Artnotes: Chilling with the Cream Puff

 Habiba and the Dinner Guests   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/linen  NFS

 ​Vines in the Fall  Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/linen  16 x 10.5"  41x 27 cm

 Vines and Trees  Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/linen  9 x13"  21 x 33 cm  

 Building in Pink, white, brick, turquoise  Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/line  16 x 10.5"  41 x 27 cm 

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​The Old School  Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/linen  10.5 x 16"  27 x 41cm 

Artnotes:  Chilling with the Cream Puff

​One of the things we discovered this week is that the cream puff (our new car) has no heat (who would have checked that in 80 degree temperature?).  On the internet I learned this is a common problem of the Citroen C5, and with a little fiddling, might be fixed.  Meanwhile, we have no fear of falling asleep at the wheel, regardless of the hour.

We drove to the dealer, who wasn’t open and we forgot our phone.  On the way we passed a wonderful building, pink and white below and brick and turquoise above.    So we set up and painted.

The man who lived in the next-door house came to see what I was painting.  It was a school, he explained, since closed.  I thought it such a shame, because it was so pretty, and new schools are usually so ugly.  I told him I thought kids would love the school, it would feed imagination.   He hoped I wouldn’t be bothered by his dogs.  Envisioning guard dogs, I assured him I had a dog myself.   His were the three yappi-est dachshunds I’ve heard in well, a dog’s age.  They urged my happy painting on.

We went to our friend’s birthday party near here last night.  I made corn bread, as an American gesture, and we visited with a variety of American and Italian guests.  English was the predominating language.  “It will take you two years to feel at ease with Italian,” a compatriot told me.   Although I learn more and more words, I am thinking she could be right.   We drove home in 40 degree temperatures.

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It’s overcast and cold today, but we are running the art show another day, to correspond with the chestnut festival here in Rocca Malatina.  We’ve substituted some of the paintings we sold last weekend with new ones.  We had over 100 people visit our house and 10% of that number made purchases.  It was a giant Italian lesson, and I was bowled over by how many wonderful people live in this little town.

We went to a beautiful restored castle not far from our house on Saturday.  “Not far from our house” can mean just 30 kilometers, but it takes an hour to negotiate the hills and bends.  The Rocchetta di Mattei was the home of an 1850s electro-homeopathic doctor.  Mattei was famous world-wide and even Tolstoy mentions his “cure” in a book.  He had a marvelous arabesque house, built on a “magic” stone outcropping, with stunning views all around.   “Can we just look around?” we asked the fellow at the entry, “we don’t speak Italian”.  No problem, he said and found us an English speaking guide.  There was a hard cover book about the place, written in English and Italian.  “There are only 1000 copies, and one of them is in the Vatican.”  We bought it.  Presto!