High Point Market was a success for a few key showrooms with design and heart.  Yes, heart.   People don’t buy furniture from companies:  people buy from other people.   It is the belly-to-belly, heart-to-heart connection  which seals a sale, and makes the customer want to come back to that showroom again.  It’s one thing to buy a book on Amazon.com, but it’s another to see the lavender in the background of a painting.  A fellow salesman described a painting to me:  “I can see how the brush laid the paint on the canvas and each stroke takes my breath away.” 

Business, in general, seemed to be slightly brisker than in April.   A good friend, at an uptown showroom, sold two 40-foot containers of furniture the first day.  People who came to market came to buy, and all but one of the invitees we saw bought a painting from us.  Traffic was off, is all. 

This market we were once again camped out at the far end of the complex.  Last spring, the showroom owner announced we would relocate to a more mainstream location; it wasn’t until August we learned they opted to stay put. We couldn’t back out –like telling someone you’ll come to dinner, you can’t change your mind when you find out the menu is hot dogs.   As Vinny says, there are three keys to success:   location location location.   We should have quit the hot dogs, manners be damned.

Our location was so remote, some “go-vans”, which shuttle folks around market, didn’t know where the Atrium was.   One day, in a lucky catch of a van, I hopped aboard to travel north to friends in the “designer” district of the furniture market.

“What do you think is happening there?” the driver asked me, pointing to the sidewalk, mid block ahead.  “I think that woman has fallen,” I replied and suggested we help her out.  Sure enough, not only had she fallen, but she was nine months pregnant, and in labor.  “Would you mind?” the driver asked, “if we bring her to hospital?”.  I encouraged the move, and helped the woman get into the van.  The driver mounted the “out of service” placard, and we sped in direction of the hospital.    I never found out if it was a boy or a girl.

Market visitors like us stay in the home of High Point area residents, as there are a limited number of hotel rooms in the city.  This time, we stayed with a friend, a school teacher.  She  asked me if I would consider teaching a fourth grade art class.

I have never thought of myself as a teacher, but business was slow, and I needed excitement and inspiration.  Sure enough, at 8:05 on Monday morning, two dozen smiling fourth-grade faces filed into the room.   The class had been studying the many applications of art in life:  interior design, graphic design, architecture, teaching, ART.

“What is a professional artist?” the teacher asked.  Hands raised:  one who paints all the time; an artist who sells their paintings!   The super smart class asked about what my paintings sold for.  “Did you ever sell one for more than a thousand?

Questions continued, as I set up my easel.  “What shall I paint?” I asked, looking out the window.  ME was the universal reply.  So a painted a number of students, at their tables, in the classroom.  It was a modest 12 x 24 inch canvas.   I had about thirty minutes to complete the work.  I rushed:   no eyes or noses, one boy’s shirt, another boys hair; a girl with a hand on her hip.  I was compelled to finish the painting and have it look good.  “I’ll give you $24.00 for it!” someone exclaimed.

The team from our old (beloved) defunct showroom (where we sold at least 3 times what we are selling currently), still gets together.    “He just wouldn’t listen to what a woman had to say,” one bemoans.   I walk the streets of a depressed market, passing banners honoring the scions of markets past:  photos of big men in expensive shoes , text spouting their take on design.   Like so many US institutions, change has come, like-it-or-not, a little too late.

I met another artist at the “unique boutique”, low priced booths in the bowels of Market Square.   Butterfly wings, silk blouses, jewelry and distressed furniture were among the fare offered.   “Has it been a success?” I ask her.  “How do you rate success?” she replies.  She didn’t sell much either.

Laurie (text) and Blair (painting) PESSEMIER

We’re in Paris and deliriously happy.   We wake up at 8 o’clock every day, miraculously, like we’ve never left.  No jet lag, we are out and about by 9-ish (no fooling around with a shower here in our chambre de service – a sponge bath and tooth cleaning voila), and go about our business.

Our business?  Culinary and culture tours.   We hit the pavement in a certain neighborhood, discovering, on behalf of our clients, food and cultural surprises.   So far we’ve been to the Les Halles region, Montparnasse, Madeleine, Tour Eiffel, Place de Vosges, Pere Lachaise.

“Pour boire, du vin?” the server asks.  OUI!!!  We’ve eaten fricasseed pheasant with fois gras and terrine de lievre, washed down with a Langendoc;   Jerusalem artichoke soup followed by beef bourguignon; a tartare of scallops and an “origami” of cabillaud with baby scallops; and today pig’s feet lollipops followed by two super dishes:  rabbit fritters and roasted lamb, accompanied by whips and froths of veggies; a spicy pear millefueille for dessert.    We’ve made up for a year and a half of not eating in four days.  Who won’t want to come on our tour if it’s like this for a week?

Luckily, our apartment is up 126 stairs – it keeps us from getting too fat.  I had my doubts I could make it, but actually I can mount and descend with ease three times a day:  it’s the fourth time I feel like it’s too much.  I have a small backache, which I am hoping is just from the bed.

My darling dog, Harika, is staying with friends with a fenced yard in Virginia.  Someone gave us a free round trip ticket, flying standby, to come back for a visit.    I wasn’t sure how the three of us would fare under such circumstances:  in fact, it took us two days to get out of Dodge.

Just walking on the streets of Paris puts a smile on my face, despite rain and chilly temperatures.  I love to look in the windows:  boots everywhere is the fashion statement.  My boots, which I thought were here in the apartment are not, nor are many clothes I thought would be here.  I chine together outfits I like to think look Kenzo, but can tell by the looks of others might be just a little too trash can.  Maybe on a younger person they’d be interesting, but I have a certain je ne sais quoi “bag lady”.

With a nod to economy we are cooking one meal a day on the hot plate.  We’ve had civet d’oie (goose stew), which we picked up at a foie gras seller; ravioli with pesto; and last night, truffle risotto.  I have seen more truffles in the shops than ever before.  We were able to buy cepes for tonight’s adventure on the hot plate for not too much money.  We’ll accompany them with salad and a confit de canard.

Painting has been impossible with the changeable weather, but we’ll share a photo with you this week.    I can hardly imagine going back to the Branford for long after this trip to Paris!  Come visit!!!

"Swings!"  Immediately after eating sandwiches and chips, our two-and-a-half-year-old twin friends went for a ride on the swings at Parker Park, the beach in Branford.  My own lunch lurched ominously in my stomach as they hung their heads all the way back, watching the trees and sky careen above.  "Higher!"

There are things one can do at the age of two and a half that will never be the same again.  Their mom, our friend, H, asserts, "they'll only be two and a half once".  Chasing pigeons; wading into the water in blue jeans, up over your knees; squealing with delight…  I really enjoy that refreshing attitude, and try to incorporate into my own life.  But there is something about knowing, understanding, and planning that can put the kybosh on spontaneity.

We are a bit more spontaneous this week, our coffers jingling ever so slightly again.  I won't say it was the letter to God, but it could have been.   I also tossed a penny into the Chinese Super Buffet fountain:  the result came just an hour afterward.  This was the same fountain, into which my mother, a rabid Yankees fan,  pitched a penny, years earlier, willing them  to win the world series, but, through an unfortunate slip of the tongue, exclaimed, "I hope the Red Sox (the other half of the family’s team) win the world series!" The Red Sox won.   Ever since then, our family goes to then fountain whenever in need of a miracle.  (This week’s wellspoke penny seems to have clinched the race for the Yankees).

On Thursday, the famous Branford library book sale opened its tents.  It's a huge affair, with thousands of books.   We paid the extra ten dollars to be "friends of the library" and gain entry a day before the general public.

Blair got in line at a quarter to four, behind others already waiting for the five o'clock whistle.  These, it turned out were dealers, some from as far away as Brooklyn.  When I got there at 4:45, nobody would let me join him, and I was relegated to the end of the line.

A man chatted up the crowd with his African Grey parrot, Rudy.  Rudy's tail was such a brilliant red it hurt your eyes to look at it.  Rudy, 4 years old, could play dead on command, to the delight of everyone in line.  He wouldn't talk to us, but Blair says he spoke to those at the front of the line, no doubt recognizing them as book sale winners.

We'd already scoped out the books we wanted:  Klimt's landscapes, Steichens photos; American Impressionists, an Indian cookbook... we immediately bought those and a few others.  The Julia Child I'd seen was gone -- her first book, done with Simone.  I suspect the book was hidden by someone for a later pickup.  On Sunday, we went back for “donation day”, filling a box with all sorts of books (Turtles, Nicholas and Alexandra, New England furniture…) for a $10.00 donation.

I made a fish cooked in salt, from one cookbook:   the whole fish, scales and all, is covered one inch deep with coarse salt and cooked at high temperature.  It was a dramatic presentation, with Blair cracking it open with a hammer.  It was not salty at all and the only really good recipe in that cookbook, which is why I have a five dollar maximum cost rule for cookbooks.   I already made one of the Indian recipes, justifying its one dollar price tag.

We had a raspberry clafoutis from a Julia Child recipe online,  with the twins, and sent them on their way with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.   When we see them again, I am sure they'll be completely different and new and wonder just who we are.

First Frost Orchard
Acrylic on canvas  20 x 54"   $350.00
www.paintfox.com ;

I have been writing  a statement of purpose.  Imagine that:  a reason for being; what makes my life worth living; why god made me.     I am applying for a fellowship at Koc University in Istanbul.   Last year, I realized, when I wasn’t painting as much, how I really liked working in the arts in some form.  I decided to get my masters degree in art history.  Here are some excerpts from my “statement of purpose”.

What if Columbus hadn’t “discovered” America? What if the Mayflower landed in Caracas instead of Plymouth Rock?    I don’t believe in a single answer.  There are many ways to look at a subject, an argument, history, and life.

When the Moors and Jews were expelled from Christian Spain in the 15th century, many fled to Istanbul.   In the same timeframe Istanbul became an Ottoman city.   What went on in that “parallel universe”?   When I look at Western architecture, I see symmetry and an order I recognize.  When I look at Islamic architecture, I see trapezoids, lyrical column arrangements, and a human order.   

When I went to Gilbert High School, I learned Latin.  Latin is one of three languages offered at University, the other two being Greek and Ottoman.  In high school, everything I learned looked at one side of the story, the Christian side.  This was good, but I want to know more.

This application to graduate school hasn’t been easy:  most of my professors are either dead or addled.  One I found and wrote to disavowed any knowledge of me or my performance.   I ordered my transcripts from my previous colleges.  In art school, I graduated cum laude, but with C’s in drawing; B’s in painting.  It was biology I aced, and a couple of math classes pulled my average way up.  Believing I wasn’t a painter, I switched my major to Art History, where I received a bachelor’s degree.   My lowest grade was in film; my highest in Renaissance Art.

I go on about living in Seattle, and subsequently in Paris and Tunisia (you artnotes folks know all of that, so I won’t bore you).   

… all of these skills I have acquired in the past thirty years will be useful in Cultural Heritage Preservation.  I will be able to manage the logistics of lending artifacts to museums around the world:  marketing the show, negotiating fees, packing and shipping, installation.  I have an eye to choose the right pieces.  I have the heart to understand where the artist was “coming from”.   I understand architecture.

Since the summer of 2008, I have been in the US.   I am studying Islamic art.  I’ve borrowed books from the local library system.  I’m learning the Arabic alphabet, to try to read what I see as surface decoration on artwork and monuments.  I joined the Historians of Islamic Art, and signed up for related newsletters and online journals.  I subscribe to Saudi Aramco world where I enjoy numerous articles on Turkish antiquities.   It is through this combination of sources I found my way to KOC University.

I believe that art history and cultural heritage are vital to understanding civilizations which were, and how they became what they are now.  Artifacts speak eloquently:  a boat preserved in mud indicates the exchange between countries;  jewels from the Topkapi palace speak not only of the riches of the prevailing powers, but of the technologies, the tastes, and the materials available at that time.  Artifacts are often universally beautiful, and provide a point for otherwise opposing cultures to agree upon.    I see my work in Islamic art history as a way to develop positive dialogue about art between different, often opposing, cultures.

Blair, Harika and I are all waiting with bated breath to hear about this application.  No other possibilities are on our horizon at the moment, and Blair is painting pictures of Istanbul.

Laurie (text) and Blair (painting) PESSEMIER
"Tourist in Istanbul"     MBP  Oil on canvas  28 x 22    $350.00

Plein air painting    MBP   Oil on canvas  36 x 24  $375.00
Blair's painting, 7-19-9

We rearranged the carpets in our apartment.   We have carpets from all nations:  one from Tunisia, made by Ahmed, whose name is woven in right next to Allah (it is why the carpet was inexpensive, someone told us:  you’d never walk on Allah’s name); one from Iran ordered through rugman.com, and an antique rug made by the Jews when they lived in Morocco a hundred years ago.  Blair and I have always believed that one to be our magic carpet.

We’ve slept on the magic carpet, while we lived in Paris.  It made an exotic mattress pad, and our dreams were full of the desert.  We brought it to Tunisia, where we ate, crosslegged, on it, while  it imparted its magenta flavors to our romantic meals.  Recently, it  sat on the living room floor at 69 South Main St.  On Memorial Day, we carried it over to the green, Tunisian sand and all, to picnic upon.   This morning Blair shook it out again, and we brought it into the bedroom.

Our life has been none too romantic or magical of late.  Vice grips contort our best laid plans and intentions, sending them haywire.   We are terribly focused on work, getting a job, making money as the very last of our sheckles disappear into the coffers of health insurance (we’re up to 1200 a month now, with 2,000 deductible).

We buy our food at the cheapest store around, Ferraro’s, in New Haven.  I was initially attracted to them because they had a two color flyer with words only, no pictures.   I went to the store to collect more flyers, printed on newsprint, so I could paint foods on them.   The store itself  delighted me even more than the brochure.

Ferraro’s is a small store.  You have to squeeze through the entry way, designed so carriages can’t leave the premises.  There’s a window you can purchase prepared foods from, and black men stand around eating sandwiches there, discussing the state of the country.  

The store is almost always packed.  They have a huge meat section, featuring 5 pounds of bacon for 4.69, or pork butt, with the fat, for 98 cents a pound.   I buy veal chops and capon, both incredible bargains.

They have a local concern freeze vegetables for them, and I can get two giant bags of beans, corn, okra or carrots for $5.00.   The five pound, ten ounce can of hand picked tomatoes from Italy is only $4.99 (not genetically modified, like the US brands).   Imported Parmagiano cheese is only 3.88 a pound.  I don’t know how they can offer such good prices, but we have the chance to buy wonderful foods for very little money.

I like seeing all the people there, too.  Some folks fill their entire cart with turkey legs, or sausages.  Others pick and choose.  Italian ladies block the fresh vegetable aisle, discussing the death of a friend.  Spanish women with children piled on the cart, holler NO in the cookie section.   People are remarkably polite to one another, letting carts pass.

The store can’t be more than 7,000 square feet, but I can find everything I need there.   It satisfies my shopping, cooking and visual needs all in one small area.    On Sunday, I cooked up a capon and we took ¼ of it to the beach.  With tomatoes and mozzarella, and sweet potatoes, we spread out our picnic cloth.   For the afternoon, we were transported to a happy place.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER
Four girls at the beach    LFP Acrylic on canvas  20 x 16   $225.00