Cervo at first sun Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 14 x 20" 35 x 50 cm
Fishermans house at the beach Blair Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 20 x 14" 50 x 35 cm
Cervo from the Beach Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 9.3 x 12 24 x 30cm
“There’s something about travel,” our neighbor mused, “whenever
I go away I have the best ideas”.
The minute I boarded the train my brain kicked into gear.
With Harika sandwiched between us (not the most comfortable situation
for the bread), we faced Mutt and Jeff in seats 77-78. Luckily Mutt was across from me; Blair was sharing legroom with a 6-foot-4
Jeff. The potential Ebola patient,
sneezing, hacking sighing “pas posible” (impossible) sat across the aisle. I pulled my turtleneck over my nose, but my
gracious husband helped her alight with her luggage, negating any preventive
measure I might have taken. She was in
fact born in Senegal, but has been living in Mantes-la-Jolie, northwest of
Paris, for years. She had the misfortune
to break out with the flu on the train. Five hours later we were in Nice, where we
rented a car to take us the last hour across the border.
We are back in our frescoed rental apartment with the
eighteen foot high ceilings in Cervo,
Italy. We are going to have an art show right
here, with the help of our landlady, on 28 December. It is the day the town puts on its living
Nativity, and events are encouraged.
I remember the living Nativity at the Garibaldi Hall, in
Winsted, Connecticut. My sister
participated --being non-Italian yet Catholic, she was a shepherd or an apostle
(could there have been apostles?). The
title of Virgin Mary seemed to always go the most Magdelene-ish girl in town,
who happened to be beautiful and look, well, fertile. A blue veil, and Joseph in brown. The baby Jesus
inevitably came from one of those Catholic families with ten kids. I am looking forward to the experience here,
but of course, we won’t know the details.
We’ll serve prosecco and nuts, and have about 30 paintings to sell,
hopefully.
We are here until the 10 January, if you want to come by for
dinner or for Christmas. We have one
little slot, a folding bed chair in the kitchen, which is always the best place
to sleep. It smells like ras-al-hanout,
the “top shelf” spice in the kitchen now – delicious. We’re at the beach every morning, often
painting. Harika barks at every man and
dog that passes, and then smiles at me.
No leash.
I am thinking what a good idea this is to rent a place to
show our work – what if I took a chic Paris apartment, ground floor, for three
days? See, the wheels are already
turning.
