Welcome home Laurie and Blair. Good color Laurie. The warm to cool in the trees is right on. When I do a sunrise I usually have to do the drawing the day before, there just isn't time to to draw and paint, heck the colors only last 10 minutes. The easy thing is that the palette is always ready. I have a tight top that lets me use the same paints for two weeks or more. I grab the colors from in the box and mix them on the lid. Oh, and spray the colors with ammonia to keep any mold from forming. Don

You can find a parking place on the street in Paris today.  Everybody has left town, as we are about to follow.   It’s an interesting time – the few people who are left seem to be here because they want to be, enjoying the quiet and extra space.  Honestly, if Blair could work during August (everyone else is on vacation), we might stay.  It is my best painting time, my outdoor studio (the Luxembourg Gardens) heated and illuminated for the maximum number of hours.

We’re off to the US to see Blair’s mom, and my parents, sisters, niece and nephews.  It’s a crazy time to go, to Hemlock Lodge, in the high season.  Our ticket is the most expensive we’ve ever bought;  I hope Harika will be ok as she passes across the steamy tarmac in her air kennel in Washington.

Here in Paris, I’ve been making new friends.  I have a painting companion who inspires me to paint well and often.  We attended an American expat soiree last Sunday night which was marvelous – smorgasbord-style food, with a Brazilian guitarist (playing Jobim), and lots of English conversation.   I visited the Edvard Munch show with a girlfriend:  someone who enjoys art history!    I made our electrician eggplant parmesan and tomato pie in my new oven.

I never look at this August sojourn from Paris as vacation:  I bring paintings to America, in a trunk (just purchased, 42 euros) to sell while I am there.  Contact me if you want to see them somewhere between Charlottesville, Virginia and Winsted, Connecticut.  I will organize my storage locker.  I will make the upstairs at Hemlock Lodge my studio and paint in new ways.   I will cook and swim.

And I am already looking forward to our return.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER

You inspire me Laurie, we had a parade down my street today & I had my drawing pad. It rained but I did see that I can do it. Happy 4th of July.

Good bye S, I feel like I know you. Have a good trip.

I am having an expo at the Petit Lux, 29 rue Vaugirard, 75006 Paris for the month of July.  Opening:  from 18-20:00 on Thursday, 1 July.

J'ai une expo au Petit Lux, 29, rue Vaugirard, 75006 Paris en Juillet.   Vernissage:  Jeudi, le 1 Juillet de 18-20:00h.
 
EXPOSITION

“This entire drawing only takes up 8 kilobytes,” the man operating the computer tells us.    Strictly by using  mathematical equations, he is able to instantly generate a highly detailed drawing that a conventional  computer-aided-drafting program would take minutes and megabytes to create with polygons and triangles.

I might have learned more had there not been guns blazing directly behind me.  Blair and I were at the Eurosatory Defense show at the Paris Exposition Hall this week.  It was frankly unnerving to be among so many weapons and their accessories – I couldn’t even walk by some of the vehicles  (the size of my living and dining room combined) without worrying a wheel might fall off and kill me.  I never imagined I would see a drone, but hey, look over there.   I opted out of the show after a couple of hours and have had bad dreams ever since.   

The cutting edge of technology has always worked hand in hand with the defense industry.  Some of the smartest engineers in the world are in the business of, well, destruction.  I tell myself computer tools we are seeing could also be used for peaceful purposes, but the immediacy of the weaponry was overwhelming.  Why couldn’t I find a spiritual stand, chaplains or something?  How could this terror be mitigated?  I needed a drink or six.

At home, I flew into a flurry of painting:  creation versus destruction, seeing things in a colorful way.  The defense show was strictly shades of grey and camouflage.   Wherever I am, I think of how I might paint it.   

At  the park , it see the broad strokes of the landscape:  distant turquoise trees – pink and purple sand on the paths.   The people are massed together in chunks, rarely individuals.   The chair isn’t solid or rickety, but a line from top to toe.

Flowers are a mass of colors.  I paint the yellow eyes of the cat on a black square.   The outdoor market isn’t just food, it’s stripes, and an array of boxes, red tomatoes and green lettuce.  I overlook the minute details:  the gesture of passing money from hand to hand I see, but never the coins or bills.   

Madly I paint and I feel much better.

I have been reading about a Marine, Michael Fay, who drew and painted in Iraq, and now that he is retired, is off to record Afghanistan.  He must see these war situations in the same way I see the market or the park.  Of course, he acts in his role of soldier, as opposed to mine as shopper, stroller, housefrau.   I love the drawings and paintings he makes, and I can pick up the same thread I feel in mine.   It is as though we are the eye, in the great living body of humankind.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER

There is nothing quite like an espresso in Paris.  All coffees are not equal:  one must find a café that cleans their espresso machine daily.  Otherwise, the bitterness of old oily coffee spoils the taste of the new.  To be chic and parisien, we go the Mazarine in the mid afternoon, but for morning coffee, we have a few choices in our neighborhood.

The Hippocampus (seahorse), a jazz bar on the weekends, serves coffee and croissant in the morning.   It’s in our building, so we like to keep our oar in the water there.  On Friday morning this week they hadn’t  yet gotten their croissants, and sent us out to pick them up.  We got two for free.

The Tourne Bouchon, a delightful hole in the wall that serves coffee and croissants, beginning at 6 AM on market days, serves lunch and early dinner until 8.   On Sundays, we go there for coffee with the organic market crowd, who’ve been up since 2 AM.    Towards the end of the market, the entire sidewalk fills up with diners at mismatched tables and chairs for lunch that lingers until six, at least.

The Petit Lux has a wide variety of pastries, and Bruno makes a perfect noisette, an espresso with just a dollop of hot foamy cream.   From a fabulous butter croissant to pain au chocolate, pain au raisin, abricotine, or chausson au pomme, all is deeeelish.    Xavier is there, and Yannick the florist, always asking us what’s new.

The Fleurus is our usual hang-out, with excellent espresso and good croissants.  Harika adores Pierre and Andre, the proprietors, and she gets to sit in the booth sometimes.    Right now, I am painting some sketches as I prepare to paint a picture of the place, on commission.

Here,  a young man at the bar talked about how important it was to drink coffee in a cup or glass.  “Starbucks,” he groused, “throws an overpriced coffee at you in a paper cup!”    Ask Starbucks for a ceramic cup and it is dug out of the confines of a cold closet, with no regard for temperature.    A North African man talked about coffee from his country – never would anyone accept a coffee in a paper cup.  The whole  idea of drinking coffee in Paris is conviviality – to connect with other people.  “To go” is a rare request, but it is not unusual to see the waiter walking down the street with two cups of espresso (ceramic of course) and sugar on a tray.

We  drink at the bar for  conversation.   Monsieur G lets us know how France and America differ (he likes America, where his son owns a restaurant).      The Tunisian grocer comes in (they are all from Djerba)  and greets Harika, pronouncing her name like the fishermen did, and she cries and leaps with joy.  Mario, the tennis pro at the Luxembourg Gardens comes in for a quick coffee then goes outside to smoke.    Pierre passes us the newspaper.

I am reminded of how men used to go to bars in America to visit and relax , and I hum:  Line ‘em up Joe.

Laurie (paintings and text) and Blair PESSEMIER

My easel arrived this week.  The acupuncture doctor relieved my sciatica.  Amazing result with rocks and pins.   Super good weather I painted outdoors.   The jazz club has new management (just as I adopted the “old”).  I cooked a roast in wine.  Harika and I both think it’s great.

I’ve been reading a book called “six word memoires” after Hemingway’s shortest novel:  
“For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.”   I am not sure any of the sentences in the paragraph above qualify, but how about:  Living in Paris hip hip hooray!

We went to the flea market today and bought a table for the balcony (ten euros – very solid old rattan).  We’ve one chair and will make do with the stool until another seat makes itself available.  

The good weather and long days lured us to the grassy field near the Louvre where Harika can run free, just before sunset.  If there are other dog owners present, they are a lighter, less nosy crowd than at the Luxembourg Gardens.  Yesterday she ran around with Enzo, a ten-month-old King Charles Cavalier (the owner spent a lot of time telling me the different between just a King Charles and the King Charles Cavalier, and I must have looked dazed, because she offered to repeat it in English.  I smiled, enjoying the breezy sunshine.)

On Thursday, we had a business lunch at a restaurant near the Gare du Nord.   During the  forty-five minutes we had  to kill before our reservation, we sat on a bench in a church courtyard where plum blossoms fell on our heads.  Later on, I enjoyed looking at us bedecked with pink petals – no matter how serious business might be, we’re all human (spoken like a true salesman).   The scent of lilacs and lily-of-the-valley permeate the air in Paris, as we celebrate the May Day holiday.

It was a Bretagne style restaurant, but with interesting variations on traditional dishes:  I had salmon marinated in the manner of herring, delivered in a glass canning jar beside a plate of mache (lamb’s lettuce).  Roast pork followed, cooked perfectly, not dry, but the crowning touch was the “Paris-Brest” dessert – a buttercream and nutty crunch filling in a ring of puff pastry.   Although I am not a big dessert eater, with a restaurant meal “all’s well that ends well”.

I was delighted to hear an outsider’s  point of view on Paris. He saw the Gare du Nord neighborhood as diverse and interesting, easy going.  Formerly, I’d thought of it strictly as the train station, a bit offbeat, a place to buy electrical replacement parts and Indian spices.  As our guest pointed out the things he saw, I saw them that way, too.  It is such a good argument for having guests.   I hope you will come visit; show me something I have overlooked.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER  
http://www.artnotesparis.blogspot.com   (and we have a new Paris cell phone # +33(0)6.60.29.86.05)

There is something quintessentially American about the High Point Furniture Market:  cheerful people, dressed up, putting their best foot forward, hoping beyond hope they will sell more than they ever sold before.  I am here, and I espouse all those principles.

This morning breakfast was served outside the showroom at 200 North Hamilton -- quiche, bagels, mimosas.  The most wonderful thing was the Gospel singers.  They played in the way jazz musicians all wound up sound, but at 9 in the morning:  tone, rhythm and SOUL.   Big black women with hair; heavy black men with hand gestures altogether channeling the genius of god,  American style.  Genius comes and takes over when one is present to perform*.  It doesn’t always happen, but when it does it is thrilling.  

The gospel singers’ performance wasn’t universally enjoyed, but I was there almost every minute.  In the end, I was the single member of the audience, letting out a cry of “Ole” (god).

Last night we sat outside on the deck of my host’s house.  Here in High Point, people open their homes at this time to visitors at Market.   We drank wine and spotted fireflies in the trees.  I recounted my favorite firefly story about a friend’s aunt who sewed nylon pockets into an otherwise drab party dress:  when the sun went down the fireflies did their thing.

Conversation led to the subject of courage and cowardice.  It takes courage to face reality, mundane or dramatic as that might be.  I admire the courage of my father caring for my ailing mother; of a friend’s husband deciding to stick with her through a life fraught with problems.  It take courage to do what one knows to be right, when running in the other direction would be ever so easy.

The gospel singers were courageous to be performing here, doing what they believe in.  Putting one's self on the sidewalk to be judged by the public  takes nerve.   It takes courage to do what one knows is right in life, cowardice to cower in a vocation or behavior ordained by default.   Even though I am in a situation where there may be too few buyers, I want to keep on painting.  It is why god made me.

I painted three paintings in the hour of the singers first set.  Here they are.

Bass  Laurie Fox PESSEMIER  Acrylic on wood  6 x 18 inches    $100.00
Women:  LFP  Acrylic on canvas  12 x 12 inches  $100.00
Soloist:   LFP  Acrylic on canvas  6 x 18 inches  100.00
www.paintfox.com

From:   PAINTFOX@aol.com
Subject: artnotes: packing up
Date: April 10, 2010 4:38:14 AM HST
To:   PAINTFOX@aol.com

 We’ve packed up our Branford, Connecticut apartment.  We rented a storage locker for some of our paintings (something I swore I’d never do), and seeing as we had storage, we stored:  right up to the gunnels of our 5 x 5 unit in the historic Hitchcock Chair factory in Riverton, CT.   Chairs, Christmas decorations, winter clothes, books, tools and memorabilia are just a few of the items there, and oh, yes, paintings.

This isn’t the first time we’ve moved, but it’s been the first time we had no place to put the odds and ends that don’t fit into baggage.  Our friends, K+A are moving to England on the 15 April, so our only possible site evaporated.    K (mother of Harika’s boyfriend, Frederick) and I would commensurate about packing woes each morning at the beach while the dogs played.  We're planning a rendezvous "a la manche" when we're both situated.

Harika is getting used to it:  from 28 rue d’Assas to 110 rue de Rennes; now out of the home she lived the longest at, in Connecticut, all in a month and a half.   I am not getting used to it, as my sciatica worsens by the day; a little wine helps.

There is no “slow boat” anymore between the US and France – even the price of the “m bag” exceeds that of a first class shipment of  12 x 12 x 4 inches:  $50.00.   We did send my cookbooks that way, even though I might have found them on Amazon for less. I hated to lose the wine stains on the coq au vin page, and the turmeric dyed recipes of Das Sreedharan.  I delayed the transport of the several pound meat grinder until the next trip; maybe I’ll find a cuisanart.

On our first move to France in 1993, there was no airline weight limit at all, and we carried a 100 pound  leather portmanteau full of treasures across the sea.  This time, we will pay an extra $50.00 for a second bag (limited to 50 pounds) and hope not to pay for carry-on.   Don’t even ask what Harika costs – and despite her official dog passport, the airline requires we get a supplemental health certificate from our veterinarian.

We’ve paused for a night with friends in Washington, DC on the way to Charlottesville to visit Blair’s mother.   Here I painted fabulous cherry trees in bloom.   Blair and Harika are going back to Paris on Monday.   I am continuing on to North Carolina, where I will sell our paintings in the super-duper well-located Elysees showroom.  I’ll paint on the sidewalk while I am there, pretending to be in France, where I’ll follow my heart the next week.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER

It’s raining today in Paris.  After a week in sunny (well, mostly sunny) Cassis, it is hard to accept the rain.  I painted ten small paintings, outdoors, while we were there.   Blair worked on the project he’s involved in, while Harika and I sought out painting venues.   Here, we are confined once again to the rabbit hutch.

Traveling within France is a real treat – each region has its specialties and features.  Cassis, just east of Marseille is one of the most beautiful spots in France.    It’s a geological wonder of white rock, or calcaire:  the brilliant white stone extends beneath the sea, and the result is a bright turquoise ocean.    One can climb on these “calanques”, from water level to several hundred feet, revealing magnificent views.  The occasional pine tree emerges from a crack in the rocks, often hanging out horizontally overhead.   Even though the temperature was cool, one could perch on the rocks and feel the warm delicious sunshine.

We don’t actually spend all of our time in the rabbit hutch when we’re in Paris.  We go out every morning for coffee and a walk , and make a similar foray in the afternoon.  The library, French or American, is a popular destination, as is the Seine and the Tuileries.  We chat with many people, despite my halting French.  Sometimes I think it puts people at ease, not having to be completely proper with us.   Eric, who works at one of our coffee shops, told us of his memory of Marseille:  the family they visited  near there every summer took in an orphaned marcassin (a baby wild boar), which grew up and lived on a sofa in their living room and sat at the dinner table.  It was house trained, of course.

Harika loved the beach at Cassis, closed to dogs in the summer, but apparently in-limits in winter.  France is the only country where a dog can dine in a restaurant but not walk in a park.   She instantly recognized her sea, the Mediterranean, and took to running around in circles and digging big holes in the sand.

We didn’t confine our trip to just Cassis; we took the route de Cretes to Ciotat.  I should have known it would be one of those unencumbered-by-guardrails, circuitous climbs through the hills, giving way to outrageously beautiful, if vertiginous panoramas.  The wind was so strong up there I was obliged to hang on tight to Harika’s leash when we got out of the car.     We took the straight road home.

I looked for wild boar while I was there, but didn’t find any.  The fragrant mimosa was just coming into bloom, and we saw a squirrel in Ciotat.  Ciotat is an historic ship building port in France, although I am not sure much is built there now.  It has a rugged downtown, with old bulk-loading cranes and lots of fishing boats.  We bought a small tuna (the fish monger told us it wasn’t tuna, but it looked and tasted identical) and cooked it up on our two burner cook top.

Our apartment had blue and white cotton upholstered walls, red checked sheets and red plaid blankets.  We took a shower everyday, something we are deprived of in the hutch.  Since we got back, a very generous friend gave us a key to her house so we can clean up over there as needed.

Arriving by TGV in Marseilles (in just 3 hours from Paris!), I let the rental car lady scare me a bit about car theft.  It wasn’t until much later in the week we toured the city of Marseille, only to find the museum we were seeking was closed for renovation.  The old train station in Marseille, St. Charles, is quite dramatic, with a hundred steps, almost a block wide, leading up to the doorway.  The TGV station, attached is more modern.   Marseille, originally a Phoenician city, is situated around the turquoise bay of the Mediterranean.   It was so beautiful, in fact, Blair and I looked at apartments overlooking the water.

Laurie and Blair PESSEMIER
www.paintfox.com ; (you can see all the pictures there!)

What matters in life is this moment.  If you were never to see your “stuff” again,  it wouldn’t matter.  Because all that matters is this feeling, this moment, this connection to the present.  It’s an extra special bonus if you get to be with people you love.  And your belongings are just a tether that keep you from realizing your greatest potential.   Leave material goods behind.    I tell this to myself daily, with a houseful of furniture still in Connecticut.

My friend, M, writes, make more memories.  I used to think that memories were the most important thing you could have.  Both of Blair’s grandmothers, who lived into their mid-90s relished their memories, and told stories of the circus and the beach and renovating distressed property:  things they loved.  But now we have diseases that suck all the memories from people, and memory care units that  make money nurturing the empty husks of memories.  So maybe money IS what people want to make, so they can stay alive longer.    But those folks in memory care don’t care if they are alive or not.  Isn’t it the weirdest?   I am careful what drugs I take – I am convinced it is environmental influences which create the problem.

I hope to stay alive and vital as long as Blair does.  My friend C’s parents have just been shipped off to hospice, together.  I think it amazing they are together like this until the end.  Maybe there is a thing about being soulmates.  I always loved that expression, beyond the cheesy article in Cosmopolitan magazine.  Soulmates:  forever.

I don’t think it is just life partners that are soulmates.  I think there are people you go through eternity with.  My father is one for me, and Q was, and my friend K.  Blair of course.    My Aunt Franny, now in memory care, was one – she is a poor old empty husk now, and would die of embarrassment if only she could.  But she still has the odd word, a criticism or a chuckle, that bubbles out.  And a group of people are dedicated to her comfort and well being – I can’t hold it against them, but frankly, I can’t understand it.

We’re headed to Cassis tomorrow.  I can’t wait to breathe clean, Mediterranean air.  I love that sea, that light, that ambiance.    There are marvelous fish to cook around there (we’ve rented an apartment), and we will have at least one fabulous bouillabaisse in Marseille.  I loved cooking fish in Tunisia, and these are fish from the same ocean.    “It will be as close as Harika has been to Tunisia in two years,” Blair recalls.  I don’t think she misses it:  she has adjusted to coffee with Andre and Pierre every morning, and runs around the grass at the Louvre.   I don’t miss my hometown, honestly, although I miss my Dad.

I am taking many years of artnotes with me on the trip, which I will try to compile into a sensible order.    This is in case the weather doesn’t cooperate with my planned 12 paintings.   The dream job I had been interviewing for isn’t there, so we’ll just have to keep on with a chined-together living.

I am looking forward to time in Marseille, that 2600+ year old city.  A Phoenician port, home to Romans, the wonderful and courageous Varian Fry,  Jews, Muslims and of course, the French…I can’t wait to hear what its walls have to tell me.  And then I’ll tell you.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER

Here's picture of Laurie's dog, Harika.

It’s Christmas in Branford, CT.  On the green, the tree is illuminated, and Blair and I, like birds, climbed under and inside the branches (before they erected the fence around it).  The birds love the tree, and even though the new LED lights don’t give off much heat, there is a certain coziness inside.

We’re back in the US for the holidays.   I have spent 53 Christmases with my parents, and I guess we’re in for the count.  I assembled their tree, placing red branch holder in the proper slot, before adding lights and decorations.

We spend a lot of time on the Branford green, near the tree, walking our petite charge, Harika.   She likes to swipe my glove from my pocket and run around with it.   We were playing at said game, when a man came up to us and said, “are you getting married?”  Hmm.  Were we in a Christmas song?

The surprise on our face must have been obvious, as he continued, “I am supposed to marry a couple out here tonight in a secret wedding.”  He held a prayer book and a portable light.  I asked him if I could use the light to find my glove, which, by now Harika had dropped in the darkness.  “Well, even if they don’t show up, I will have done some good,” he chuckled.

We pressed on our walk.  It is below freezing these nights, and we have to keep moving or ice up.  The Green Grocer features  a bright orange Christmas tree; all the businesses and churches have single candle lights in each window.   An empty storefront has become “Presence”, featuring goods from every store in town.

We decided to get a tree for our house this year.  It’s our first “big” tree since 1992.   We’ve had tabletop models in Paris, but most years have forgone the tradition in favor of travel.   We went to St. Mary’s tree lot.   “Something less than 6 feet with a trunk diameter of no more than 2.5 inches” we commanded.   The 6 feet was possible, but the diameter not.  We converted a jardinière into a tree stand, full of rocks and water.  It seems to be holding.

Harika and I went out to gather pine cones for ornaments.  We had sundry lights and a box of ornaments from my brother-in-law; Blair got a large bag of assorted decorations for $1 from the thrift store.   The tree is beautiful.

As we circled back from our evening walk, we saw flashbulbs going off by the tree.   The bride, resplendent in white wool and ermine posed with the proud husband in front of the Christmas tree.

I love this season.

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER
Christmas Tree    LFP   Acrylic on canvas  12 x 12"   $150.00