Artnotes: Live and Let Live

 

Water Iris  Blair Pessemier   Orignal  Acrylic/Canvas  20 x 8"   50 x 20 cm  490.00

The jury is still out on my art print (reproduction) idea.   A few people like the idea of us making prints of our work, but others are against/aghast.  So, we’re taking it slowly.  We sold two last week, and have ideas to sell floral prints at garden stores.  Would Monet have sold his water lilies until hell wouldn't have one?  (judging by the gift shop at Giverny, one would think so).  I don’t know that the switch to reproductions is as critical as it seemed:  first there were tariffs, then there was an artwork exclusion, then a below $800.00 exemption; no tariffs, a 90 day delay.  I can adjust to anything once established. Oregon Grape    Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/paper  24 x 16"  61 x 40cm   275.00 I had plenty of people to talk to this week.  We cooked lunch for people twice, went out to lunch in Modena.   My cooking skills are still present, despite less entertaining.  I made a rabbit in a tarragon cream sauce on Monday; spicy red fish stew on Thursday (with an agretti, mussel and crumbled egg yolk salad, which was perhaps the best dish of all).  In Modena, I ate really pretty good burritos – the first time in probably 20 years!   I spoke to friends on the telephone – we are all in agreement that SPRING feels wonderful.  We’re even thinking of going to a baseball game in Bologna tonight. Parrot Tulips    Blair Pessemier   Orignal  Acrylic/Canvas  20 x 8"   50 x 20 cm  490.00 Blair and I have been painting flowers, mostly wild ones.  I found a particularly interesting one at the far end of a walk with Berlino, in a marshy area -- it was too precarious to pick, particularly when holding onto the end of the leash.  “Let ‘em live”, as the sign to watch out for highway workers in Connecticut reads.  The flowers continue to thrive, and today I used Google Lens to identify them:  Butterburs or Coltsfoots.  They are reputed to be good treatment for bronchial problems.   I’ll continue to cough. Diving for Treasure   Laurie Fox Pessemier  Acrylic/paper  24 x 16"  61 x 40cm   275.00 Packages arrived this week in anticipation of visitors.   Sheets, a bit off color from the ones depicted online; paints, again slightly off color, but usable; canvas; and 200 tall white candles (actually, we rarely used them with visitors, but light our evening dining room with them).  Three other packages from outside Italy were lost and are in process of being replaced or reimbursed.  There’s a spate of strikes throughout Europe, and the post office is always an eager participant. Knot     Laurie Fox Pessemier  Original Acrylic/paper   9 x 12"  23 x 30cm   90.00 I’ve adorned my chenille fly curtain with laurel branches to further dissuade insects from entering the house (they hate bay), and am thinking of adding fake flowers, too. Kerria Japonica Laurie Fox PessemierOriginal Acrylic/paper  24 x 16"  61 x 40cm   275.00      We are offering all of the above work in reproduction format, as well.  On Paper, most pieces are 40.00; on canvas 80.00 .  Framing is also available within the USA. Blue Elephant   Blair Pessemier   Orignal  Acrylic/Canvas  18x 15"   45x 38 cm  390.00

Artnotes: Cuckoo for You

Irises in late May    Laurie Fox Pesemier   canvas panel  12 x 16"  30 x 40 cm  SOLD

 The Neapolitans Stand   Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  12 x 16"  30 x 40 cm

At the Rocca Malatina Market   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/wood  8 x 17.5   20 x 44.5cm

Rainbow   Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/canvas  16 x 12"  40 x 30cm

Cuckoo for You

On Sunday, the telephone rang.  “Can you come outside?” the voice asked.   And there, in front of the house was a marvelous Appaloosa, with a friend, G, in the saddle.  To me, the Appaloosa is the best sort of horse, with spots.  Although I am not a rider, I love to see the horses.

We have a project to create a horse head in terra cotta, or similar material, to hang in Rainbow’s yard.   We had hoped to do it over the winter, but the basement was simply too cold to work in.  So June looks like the month of the horse head sculpture.  We’ll keep you posted.

Today, Saturday, the weather just became warm:  seasonal, really.  Before now, it was still cold outside, which made it difficult to paint or do anything one would normally do, outside, in May.  Despite the call of the cuckoo, the herald of spring, the season only really sprung this weekend.  The cuckoo calls in Rocca Malatina from dawn until dusk.  I always expect to hear the creak of the clock’s door and the slam as the bird recedes into his house.  I never heard the cuckoo, outside of the cuckoo clock at my parents house, until I moved to Italy.

Meanwhile, the prairie around our house has grown to be as high as an elephant’s eye, or a horse’s eye, in the case of Rainbow.   The big mower has gone to other yards, who couldn’t stand the “great plains” look any longer.  Where there is the least amount of slope, the mower slips down the hill, exposing great swaths of mud.  It’s better to have waited, although my allergies are in full bloom.

We painted pictures in the Rocca Malatina market today.  Our town only has two vendors, both selling vegetables; one with plants, too.   I had been living under the impression our town had 3000 people.  In fact, we    officially have only 558.   Which means we are lucky to have a market at all.   One of the vendors is from our area; the other is a family of Neapolitans (who must live nearby).  I try to buy something from both, so the market will continue.  Strawberries are in season.  I made a strawberry risotto for lunch.

My Italian teacher brought over a half-dozen “Anglophones” to see our house on Saturday.  We toured from bottom to top, with one man visiting the basement.   We took photos and had laughs, and will join them on a tour in Bologna on 31 May.  Ahhh, spring.

Meadow in a Can

 ​Geranium  Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  13 x 10"  33 x 25cm  SOLD

 Roses yellow/coral   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas     16 x 12   40 x 30 SOLD

 Sassi on a Cloudy Day   Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas   12 x 19.5" 30 x 50cm 

 ​First red rose of summer  Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas   12 x 12    30x 30cm

Sassi under clouds   Laurie  Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas   12 x 12    30x 30cm

 ​Iris with Buttercups  Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas 16 x 12"   40x 30 cm  ​

Iris with fig leaves   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas 16 x 19.5"  40 x 50cm  SOLD

​Chicken Family   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  12 x 16   30 x 40cm

Pint-size chickens adorn our yard, enveloped in our knee-high prairie.  Some have funny “Mohawk” haircuts, and I suspect these are the potential roosters.   Harika puts them through their paces, and we are careful not to feed her chicken.   The yard is a veritable jungle for the under 16” set, and I imagine cities and festivals, churches and bordellos below.

The buttercups are less prominent this year, but we have an array of purple flowers:  tall, dark spikes; teensy magenta flowers; a multi-petaled purple dahlia affair with ragged edges; aster-like lavender blooms, red-violet clover and many irises.   A few buttercups and a smattering of daisies set it all off nicely.  Blair jokes about how I always wanted to plant “meadow in a can”, and now I have that, in spades.

The roses surrounding the house have begun to bloom.  The bees are busy.  We’ve have two or three new swarms a week, that Ludovico and Fabbio capture in large plastic bags and carry off to a new hive.  I’ve been really surprised how that works – the maverick queen, an upstart in the hive, takes off and lands on a tree (this sometime takes longer than one would like, and the mass of bees buzz around), then hundreds, maybe thousands of bees surround her, creating a football-like mass.  Sometimes the bees cover the entire tree limb, which the gardeners enclose in a plastic bag and cut off.  They place the new “hive” in their car/truck and drive off.  Blair says he hopes there won’t be an accident.

I’ve planted a few things myself, somewhat to the chagrin of Ludovico, who feels all the flowers are his job.  I couldn’t wait another minute for the geraniums, which have been growing absurdly spindly in the “cantina” this winter, to produce a flower, and bought a few thriving plants.  I figure the subterranean variety will bloom sometime in late June or early July when we are in Connecticut.  I planted cosmos and nasturtiums and marigolds, from seeds; we have sage and rosemary and a thyme plant. 

All of the fruit trees have their fruit on:  figs are nearly ready; cherries just a couple of weeks away.  The apples, pears and peaches look to August, and later all the nuts and grapes. 

Needless to say, I have some pretty fierce allergies transpiring.   I have to spend time indoors to stabilize, then I venture out to paint.   I am taking honey made by these local bees as a vaccine against the pollen, but this year it is taking longer to work.  I use an antihistamine as well.

Friends from Paris have come to visit for the weekend.   They are amazed at the difference in our lifestyle.  But I think there is as much going on in our patch of lawn as there is in the whole of magnificent Paris.