Cassis Harbor Blair Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 11 x 16
Cagnes en Haut Blair Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 13 x 16 inches
Trees Mount Boron Blair Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 13 x 16
Trees Cassis Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 11 x 16
Olive Tree (darker in real life) Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 9 x 11
Oliviers Blair Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 16 x 24 inches
View at Cassis Blair Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 11 x 16
Downtown Cassis Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 11 x 16
View from Renoir's Garden Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 27 x 36
Olive Tree in Menton Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 12 x 12 inches
Fishing with a String Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas11 x 9 inches
Mediterranean Fisherman Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 12 x 12 inches
We painted in Cassis on Wednesday with a friend from
Paris. It was another “white cloud”
day. We sat at the end of the dock,
committing downtown Cassis and the harbor to canvas. We’d hoped to take the “Calanques” tour, but
the boat wasn’t running. Harika was
running on the beach, got 86’d by the guard; we went to the market and bought
two pieces of fatty ham we ate by the side of the boules court. A cat prowled the docks while we painted,
testing Harika’s patience.
Nobody’s perfect. I
have had a difficult time on this trip, and have been a pain to be with. I read about people in the newspaper, who
make mistakes (Obama, Hollande, Amiri Baracka, Scarlett Johannsen) and think,
wait, I am making mistakes all the time.
In realizing such, I learn, and hopefully they do, too. Many things really don’t matter so much. It’s only people who DO things who make
mistakes; the inactive are immune.
In our rental car we went to Italy on Friday. There were fisherman by the sea at Cervo, the
medieval town we almost stayed in (we would have had we not paid for our
apartment in Villefranche already).
There were rocky outcroppings and sandy beach, a la La Marsa, Tunisia, where Harika came from.
Italy is so very different from France. I felt wonderful when we got out of the car
there – I smiled in a way that made my whole face feel good (could have been
that I was grimacing all along the 1000 foot high curving mountain roads). I felt so happy and relaxed I could have
cried.
We ate a a place
called Macaroni’s. Why does spaghetti
taste so much better in Italy? Thank
goodness it does. Blair and I talked of
the possibility of living in Italy, although I am not sure – it is an even more
men/women kind of place than France, and I’ve never been able to line up on the
right side. The fishermen by the sea
are nearly all men: at least a dozen
boys and one blond haired girl. Good for
her.
This has been a rather painful trip – I’ve had a headache
off and on since Christmas day; I keep
the pharmacy in business buying aspirin and antihistamines. It is my sinuses: a Seattle headache, where we were plagued
with overcast skies and constant humidity, like here. Blair and I used to wear hats to bed then,
knitted caps made by his mother.
Every morning we walk down to the beach near our house. Blair scavenges for junk and Harika and I lie
about – once in a while we run around
and today I got wet up to my thighs – others
swim, but it’s just too cold for me.
Today Blair found a French SOUS from 1943.
We retire to the Joyeuse Baleine where they make a delicious cappuccino, and we sit and sip
outdoors, bobbing with the boats in the basin.
