Artnotes: A Far Cry

 

1/29/22 Roccamalatina, MO Italia

January Pansies  Laurie Fox Pessemier 17 x 8"   43 x 20cm   Acrylic/canvas 450.00 We took a trip this week to Ravenna.  Ravenna has the most beautiful mosaics on mainland Italy (Sicily has some great ones, maybe better).  We chose the least frequented installation, Sant’Apollonaire in Classe, for a visit (we’re still pretty shy about Covid exposure).  This sixth century church has been rebuilt a couple of times, but has a very wonderful mosaic of Sant’Apollonaire with his sheep in the apse.  There are apostles and a bearded Jesus; and a series of wonderful mosaics of bishops along the clerestory.   The floor, once mosaic, is just plain, but there are fragments scattered about.  Sarcophagi, in carved marble, surround the perimeter of the church.   It was wonderful to see.   Outside the church was a herd of contemporary bronze cows.   They were set in a field directly in front of the church.  I had been there maybe four or five years ago, and didn’t recall them – they were just developing a nice bronzy-green patina.  I suspect they were larger than life-size, but because I haven’t really been so close to cows, it was hard to say:  they were big girls in any case.  A Swinging Time  Laurie Fox  Pessemier  Lithograph  5 x 7"  12.5 x 17cm  75.00  We went out to lunch at a worker’s restaurant across the street, and ate handmade Strozzapreti (priest stranglers) in ragu for our first course.  The pasta got its name because the wives of the farmers were obligated to feed the priests on Sundays and the farmers wished the pasta would choke the gluttons.  Fun at the Beach.   There were DOGS!   Lithograph  Laurie Fox Pessemier  5.5 x 7"  75.00 We walked off our three courses at the Adriatic seaside, a place I always like for its misty jewel-toned skies.  People had constructed assemblages of driftwood on the shore.   Vestiges of oil rigs sit off the coast, supposedly being converted to CO2 storage tanks now.  It makes for an interesting scene, in any case.  Pansy: A Pretty Face    Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  7 x 10"  18 x 25cm  425.00 Later in the week, I found a new program for enhancing my Etsy site.   I can show my picture “on a wall”, so people can see what it would look like.  The program is called Canvy and is free for the moment.   It’s a far cry from mosaics.   INVITING All Artists to present their Work:   Paint, Literature, Crafts, Food....  read us a poem, tell us a joke? Pessemier's Sunday Salon Weekly on Sunday  No Reservation Necessary  Rome 8PM ; NY 2 PM; LosAngeles  11AM https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85625088767?pwd=WldKRk9VbUVITWtRS0FFK2JwdGEwQT09 Meeting ID: 856 2508 8767 Passcode: 887182