Alive

 

 Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/newspaper  17 x 24"   41 x 63cm

 ​Trees Panaro Spring   Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  23.5 x 15.5"  60 x 40"

 Dovecote  Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  16 x 13"  41 x 33cm 

​Trees at the River  Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  16 x 13"  41 x 33 cm  

​Oratorio Monteorsello  Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  13 x 18"  33 x 46cm 

My Dad, “Foxie”, passed away this week.  I had just been there to see him alive, and talked to him only 24 hours before he left us.  It’s a remarkable thing, after 63 years together, he isn’t there anymore.  He was the first person that loved me; he was a witness to all I did, good and bad.   He was my sounding board, and I decided at an early age, if I couldn’t tell him what I was doing, I probably shouldn’t be doing it.  I trusted him.

I feel grief, but I feel more relieved he won’t be stuck in his bed any longer.  He used to run seven miles a day, three times a week.  When he couldn’t do that anymore, at age 70, he walked (“I see so much more,” he admitted).  And he walked up until a few weeks before his death, when he broke his pelvis.  Being in bed just wasn’t something he could tolerate.

Anyway, services are taking place without me being there.  I can’t face, physically nor financially, another trip to the USA with our annual summer pilgrimage looming on 26 June.   The actual burial will be “put on ice” until I arrive, end of June.

Back in April, I made an earlier reservation than usual for our American summer trip.  It also puts us in the Northeast USA in time to be at the Brimfield Antiques and Art Fair in Brimfield, Massachusetts.  We’re sharing a “double” booth with an artist friend, Michael Ince.  He makes prints and wood sculpture and it will be a good fit alongside us.  We are selling our Baseball Show, my Newspaper Paintings, and our usual collection of Fine Art Paintings on canvas.  I have made a couple of catalogs:  https://issuu.com/paintfox/docs/the_news ;   https://issuu.com/paintfox/docs/summerball_by_laurie_and_blair_pess

I am under pressure now to divest the paintings in our storage locker in the USA; without my Dad I have no real place from which to maintain what’s there.   So, we’re “selling out to the walls”.  There may be an art bonfire on the beach at Highland Lake on the 24 July.  I hope not.

I am looking forward to our artshow.  It’s terrifically nerve-wracking but standing face to face with interested buyers satisfies my gambling gene (from my mother, Shorty).  All this week I have been painting, promoting, and eating and drinking ferociously.  I am overwhelmed with an urge to live.   And, when we get back here in August, we’re showing our Italian work in Zocca.   Anything can happen.