This morning on the way home from the beach (6:44 AM), there was a dead animal in the road.  It was a fluffy fox, and I made Blair stop the car.  My intention was to take it home, but seeing it was too large for the freezer (for later paintings), I was determined to move it to the side of the road.  It was pretty well intact, a leg broken in an odd way, but clearly dead, eyes partly open, small delicate mouth showing little teeth.   A walker passed by, and said – “there’s another one over there, alive.”  Sure enough, the fox’s mate was waiting in anticipation for her to join him.

Blair arrived, and with gloves my father gave me last winter (for emergency),  Blair dragged the poor devil out of the street and onto the grass.   As we got into our car across the street, the other fox looked across the road to the ravine.  Then he smelled her.  He walked over, paused a moment as if to be sure, and then ran back across the road, into the ravine. 

I can still smell the fox, even though it is no longer near me.  I washed the gloves, in hot water, in the washing machine.

it’s been a year since the car accident that changed our direction.  It was such a shocking thing to occur – but we were lucky to have survived and now it’s time to go ahead.

At the beach this morning, Harika chased the extended family of geese (we’ve known them since they were grey-yellow fuzz) into the water, hollering.   The dozen or so of them effect a noteworthy force, but our fearless terrier shows them her teeth. 

The water is nearly warm enough to swim in, although Harika goes in nearly year round.  I went up to my knees, stepping on hundreds of  bigorneaux snails.   We used to eat them on the seafood platter at the Galatee in Trouville, including a time the sea came into the restaurant and washed beneath our feet.  The same snails are served in Chinatown in Boston, in a big bowl, with an oversized common pin to extract them.

At the lesser beach the yellow-crowned night heron was fishing.  Two huge white herons flew off when they saw the dog, but the night heron knows she’s on the leash.

Laurie and Blair (painting) PESSEMIER
Iris at the Beach   MBP   Oil on canvas  28 x 22 inches  $325.00

Our favorite park, Hammonasset,  began charging a $10.00 entry fee in May.  We’ve been going there two or three times a week all year, and the fee was prohibitive.   So, we invested $50.00 in a yearly pass for Connecticut State Parks – free, all the time, all year.

The sticker arrived, US mail, and we put it in our car window at once.   I made up some chicken salad, and lettuce, tomato and bread.  We filled a water bottle and white wine bottle:  instant picnic.   Less than an hour later, we were waved through the gates of Hammonasset State Park.

We staked our table under the pines, and ate.   Harika dug holes in the sand, and laid on the pine needles while I painted.

In fact, "Hammonasset" means, "where we dig holes in the ground" and refers to the place where a settlement of eastern woodland Indians farmed along the Hammonasset River. They subsisted on corn, beans, and squash, and by fishing and hunting. The first colonists arrived in 1639. “Property changed hands frequently between Native Americans and the first colonists” the website reads.  I’ll bet. 

Hammonasset became a state park in 1920.  Now, over a million visitors a year come there.  There are over two miles of beach.

There are fabulous birds at the park.  We saw an upland sandpiper, and several ospreys.  The most interesting birds, however are the human variety.

There was a wedding taking place, near a hook and ladder firetruck sporting a giant flag;  an enormous white tent; seven attendants dressed in blue, a flower girl in white with a blue sash; a whole pig turning on the spit.   Jars of sand with candles  let us know the party would go well into the night.    There is a campground in the park.

There were old and young people at the beach, yappy dogs and crying babies.    Kids played at the edge of the water.  A giant frog kite flew overhead and a red-white-and-blue windmill affair flew from a string on the line of another kite.    There were simple kites and elaborate ones, all reigning over the scene.

A Hispanic family picnicked near us, the men playing soccer, and beautiful women and children visiting at the table as the pork sizzled on the grill.  An Islamic family cooked a large piece of beef.  “Smells good,” we commented.  “Come and join us a little later, when it’s done,” the man said, “I mean it.”

This time, we spent several hours at the park, basking in all-around joy.  These are the things I like best about America.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER
Day at the Beach    LFP  Acrylic on canvas  20 x 8 inches    $175.00

My dance card has diminished by 95% since I am living in Branford, Connecticut.  Our 70-plus visitors a year have declined to 5.  I count on my visitors for their pearls of wisdom and their entertaining stories of faraway places and personal events.   It’s not always what they say, but sometimes who they are.

One of Thursday’s visitors,  is  a slightly older woman, an artist and art educator.  She has been “losing it”, or “slipping around the bend”.  She forgot her glasses on the trip (she wears them all the time), and lost her watch between her hotel and our house.  “I have this phenomenon” she expounds, “where I go to look for something, and I can be staring right at it, but not see it.”  I suggest maybe it is her eyes, but no, it is something deeper.  The visit is a guessing game to finish her sentences.  I have always been bad at that, but her companion is doing a great job.

I’ve always said when my mind starts to go, I will take the boat out into the ocean and go for a swim.  It’s not so apparent when I look at her.  And will I just think I am having a good time, and promise myself to go boating  again?

She is cognizant of her situation, which makes it all the more disturbing.  No doddering old woman, she is still painting and exhibiting.   Maybe it’s just a temporary lapse.

The two who came on Thursday were friends of Q, our old Paris buddy.   They came to toast him, and we drank real champagne in his honor (begin thrifty, he often served Cremant).  I cooked up a Moroccan lamb and rice dish, and we had fiddle leaf  ferns to start.  M told me about first sleep and second sleep, when I talked about how Harika gets up every day to go out before 6.  I now get back in bed for twenty minutes after the walk.

Harika is a terrific ice breaker.  It is hard not to smile when someone says, “she looks like a scrappy one!”  We are grateful for her positive attitude.  A lady suggested the “Happy Tails” dog grooming salon yesterday.

With a  visitor from NYC on Saturday, we drove to Blue Back Square, a “new” development in West Hartford.   It is an impressive mix of the old and the new, an urban blending of retail, restaurant and residential.  I always wish there were more small, local businesses, but they don’t have the depth to qualify for these high end leases.  Nonetheless (neanmoins, in French -- I love that word) it was very nice.

We are in the process of renting a small space within an architectural antique mall near us.  S thinks maybe the 350.00 a month is too much.  Granted, business is way down.  Sleep on it.    We go to the library and bookstore together and get self-help books.  “Write it all down,” they advise.

Away from the Blue Back complex, in West Hartford, we eat for the second time this week at Plan B, a burger joint with outdoor dining.  Theirs is all natural beef,  ground to order for the burger.  I order a blue cheese burger, “pink”.   (Last time, I had the New England burger with big chunks of lobster on top; Blair has the meatloaf and smoked gouda mashed potatoes)    I argue with my friend about living in Connecticut.  I have no friends here.  He tells us to move to the bigger city of West Hartford, in the new development.  As  we are eating lunch at the street cafe, a charming woman chats me up – it turns out she’s from Winston-Salem, North Carolina and we have mutual friends there.  “See, she wasn’t FROM Connecticut”.

Laurie (paintings and text) and Blair PESSEMIER

Three views:   Apple Blossoms on the hill (12 x 9 on canvas panel) ; Crabapple Blossoms (12 x 9 on canvas panel);  Dogwood  (6.5 x 12.5)   $125.00 each.

I like this

As we get ready to go sell our 80 plus paintings in High Point, North Carolina, I have been thinking about ART.   I wrote this little ditty about original art, and thought I would share it with my "artnotes" readers.

Original Art for Interiors

Buying art can seem a daunting task.  You set out to buy a large landscape but find yourself looking at three small still life studies.  That’s the thing:  art isn’t specific.  It’s not an 84” long sofa nor a 10 x 12’ area rug.  It’s an expression:  of yourself, your interior, and the artist who created the image or sculpture.

For the buyer, it’s an investment in the future: it says on this day at this time, this work reflects who I am.

Artwork develops in your home.  Over weeks, months and years you discover new aspects of the piece which surprise and delight you.  You will never buy anything as rewarding as original artwork.

What is original art?

Original art is a one-of-a-kind, or one of a small series of artwork executed by the artist.  Paintings, watercolors, drawings and sculpture are what we think of as original art.  But there are other media such as cut paper, pottery, mixed media (installations) and handmade furnishing items.

Sculpture can be made in multiples.   Because bronze is costly and difficult to work with, for example, the artist will make a few examples (usually 12)  of each piece and then break the mold.   Some lithographs, and silk screens, created by the hand of the artist or in his or her studio, are considered originals.

It is pretty clear when one reaches the realm of “un” original work: namely, mass-produced for the marketplace, regardless of medium.

Why buy original art?

Original art provides a unique signature to a room.  That same “spark” isn’t evident in mass-produced material.

Original art sets a room apart from others with the same furniture, carpet and lighting.   Most furnishings are mass produced, to make them affordable.  I see the same sofa at everyone’s house, and lighting is almost a standard.  What makes a room SNAP is the artwork.

A painting never loses its value, and often increases in value.  Sotheby’s isn’t auctioning off posters or prints.   It pays to invest in quality artwork.   

The physical presence of art is a testimonial to the era in which it was created.  It is living history.  Christo’s running fence was made of nylon.   The Impressionists  painted with oil paint that came in tubes.  Acrylic paint, alkyds, and fiberglass are technical innovations which bespeak their period.

There is no longer Indian yellow paint (made from elephant urine).  When designs from Chinese pottery began showing up in Iran it was clear Ghengis Khan was there.  Certain marble is no longer available from any quarry.  Digital artwork is only as good as the hardware it is played on.  It will be interesting for future collectors to see how it fits in.

Subject matter bespeaks its time.  It is not the historians who make up the history of art.  Art speaks for itself.  The kids’ portrait over the fireplace tells us that the baby boomers wore white gloves, but children of the millennium do not.  My grandmother sits two feet away from my grandfather in her wedding portrait; no kissing in 1913.  There were no mechanical sanders in Caillebotte's Wood Floor Planers.

Inspiration or accessory?

A Normandy landscape with a slate grey sky, a line of deep turquoise on the horizon, a swath of an acid yellow field above a green foreground sets the palette and proportion of color for a room.   Grey walls, a deep green carpet are offset by turquoise and brilliant yellow accessories.

Usually, the painting is the finishing touch to an interior.   You look around, and your eyes rest on the painting on the wall.

The subject, as well as the color, sets the direction for the room.  A case of fluttering paper butterflies provides a light, lyrical feel to a hotel lobby.  A portrait of a soldier speaks of masculinity.    The same room changes completely when those two works of art are reversed.

You can move artwork around a house or suite of offices to refresh a room.  Changing a frame can make a subject contemporary or classic.   A sculpture invites people to walk around it.

The American embassies maintain a stock of original art, at the disposal of ambassadors and their designers.  A painting in Tunisia might have once hung in China.   So it can be with commercial design:  a collection of original artwork can move between offices and lobbies, conference rooms and libraries.

How do you buy original artwork?

Buy art where you find it.  Some artists sell directly, at art fairs and open studio events.  Buying directly from the artist can add personal value to the piece.  The artist can share with you his or her inspiration, and the stories surrounding the work.   (we sell direct, wherever we can)

Galleries are another way to go.  A gallery generally markets an artist’s work for a small fee.  The gallery can help insure the quality of the piece, and provide delivery services.  Often a gallery will take back a piece in trade for another, some years down the road.  An artist may or may not do this.

Art, particularly that of non-living artists, might be sold at auction.  What you see is generally what you get at auction.  The same goes for work purchased at flea markets or antique fairs.

Many people have fear that original art will be too expensive.  This is not always the case, particularly in buying work of newer artists, or purchasing art for decoration, or directly from the artist.    Framing costs have decreased significantly through the Internet.   

Don’t be too rigid in your artwork requirements.  An 8 x 10 inch Vermeer  has the power of an 8 x 10 foot Rubens.   Three small paintings on a wall can be far more interesting than one big work.   Those three paintings can move elsewhere in the house when it’s time for a change; that’s not necessarily so with a big one.

Start small.  If you buy four pieces of artwork a year, in five years you’ll have a good collection.  As you buy you will start to know what you like, and can move on in that direction.

Artwork makes good gifts.   Children will fight over it after you’re gone.  Or they might name a museum room after you.

Meanwhile, you will be surrounded by beauty, which is bound to make your life better.

Laurie (text) and Blair (painting) PESSEMIER
"Oleander"  M. Blair PESSEMIER  Oil on canvas 20 x 20inches $325.00

paintfox@aol.com
Cell:  860.484.1096
showing this market, at Bernard Christianson, in the Atrium on Main, 430 S. Main, High Point, NC

We're working hard to get ready for High Point , North Carolina Market 25-30 April!    Laurie and Blair

PRESS RELEASE:  FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION

Paris Artists showing at High Point Market

Blair and Laurie PESSEMIER, fine art painters from Paris, will be showing their work at the Bernard Christianson Showroom at the ATRIUM on MAIN this April Market.

Blair and Laurie have been showing their artwork at market since 1999.  They have created strategic and aesthetic liaisons with a number of showrooms, to offer their one-of- a-kind pieces to Furniture Market Buyers.

The Pessemier live in Paris, France and in Connecticut.   Their work, in oil and acrylic,  is impressionistic in nature, brightly colored and spontaneous.  Both paint outdoors and in the studio, with subject matter ranging from landscape to portraiture to florals.   Blair and Laurie have won awards for their work both in France and the US.  They have shown their paintings in Europe and Asia, as well as North America.

They will have over 50 paintings for sale, framed and unframed, at the Bernard Christianson Furniture Showroom located in the Atrium on Main, 430 South Main St., High Point.   Custom work on request.

CONTACTS:
Laurie Fox PESSEMIER
M. Blair PESSEMIER
Showroom:  646.554.5878\  Cell:  860.484.1096
Web:  www.paintfox.com
Email:  paintfox@aol.com