Artnotes: Nice Fish

 

Fields near the Sassi   Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas   20 x 14"   50 x 35cm  400.00

Fish for Lunch   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  10 x 14"  25 x 35cm  unstretched  95.00

Tilled Field    Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  12 x 12    30 x 30 cm     175.00

Painting in the Hot Sun   Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas 13 x 16"   33 x 41 cm  275.00

Petunias  Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  10 x 12"  25 x 30 cm  175.00

The Neighborhood   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas   18 x 11" 45 x 27cm 225.00

I just couldn’t get artnotes out in a timely fashion this week.  I got myself into a giant funk, and it took a visit from an old Paris friend to get me out of it.  As we picked  through the bones of two fresh orate (fish), we dissected the merits of Italy and France. 

Of course, it’s a futile exercise.  One place is never better than another -- only different.  We agreed on how wonderful the Italians can be; that Paris is an outstandingly beautiful, intellectual city.  Italy won hands down on the subject of coffee.  

I showed off my library, which never ceases to give me joy.  It’s walls are being primped in anticipation of paintings.  It’s unfortunately warm and humid in there right now – as it is everywhere near Rome.  Even the lady dispensing mortadella samples at the grocery store was bemoaning the heat and humidity.  In past years it has been hot and dry.  The humidity is a new level of Dante’s hell.

I knew things weren’t right for me when I turned down that mortadella – like when Harika is sick, I was “off my food”.  Food is my passion.  Creating new recipes and tweaking the old is my reason for being.  That is something I learned about in France.

Once I am off kilter here, it’s hard to get the washing machine in my head balanced again.  I can go to a doctor and explain a stomach ache, but something as abstract as feeling like a washing machine is harder to explain in another language.   And there’s the nuances:  is washing good or bad?  Am I brainwashed (as a child, I had a hard time grasping that concept)?

In any case, we hung pictures and made lunch and I got far enough out of myself to look around and say, “hey, nice fish!”

Laurie and Blair PESSEMIER