Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Martin Jarrie

Painter and illustrator Martin Jarrie has lived and worked in Paris since 1981.

His work encompasses commercial advertising, book illustration and personal artistic exploration.

The French artist is drawn to mutations and curious scenarios, skewing bodily proportions or melding two creatures into strange hybrids.

After a period working in documentary, even hyperrealistic, drawing, he shifted his style towards a freer, more pictorial expression influenced by Surrealism, the Italian Primitives, Art Brut, and contemporary art.

One defining characteristic of Martin’s work is the subtle layering of paint in each piece.

Jarrie uses leftover paint from palettes before they dry, or the small amount of paint left in a tube and spreads it on paper before storing it away.

It is these papers that he pulls from to start new work. The result is a rich canvas that, much like a palimpsest, hints at a hidden painting below.

More of Martin Jarrie’s unusual work can be found at https://martinjarrie.com/.

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Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Eyes

Eyes… They speak all languages.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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For the Girls

The blog this morning is more for my girls out there than my guys — although both are encouraged to follow along.

I have never been what would call “a knock out” in the looks department. I’ve rarely been called beautiful, lovely, or even cute. But I managed to find a loving husband and produced two great kids and three fantastic grandkids, so my life has been good.

But during these golden years I often look in the mirror and wonder … what happened?

Who is this pudgy, flat-haired, big glasses woman looking back at me?

No doubt many of you have kept in shape over the years, finding the right color, hair style, and diet to carry you along the windy river of life. But don’t you sometimes look in the mirror and wonder what happened?

Not only to your youth, but your looks, your body, your mind?

I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone else’s. I’ve worked all my life to get where I am today, as did all of you. And it has paid off — every minute of every day.

But I am of the boomer generation, whose biggest flaw is that we look to TV and movies and the entertainment world to see what the world wants us to look like.

I KNOW we have big hearts and bright minds and great taste and have been successful all around the globe.

But deeply ingrained in our subconscious is the thought that we should be skinner, less wrinkly, have bigger lips or smaller waists or thicker hair. We’re not supposed to get old or flabby or slow getting out of the car.

I don’t know if the current crop of little girls will go through the same social pressures as we did — I’m sure cyber bullying is right up there with being good at sports. I could ask my 8 year old granddaughter what she thinks of herself but I don’t want to open doors that don’t need to be opened. You know? I’d rather praise her talents and her cute hair cut or good grade or her soccer goal — something I don’t remember many doing around me when I was growing up.

I am actually getting to the point where every day I tell myself that I am blessed that I made it to 73 looking a little rougher and doughier than I’d hoped, rather than have made it to 50 and that was the end.

We all are so much more than what our mirrors reflect. We know that. We just have to listen to what our souls say.

Or maybe not look in the mirror so often…

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Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Butterflies

There are between 17,500 and 20,000 species of butterflies in the world.

There is no way I can begin to bring them all to you, so here are a few amazing ones.

Western Pygmy Blue

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Clipper

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Emerald Swallowtail

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Monarch

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Glass-Winged

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Bhutan Glory

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Common Blue

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Corinna Daggerwing

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Hübner’s Glad-eye

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Cracker

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Orange Daggerwing

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Cloudless Sulphur

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Malachite

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Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing

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Schaus’ Swallowtail

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West Indian Mangrove Buckeye

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Clodius Parnassian

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Cosmic Questions (repost)

I had so much fun with my original Cosmic Questions blog in 2016 I thought I’d post it again It seems I am no closer to the answers than I was nine years ago ….

Cosmic Questions

dogcat

You would think the winter chill would freeze my wandering brain cells, or at least slow them down some.  But as pretzel thinkers know, nothing can slow down a wandering, criss-crossy mind.

I thought about this blog this morning on the way to work. I was listening to the results of the New Hampshire primary, and wondered how our political future was going to turn out.

One thing led to another, and in my own wandering mind, I thought of putting out there some metaphysical, ethereal, weird thoughts that have no answers. Take away all political bias, all psychological jumble, and just wonder….

  • The number π (pi) is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Whatever that means. The point is, the digits go on and on with no pattern. π has been calculated to over two quadrillion decimal places and still there is no pattern to the digits. So why are we still calculating?
  •  They say it’s better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. Does that mean if I tried to read the dictionary backwards while sitting in a bathtub and singing God Bless America and I didn’t want to stop until I was done singing and the house caught on fire because my cat knocked over the candle I had burning in the other room and I had to stop reading the dictionary, was it better never to have tried that stunt in the first place?
  • How do cats purr? There is no purring organ in the throat of a cat, and even though extensive research has been done on the function itself, the exact origin of the function in the anatomy of cats is still unknown.
  • If infinity is infinite, and we can see no end to it, how do we know it’s even there?
  • If Mr. Spock went back in time in Star Trek and changed the timeline, did he change it for just those in his area of space, or did he interrupt the entire universe’s timeline? And how would we know if our timeline had been changed?
  • Is Donald Trump popular because he says the first thing that comes into his head? Is this something we all wish we could do, but fear getting fired/losing friends/being chastised?
  • And if the shoe fits: I have no opinion on Hillary Clinton accepting $675,000 for 3 speaking engagements, but just think — that is $225,000 per speech. If you spoke for 30 minutes each speech, you were getting paid $7,500.00 per minute. That’s $125.00 per second. That’s a lot of bongo bucks to be paid for opening your yapper.
  • If Pluto was once a planet, and now is called a dwarf planet, isn’t the word “dwarf” an adjective describing the main noun “planet”, and, therefore, once we strip all the fluff away from the basic nature of the being, Pluto once again becomes a “planet”?
  • It is a fact that the closer you get to the speed of light, the more time slows down. So isn’t a moot point to drive faster, when you actually arrive at your destination later?
  • They say light travels as both a wave and a particle. If that is so — nevermind. I don’t understand what I don’t understand.
  • And, finally, the most important cosmic befuddlement of all: Why is it that drivers always zoom up behind you like a bat out of hell, swerve around you, jam into the spot right in front of you, then turn 30 feet further?

THAT would be the answer to all answers…