easy to do when you have a dog who would like a walk any hour of the day or night.  Like me, G is in retirement age, and is rarely bored.  He loves to go out, drink tea in cafes, chat up tourists, English speaking.  He tells me about an American woman that day complaining about how boring Modena is.  Boring is not a place or time, it’s the inability to see the beauty, the thrill, the essence of life.  I also think there are times to be bored, which can provide inspiration for the next step.

I am reading the best book:  Time Lost, Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp. Jozef Czapski, an artist and writer, talks about Proust to his fellow military officers while imprisoned in Siberia in the early 1940s.  He does this from memory (there are no books in the camp), and fortunately, another prisoner keeps a record of the lectures.  These were eventually passed on to Eric Karpeles, a writer and artist himself, and in 2018, he published this translation and accompanying story.    Czapski moved to Paris after he was released from prison (Russia changed sides) and lived there for 50 years, dying (at 97) just the time Blair and I arrived.  Gosh, I would have loved to have met him. Sea Life from Scrimshaw Laurie Pessemier  Acrylic/paper  15 x 22.5”  38 x 55 cm 290.00 I am equally eager to read about Karpeles, the author, and the books he wrote, Paintings in Proust, and Almost Nothing: a monograph on Czapski.    One great thing leads to another:  how could I be bored?  Red Rose  Black Ground  Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/paper   17 x 12”    42 x 30cm  190.00 HOUSEKEEPING:  We make art to order, including portraits by Blair Pessemier.    Follow us on Instagram @lauriepessemier or Blair's @poeticfences See all of our painting at https://paintfox.com Most of our work is available as reproductions, custom sized and frames Support our art with a donation at:  https://donate.stripe.com/4gMaEW1XwfT041t1BCcEw00   sign up for Artnotes, our weekly art missive, by contacting me at lfpessemier@gmail.com or https://mailchi.mp/341f508cecf8/artnotes INVITING All Artists to present their Work:   Paint, Literature, Crafts, Food.... Pessemier's Sunday Salon Weekly on Sunday  No Reservation Necessary   How it works: Bring a piece of your ART: that could be visual, like painting or printmaking; or literary, as in poetry or prose; or crafts, like metalwork or knitting; or food, or music.  Something you made, or feel particularly inspired by.  You have about 5 minutes to present, and we'll ooh, ahh, or answer questions you have.  You can also come and see how we work before diving in.  Just show up on Zoom at a minute or two before the hour.    No selling, no networking until after everyone has presented.  No politics, no sales pitches, please. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88093708954?pwd=M04zNHB4dFZkREp3bThweUd1YnVDZz09 Meeting ID: 880 9370 8954 Passcode: 886402 Rome 8PM; NY 2 PM; LosAngeles 11AM