Artnotes: Packing up Paris
At 7 this morning I watched a man hoist the French flag to the top of the pole at the Rennes metro stop.  We are packing up our Paris flat and enjoying the fleeting views from the windows.

It is a bittersweet parting.  We have no doubts about our move to Italy.  I hope we will sell enough paintings from there to support  yearly trip to Paris.  Just yesterday, I had an inquiry for a painting session in Paris for twenty people in June 2016.  I am thinking it could be a good time to visit.

We met the new people moving into 110, rue de Rennes. The are young and have the enthusiasm we had for Paris ten or twenty years ago.  They are buying our stove, refrig, washer, dining table, two chairs, and wardrobe.   Blair is at the flea market trying to peddle the rest of our furniture.  We are only keeping some of our paintings --  a few are this week's images.  Last call.

On Wednesday, we picked up our seventeenth ( we have lived here over 20 years) one-year visitors visa -- it is impossible to feel at home under such unwelcoming circumstances.  Despite passing the nationality test, the woman at the desk never sees fit to give us our 10 year card; asking for it (we have in past) is akin to requesting another bowl of soup at the gulag.    The same day, we went to the Italian embassy to get my fiscal stamp, without problem.  That is not to say Italy isn't a bureaucratic nightmare, but at least it is handled with humor, more lightly.

Harika  lies on the bed all day long, pining for her 2 acre yard and sister chickens.  It is likewise disconcerting to her that we are packing everything into boxes, indicative of yet another move.   We'll go visit my father in July.

We ate a wonderful dinner on the terrace of friends' apartment last night.  We will miss them, and they feel likewise.  "Don't feel bad", M tells me, "Paris is like a grandchild:  you love to see it, but are happy to leave it -- but you always come back."

Laurie and Blair PESSEMIER
Don: I think for next weeks painting I'm going to name the jpg differently, I'll put a (-) in it to denote a painting by Blair. You both paint closer to alike now and it's hard to tell the difference.
I love Paris but the weather is better in Italy. I'm on Maui for the weather and I just couldn't learn another language. That's why I moved here 40 years ago.

Hi Laurie, this Haystack painting is really great, ​Haystack in the morning  Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/linen  12 x 12"  30 x 30cm  225.00. Roses is very good too. You did well on the colors. I'm sorry about your root canal. Don

​Don't learn unnecessary words, my language tutor online urges me.  How many times will you want to know the word for duck or watermelon in everyday conversation.

This week I had to bone up on dental terms.  Really, if there are words you never want to use, they are "il mal di denti" (tooth ache) "gengicive" (gum) or the truly dread  "il trattamento di radice" (root canal).  I kept telling myself it was getting better, but that little voice of my best friend in high school who became a dentist kept repeating "teeth are the one things that never get better on their own".  The power of positive thinking lost out to another sleepless night, and on Thursday I went to the dentist office, open just two days a week, in our little town of Rocca Malatina.

Blair and I have been painting in earnest this warm, sunny week.  In the cities the temperature is 90+F (33C).   It is a full ten degrees cooler here, but we do most of our painting in the very early morning.  Light is best, and it's cool enough if our site gives way to sun.

I went into the dentist office after painting -- the assistant said, come at 4.  When I got there it looked closed, but alas, it was open.  It was a father and son operation, and both spoke English, which emerged as soon as I began describing pain:  it isn't sensitive to hot or cold, but if I touch it, it really hurts.

The dentist could see the hole, as he described it, but he was afraid it went much deeper.  We'll skip the xray he said, it's got to be dealt with in any case.  Just tell me, I asked, what you are going to do.  It was only last year I got over my fear of the dentist, and this was taking much resolve.

I am really surprised how slow I am to speak Italian.  My course says I am 37 percent literate, I have an official vocabulary of 837 words (I know more than 1000, though, because root canal isn't one of the official words), but it's still slow to come.  I read that recent studies have shown it has nothing to do with age, but rather the lack of fear to speak as one gets older.  Not to mention one false move in French and you feel like an idiot -- the Italians are much kinder, they WANT it to work out.

The dentist proceeded as I sat there to numb my jaw, and yes, perform the root canal procedure right then and there!  It was not painful, but I was sent home with antibiotics and pain medicine. The next afternoon I went to the cafe across the street.  I described my tooth ache, and he told me I needed a "pastilla" (soothing candy) -- no, I replied, I need a whiskey. 
I have to go back next Thursday for the final sealing of the tooth.  Momma mia!

Artnotes: On top of the World
    We live on top of the world here -- not the Alps, but the Apennines.  We have so many painting vistas to choose from, it is hard to pick the best.  Even more difficult is selecting one out of the sun, which is why we just bought a pavilion style tent, delivered today.  That said, now it is raining, and despite the tent, we are forced to be indoors, from where I paint roses growing in the back yard.  We have at least a dozen bushes, all different colors (so Italian) from pink, to red to pale yellow.
    On Wednesday, a very sunny day, we drove up  50 more meters from Rocca Malatina to Pieve de Trebbio.  There's a church there, various outbuildings, a small cemetery and open space.  At four in the afternoon the rays of the sun are at such an angle, it is a composition of greens, blues and purples across the valley.
    Harika gave her seal of approval, jumping out of the car and running around in big circles.  As we were taking our supplies out of the trunk, another car pulled up and started to unload. The alighting woman was quite beautiful, wearing a rather skimpy garment.  Hmm.  The older man took photography equipment from his car.   Harika was intrigued, but we kept her near us as we committed the landscape to canvas. 
    Blair and I painted for 90 or so minutes, and the other people disappeared among the architecture.  As I was near the finish of my canvas, the man asked if he could photograph the woman with me and my canvas in the background.  Shoot on, I encouraged him.
It turned out he was a photographer and she was his model.  He is an excellent life model photographer (she kept her filmy dress on next to me, though).   More astonishing than simply bumping into him and her  was that he spoke English, and had lived in Holland, Pennsylvania for part of his life.  Now he was a photographer, living in Modena.  We traded stories of Paris and Rocca Malatina, Holland Pennsylvania, and Modena,  and then traded business cards.

Artnotes:  Buon Giorno
We celebrated Blair's birthday in Bologna this week.  While we were there, we  mailed a package at the Fedex store (could people really be this friendly, or am I jaded after 20 years in Paris?), and we bought art supplies.   Earlier in the week we negotiated the purchase of a new cell phone and number, entirely in Italian, at Vodaphone.   So far, so good: lots of smiles and grazies.

Bologna isn't the easiest place to get around (Blair is sure we'll receive one of those photo/mail-in tickets), and I had jotted down possible restaurant addresses. We ended up at the Drogheria Della Rosa which was listed as one of the five best tables in Bologna --  it was terrific.   A fixed price deal included a glass or two of prosecco, an appetizer of delicious pancetta and mortadella (famous in Bologna), a first course, second, wine and dessert.   I had the green lasagna to start, which was absolutely delicious -- Blair chose a light cheese ravioli with zucchini blossoms.  I proceeded with the guinea hen, prepared with a sweet sort of sauce:  I tasted honey in there; Blair had the veal with tuna sauce, something I have never prepared at home.   Both were flawless, beyond delicious.   But I had no room for dessert.  It was a modest price for the two of us, on such a special occasion.

The other thing I LOVED about the restaurant was the people there.  From the young, skinny maître d'hôtel with his large head and very slight, black-suited body (imagine a male Nancy Reagan, serving wine), to the young woman, wearing a giant crown of laurel leaves, at the very large table of exuberant Italians on the sidewalk.  I later learned her family was celebrating her  graduation, hence the laurels.   An enormous man was seated across from me, one table down, and he seemed to be making love to his food.   The food loved him back.     The owner of the establishment visited with us in depth, and provided an extra couple glasses of wine to ensure our return.  He was a round little man, wearing a bright orange polo shirt and colorful glasses.   The whole experience was fun and delicious.

Everything in Italy is a surprise to us, most wonderful.  We've been out in the countryside painting GREEN landscapes, while Harika explores for local fauna.  The new vet comes to the house on Sunday, and who knows, maybe we'll invite him for lunch. 

We are all practicing SMILING and our Italian, and wake up embracing every day.  Buon Giorno!

http://www.paintfox.com/
Chestnuts in Blossom
There's been a flurry of activity this past week, in addition to packing up the move to sunny Italy. 

We went to the Giotto to Caravaggio show at the Jacquemart Andre Museum.  The museum is an unusual place -- while Americans were buying the French Impressionists, the Andres were buying Italian Renaissance classics, and left their house and its collection to France.   The house is over the top wonderful -- an oasis in a busy city, with an elegant garden behind.   Their collection is wonderful -- including a Tiepolo fresco painstakingly moved from Venice.

What better location for a Giotto to Caravaggio Exhibition?  The show is beautifully curated, and includes works by Piero della Francesco and Massacio.  The Caravaggios glow with luminescence (he experimented with adding fireflies to his sketches).  Giotto represents the very start of the Renaissance and Caravaggio the beginnings of the Baroque period -- and we see the portrait change as time moves on.

It was a welcome break from the endless sorting of our belongings -- we have literally hundreds of paintings.  Depite destroying many, we have at least 300 we will move to Rocca Malatina.  We return to Paris in June for a show at 102, rue Cherche Midi, where we had an expo in 2014.   This show will run from 24 June until 4 July.   We hop on the plane on the 6 July USA-bound for a show at Figure 8 Island in North Carolina, mid month.  Hopefully we will sell lots of our paintings in both places.

Packing up, I found pair of shoes I thought I'd lost in America in 2010; a plaid silk dress Blair gave me for Easter in 1983; photos of a mural we executed at my friend Sal's Volvo repair shop in 1996 (Tiepolo it ain't). 

We don't need to move any furniture at all because our new abode is completely furnished a la 1910, the year of the building.   But it isn't easy to find homes for what we have -- it may end up on the street in July.  Meanwhile, a friend took our olive and our azalea trees. 

I had a painting workshop with a wonderful woman from New Orleans, studying political science in Scotland.  We sat in the Luxembourg Gardens, under the chestnuts in blossom, enjoying April in Paris.

http://www.paintfox.com/
Boats in the Mediterranean  Blair Pessemier  Acrylic/linen  20 x 24"  50 x 61cm   450.00

Blair’s painting in the other room and I am banished to the little bedroom.  He’s painting larger these days, as you might have noticed.  It precludes both of us being in the house.  Normally, I’d head to the library,  but there is a “fermeture exceptionelle” (odd closing) today.   It’s too polluted to be out on the porch – I don’t know how the flowers stand it.  We had a large bouquet of tulips out there on the table, and the greatest assortment of bees came to collect the pollen.  It was beautiful.

I ran into my friend S the other day at the Monop, a small local grocery (it is in fact part of a big chain called Monoprix).  She was carrying two baby bottles.  “I am a grandmother,” she beamed.  “We’re the old ones now”.  I told her we are not old, we are the WISE ones.  This delighted her, as it delights me.  I feel I have better decision-making skills than I did.  And if the decision I make isn’t the right one, I have the skill and experience to get through.

We are pursuing new digs in Italy, and leaving on Sunday to drive down there.  I am not sure it’s the right thing, but when one gets an idea it is best to follow it through to the end.  AT LEAST LOOK AT THE PLACE.  We are looking at a very large house on a big piece of land, not far from Bologna.  We would have lots of room to paint and maybe offer painting workshops at the property, by the week, four times a year.  Harika would have a yard, and we would get a car to explore Italy.  We’re both keen to learn another language, grazie.

We drove the rental car out to Auvers sur Oise to paint today.  It was especially Van Gogh-y, with fruit trees in blossom against a deep blue sky.
I don’t think of Italy as leaving Paris, but doing something else for a year.  With the proper space, we’d like to make some sculpture, and I would like to sew.  There would be a plethora of inspiration, for how ever long.

We are rather fixtures in our neighborhood.  Market vendors could go broke without our custom.   I can’t imagine being without my friend M, for too long, even though we only see each other once in awhile.  She wrote the book on wisdom: she makes the sanest sorts of decisions.  She’s out in the country right now, and here I am running huckledebuck.

The rent on the new place would be half of what we pay right now, which is interesting.   I try not to make strictly financial decisions, but it is consideration (I only have one workshop reservation for a half day this entire summer).   We could come back to Paris to visit, a month at a time, and rent a little furnished apartment.   Would we?  I like to think so.  Would you come visit us in Italy?

Don’t worry, it’s just an idea.

From the rooftop   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/linen 11 x 16"   27 x 41cm    400.00
Rock the Kasbah   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/linen 9.5 x 12"  24 x 30cm    250.00

The best trips are not always the easiest ones.

Blair and I have always wanted to go to Tangier, Morocco, so when we had a dog sitter arriving, we decided to pack our bags for north Africa.    Artists like Delacroix and Matisse spent significant time in Tangier, although the place is most associated with writers like Paul and  Jane Bowles, Jack Kerouac.   Ibn Battuta, a traveler (44 countries) and chronicler (hero of mine) was born in Tangier.  Christopher Columbus came here from Cadiz. Samuel Pepys, writer of the famous diary,  lived here in the 1680s.  Mark Twain came to Tangier.  John Smith, of Jamestown fame, named the island he landed on in America, Tangier, after the place close to his heart.  Daniel Defoe, of Robinson Crusoe fame, loved Tangier.    The list goes on to today.

Tangier was not always part of regular Morocco.   It was an "international zone", subject to separate rules until 1956.   Normal Moroccans even needed a passport to enter then.  It was this international zone that attracted the writers, artists and musicians, including the Beatles and Rolling Stones.  It was near our rental house the Clash "Rocked the Kasbah".
Blair and I felt a little afraid here -- in a big sense, as a result of the media reporting about "ISIS" .  If I allow that  fear of terrorism stop me, I am letting the bad guys win.   But, in a daily sense there was not a soul we felt we could trust on the street here.  We lost only about $55.00 in sundry accidents of payment, and swindling -- unfortunately at the hands of a person we thought trustworthy.  I felt exploited, but not hated, and we laughed out loud about our follies.

It was as though we were on a different planet -- people were dressed like out of a Delacroix painting two centuries ago.  Crafts were executed in the same way.  Internet coverage and cell phones scarce as a full set of teeth.    Even more different was the approach to life -- no sense of "we're all in this together".   Which brings me to why creative people might have liked this place so much:  it is easier to paint, to write, to make art with an "apartness" (Paul Bowles' term) one cannot find in the United States, or a western European country.

We stayed right a the edge of the old Medina and the Socco (souk).  No cars, chickens in the streets, stray cats everywhere.  Children played noisily outside anytime they were not in school (every family had at least 6).  Men visit and smoke outside our window half the night.  The  meuzzin rang out every few hours, which I found quite disturbing to concentration, but that's the idea, after all. 

Did we have a good time?  Yes --  we painted, we thought, we wrote, we adapted to startling conditions.  We felt older than when we took off for Tunisia -- physically slower, mentally more wise, more philosophical.  We painted very early in the morning before others were awake, or from the roof of the house we rented: seeing, observing a lifestyle so different from our own.

Laurie and Blair Pessemier;  to see all 18 paintings from Tangier, click on
​www.paintfox.com

Artnotes: the Everyday
We’re back to the everyday life in Paris.  Everyone thinks, “oh gosh, living in Paris, incredible”  but it gets boring just like any other place.   So yesterday we decided to go for a little escapade outside the city walls. 

“ A walk through the forest leads to the fairy-tale setting of the chateau of Ecouen, with its collection of Renaissance treasures,” the book read.   Off we went.  We took the subway to Gare de Nord to board the line H train.   The approach to Ecouen, twenty three minutes from its half hourly departure from Paris was less than bucolic.  It is March after all.

We alighted at Ecoen-Ezanville.   We immediately recognized the map as “iffy”.  Fortunately, there were signs for the chateau. There’s a thrill to walking through the woods, dappled light, fresh air – exercise fanatics, some fellow doing pushups on a picnic table, kids balancing on branches.  I never felt I could fall into the hands of the fairy tale witch, like Hansel and Gretel.  Incredibly fit men dashed by: one guy made the 200 meter uphill dash in  19 seconds.   I wheeze.

This wasn’t our only foray this week – we also went to the beach --  in the car.  I needed to expand my lungs and clear my arteries. 

As time passed, I realize I left our house just after noon, and didn’t get to the door of the museum until almost two.  I had company coming for dinner.  Oh, well, we could always go out for pizza.   Harika would just have to cross her legs – I considered bringing her, but one never knows what it could be like.   As it turned out, once we got to the Chateau grounds (you passed through a little gate), no dogs allowed.

The Chateau was a little funky, but with certain fabulous collections.  They had the best Iznik ceramics (Turkish dishes) I have ever seen:  I love that sort of thing.  They had incredible tile floors from the Renaissance, and I particularly enjoyed a room full of  scenes painted on Italian wedding chests.   Gold, silver and jeweled trinkets abound.   There were wall paintings from early days of the chateau.  This chateau, built in 1555 for the very wealthy Duke of Montmorency, survived the Revolution unscathed.  Napoleon converted it into a girl’s school.  There are more guards than visitors.  At 3 o’clock there would be Renaissance music.  I opted to go outside to paint just before that.  I painted a quick panel – and made the trek back down the hill to liberate Harika hopefully before 5 and put the roast in the oven.

Our guest, Richard, came early so we were able to get in three games of cards and enjoy dinner.  I folded early, not winning at all.  I explained how tired I was from the walk.  “Oh, I meant to tell you when you mentioned that book “an hour from Paris” " he said, "– the times are underestimated.”

Don, How fast Blair mixes his colors, no black used. Color is everything.

Thanks for a wonderful year Laurie & Blair, Happy Valentine's Day. We sure got a lot of hits on the forum, thanks again. I love your limited palette. Lately I have been doing a lot of 3 primary color paintings. No black ever keeps our work from being dull.
Your book was great. Fireflies are great, I lived in firefly country for 20 years growing up and never knew the different blinking rate was male and female. I got the new app, could you tell us how this magazine was made? Don

Artnotes: A Dog's Life
Harika in Venetian Color  Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  12 x 16"  30 x 0 cm 185.00

Two Jack Russell terriers in coats, perched on a delivery boat, barked uproariously as the vessel plied the waters of our neighborhood, Dorsoduro, in Venice.   Harika was duly annoyed, barked back, but eventually thought better of it, as there was no way to engage with the two canines.  We went on our way, but for some time afterward I could tell where the boat was, by the sound of the two sentinels.

Dogs are tops in Venice.  There are all sorts of breeds, often dressed up in coats.  We regularly saw:  a great Dane; a half dozen Jack Russells (one that had been immortalized in a sculpture in an art gallery); a griffon that Harika terrorized to the point it would run when it saw her; King Charles cavaliers; Brittany spaniels; a boxer; two Bernaise mountain dogs; a few labs; a golden retriever, and a collection of mongrels, from which Harika hails. 

The Square  Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/linen   16 x 12"  40 x 30cm  250.00​

Venice is the perfect place for a dog, because there are no cars.  Although most dogs are still on leashes, it is possible to let your dog run freely in a square and play, without fear of being run over.  There are lots of dogs on boats, accompanying their masters at work.  Harika was sad to leave our apartment, where we had a yard, and a heated floor.

Harika in Venice,  Laurie Fox Pessemier

We left Venice this week to return to Paris.  Three trains, two of them planned, got us home seven hours late (the entire journey was meant to be a little more than 8 hours, so you get the picture).

It’s icy cold here but sunny.  Not painting weather, but not too terrible.  I am wearing my fur coat, which people like to “pet”, so I feel a little like a dog might.  The pond in the Luxembourg Gardens is frozen over, and watching the seagulls walk on the water always amuses us.

We’ve hung our Venice collection of paintings on the walls here.  Our apartment seems outrageously cluttered, with canvases stacked up everywhere.  I can’t to go someplace else and start over.

 

Art Notes, Venice

Five middle-aged men in a gondola ply the rio not far from the Piazzo San Marco.  All but one is holding an Ipad, cover dangling like the seat of their skivvies, looking AT the screen rather than at their fantastic surroundings. 

Nearly everywhere I go here, people are looking at screens rather than the view.  The most hawked item here on the street is the “selfie stick”, so you can hold your Iphone three feet away from your face to get a good picture.  It’s alarming.  But actually, I am having such a good time, I don’t care what those poor suckers are doing.

There is an art to looking, and Venice is a feast for the eyes.   The color is shocking:  pink skies in the morning;  water that is actually turquoise/blue, even when the sun isn’t on it;  stones that glow a soft yellow gold; not to mention the actual gold mosaic tiles that adorn some edifices.   Brick towers tilt this way and that; a pointed, byzantine arch sits near a Palladian-style window; a shrine is tucked at the end of the street.

It’s impossible to see when one is clicking, or in many cases, video-ing away.  Everything is reduced to two dimensions.   One of the most interesting comments I hear in our outdoor painting workshop in Paris, from people who used to paint from photographs is, “there is so much AROUND me”.  It is that atmosphere that adds to the impression in one’s mind, so much deeper than a photo.   And that impression is what follows you home, inspires you to write, to make jewelry, to paint your kitchen Venetian blue.  I don’t hold a paintbrush ALL the time, and we do take photographs, but we try to keep it to a minimum.

Most surprising this week has been the many museums we are visiting.  I am not such a museum-goer, really, but when we went to the Peggy Guggenheim collection, the floodgates of my Art History education flew open.  Like old friends (and some were – a number of artists had spoken at the Hartford Art School when I was there), I recognized the work of Mitchell, Penrose, Pollack, Paul Klee.  In contrast, the next day we visited the Ducale Palace, with one of Europe’s largest rooms, and paintings by Titian, Bellini, Tintoretto.   Today at the Accademia we saw a Giorgione and Piera della Francesca.

We are still painting daily, in the very early mornings (check out www.paintfox.com for another half dozen painted this week).  Friday, a photographer stood directly in front of me (I could almost touch her), with a tripod, to take a picture.  I stood up from my bench, hoping I wouldn’t take her tripod and break if over my knee, when she peeped, “oh, am I in your way?”  They could have heard my response back in Paris.

Art Notes from Laurie.
With the help of our Italian dictionary, Blair was able to sign us up online for the Italian senior discount on TrenItalia.  One hundred fifty pounds of luggage (paint is heavy) and a twenty five pound dog in a bag raced from track 21 to track 11 in Milan in under ten minutes.  For only 67 euros, Blair, I and Harika made our way from Cervo to Venice in just 6 hours. 

I had a hard time not bursting into tears as we stood on the Vaporetto gazing over Venice.  We had not been in this beautiful city since the 1970s:  it was BETTER than I remembered.  Blair agreed.

We made our way to our cozy rental apartment in the Dorsoduro district, near the Accademia bridge.  An enthusiastic Emma with her cocker spaniel Charlotte met us at the dock and took us to what used to be their apartment.   Heated floors and a grassy back yard – what more could a dog ask for?  A real Dog’s Palace.

We walked to the store to buy food for dinner – each little bridge and byway eliciting a new round of ooohs and aaahs.  And no cars.  NO CARS at all in Venice.  In fact, I noticed the “ambulanza” plying the waters today, with its flashing light.

Sunday morning found us on the banks of the grand canal – my work, a complete failure, already painted over.  As I looked upstream, the gondoliers were just getting underway.  One was singing Santa Lucia.

The gondola shop is very close to our apartment.  Blair checked out the ailing vessels, took pictures.   We rarely take photos, but we’ve seen so many scenes too good to pass up.
With Harika, we’ve walked to St Mark’s and the Doge’s Palace.  We’ve unearthed an art supply store.  I am limiting myself to smaller canvases at the moment. 

The fog has been most intriguing, but today we painted in sun, from the Accademia bridge looking toward Santa Maria della Salute.  I pinch myself and ask, can it really be this beautiful?

   Artnotes:  Clowning Around
A  curly-haired cherubic girl tried to give Harika bits of her foccacio, as we sat down to our second breakfast at Serafino on Saturday.  Harika, ever prudent of Greeks (in this case, Italians) bearing gifts, hid beneath my chair.  I accepted the 2-1/2 year olds’ offering and pretended to feed it to my dog.

A few minutes later another family, with two boys, joined the fracas.  The older boy, maybe 6, was a real clown.  He liked making the little girl laugh, and pretended to stumble over chairs, and bump into things, often sprawling on to the pavement on the restaurant’s terrace.  It was all very “Three Stooges”, and you couldn’t help but laugh at him. 

I’d not seen kids act like this – the three of them laughing and carrying on uproariously – in, well, maybe NEVER, or at least 40 years.  The little girl had that overwhelming laugh, bigger than herself, as only little kids can have.  Kids are king in Italy – treasured, indulged, and ever so evident. 

It reminded me of my own youth in Winsted, Connecticut – a town full of Italian families with at least a half-dozen kids each.  “Horsing around” we used to call it – making the other kids laugh with stories, crazy behavior.  And most importantly we could all laugh at ourselves. 

I’d have put these feelings aside had we not gone to visit the Villa Grock in Imperia that afternoon.  Villa Grock is the creation of the famous Italian clown, Grock.  It is a completely crazy house and garden dedicated to CLOWNING. 

We watched a film of Grock, the man, talking about what it was to be a clown – how you make people laugh, or cry, or you never know what they would feel.  There was no time for complaining, talking about your own problems…  It was quite inspiring, a little like art – you paint your picture and how people react is up to them.  You can’t say it will make people happy or sad.  Intention is only to entertain, cause a reaction.

My nephew, H, as a small child, was a “clown”.  He’d ride on his swing, make believe he was flying – or he’d engage you in some way to make you laugh.  We wouldn't give up.

I have mixed feelings about circus clowns.  They can make me nervous, or feel embarrassed, awkward; or even make me laugh out loud.  That’s the goal:  to make me feel something.