"He got elected by knocking on the doors of nearly all the voters in Torrington," my brother-in-law explains.  "You could hear the shock in the voices of the radio commentator as the returns rolled in".

Torrington, Connecticut is the home of the Torrington Twisters, and one of the youngest mayors in the nation.  Ryan Bingham was twenty-two when he unseated the incumbent,  who had been resting in the post for nearly as long as Bingham had been alive.



During our Christmas trip last year, Blair approached Mayor Bingham about showing our collection of baseball paintings in Torrington.  On Monday, 17 April, we hung the show in the Mayor's offices and across the street at the Torrington Savings Bank.

Last summer we spent a month following the Torrington Twisters, producing more than 85 images, mostly executed on site. We wrote a book about the experience afterward.   Blair tells Stephen, the mayor's assistant, "it's what a person can do in a month, if he sets his mind to it," referring to our paintings.  He's singing to the choir.

We put the ladder on top of the check writing stand at the bank.  If you've never been to Connecticut and this style of colonial bank, it's hard to imagine the noise the hammer makes driving the nail into perfect plaster.  The tellers, lips set, watch as sweat breaks out on my brow.  We press on.  Fourteen paintings later, the receptionist announces, "I love these pictures, and I don't even like baseball".

Baseball and my family are the two things I miss living outside of America.  We've been watching TV baseball, and savoring the newspaper images of the catch, the slide.  It is poetry in motion, punctuated with baseball lingo.

We've celebrated Easter with my family in Connecticut and reunited with Blair's immediate family in Charlottesville.  I hunker down and paint trees at the verge of blooming, my nephew playing basketball, a lawn chair.   We're headed to North Carolina for High Point market, and if possible, a Durham Bulls game.

Visiting with my niece (12)  and nephew (9),  we discuss the worst and best jobs in the world.  My nephew thinks the worst job would to be a soldier.  I am surprised, but TV and public opinion paints a different picture than it did for me in the the 1960s.  They ask us, what do you think the best job in the world is?  And we answer, in unison, "artist."

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER
Tree in Teresa's yard    Acrylic on canvas  8 x 14 inches