Saturday, June 25, 2011

 Ballerina   Laurie Fox PESSEMIER   Acrylic on wood  6 x 10 inches
Ile de la City  Blair PESSEMIER    Acrylic on canvas  13 x 22 inches

ARTNOTES:  Three Surprises

Why why why did LinkedIn send out 778 invitations to connect with me this week?  I have no idea.  I was just trying to connect with one person, who I don’t really know, to sell our 3D Interactive Hospitality Management services.  Is that ever a far cry from teaching plein air painting? 

Not that teaching plein air painting is my penchant.  Painting: YES;   plein air: yes;   teaching:  half and half.  2-1/2 out of three isn’t bad.   For me teaching is a dangerous thing:  I realize I can seriously damage someone’s creativity if I am not careful.  Honestly, does a bridge need to look like a bridge, or a boat a boat, or a building a building?  No, they don’t.  So I like to think of myself as a guide to helping one connect with one’s muse – and in doing so create a provocative work of art.

While I was guiding our youngest “stagiare” on the banks of the Seine, what should appear but a ballerina?    Blair was painting on a slightly elevated area near us, as the ballerina, wearing a black tutu, skimpy leotard and pale pink tights and shoes, jumped onto her toes near him.  “Look”, I exclaimed, as she swung her very thin arms and expressive fingers over her head.

It’s what I like best about Paris, and best about teaching, even:  anything can happen.  Pure magic lightly touches down on the cobblestones.    The ballerina’s photographer asked if he could photograph her with Blair, who eagerly agreed.  L, my student, and I, were surprisingly involved in our own work (at this point she made the bridge light purple, which was what the picture needed).  It wasn’t until the dancer took to pirouetting, en point, in front of me, at the edge of the quai, I decided to paint her.

We had three sets of guests this week, from America and Germany.  We drank wine, and ate delicious dinners (cold pea cream soup, langoustine ravioli, quenelles of pike, veal, stuffed quail, profiteroles with hot chocolate) listening carefully for a special message from afar.  There are many messages:  mostly stuff about life, that I hold for a day I will need it.   I am so lucky to have far reaching relations on account of artnotes.

I sent my mother roses on the “find a grave” website (I am subject to becoming morbid when left alone too long), and immediately afterward a letter came in the mail, expressing condolences, with yellow rose petals inside.  My mother was a big fan of roses, and St. Teresa, the “little flower of Jesus” kept my mom in roses.  Shorty sent off many a novena on my behalf, like it or not.  I had a fight with St. Teresa in her basilica in Lisieux, France some time ago over my mother and Alzhiemer’s.   But all is forgiven. 

Lots of people I hadn’t heard from in years became contacts on LinkedIn.  It wasn’t such a bad thing after all.  It’s hard to have magic when one is in control.



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