Artnotes: Uncivilized

 Lemons in Black Beret   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  12 x 12"  30 x 30cm

 Lavender  Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas   12 x 10  30 x 25cm

 Trees in Flower Marano   Blair Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas ​    12 x 20"   30 x 50cm

Forget-me-nots   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  8 x 20  20 x 50cm

 By the Panaro River in March   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas  10 x 20"  25 x 50cm

In Blossom   Laurie Fox Pessemier   Acrylic/canvas   10 x 20"  25 x 50cm

I am sitting in my sunny yard at 3:16 in the afternoon, listening to the children in the grammar school sing songs, accompanied by a piano and castanets.  Life doesn’t get much better.    My trees are growing.  The grass is cut.  

We bought a push lawn mower which is a constant source of entertainment to the Italians in the neighborhood.  As the fellow at the store says, only Americans and Germans buy these. 

I sit here working on this travel book – too many words, no structure.  Oh well.   I am going to the beach next week with Harika to finish it.  Blair is going to the US to pack up an art show for North Carolina.  We are holing up in a studio in Rimini. 

Do those kids know how romantic they are?  How magical?  Probably not.  Kids are just naturally that way.  Always busy, mostly fun, and ever so non-self-conscious. That’s it, isn’t it?  It’s when we start trying to make an impression, to behave, to act civilized we get in trouble.  Without too much civilizing, we can be spontaneous and happy.   Like my dog, Harika.  I am sorry she has no frontal lobe, and no opposable thumb, but maybe in the case of the frontal lobe she is better off.

It’s taken on the sense of a carnival up there at the school.  There seems to be a xylophone, and a drum, too.  Clapping; in rhythm.   The birds are singing.  I heard the cuckoo, a certain sign of spring, this week.

 I’ll go take a look with Harika in a few minutes.  I want to be one of them, but not the teacher.  Like parents, those authority figures can be the dream killers.   Italy is not as bad as some places we’ve lived, or maybe Italian kids are inherently immune.

Like art – ask any kid if they can paint, and they say “yes!”  Even as a professional painting grownup, I doubt myself.  

It’s taken me years to eliminate the tendency to make all trees brown.    If I were a tree, would I want to be brown?  I mean, is brown anyone’s favorite color?  OK, there are some acceptable browns:  curry, maybe, or amber.  In any case, if I were a tree I’d want to be red.  Green leaves are fine.  But they can lean toward turquoise or purple.