Welcome to my Blog!

Welcome to the blog of (self-proclaimed) artist/philosopher Jim Justice.  In these posts, we will be exploring whatever may be on my mind that I wish to share with you, especially as it relates to my own explorations of art and photography.  However, I won’t acknowledge any limitations on where this might take us at any particular time in the future.  I hope and suspect that this may become a dialogue with you, and that my responses to your inputs may become as important as my own posts, which will focus heavily on my own work and thoughts.  In my posts, I will regularly introduce new or existing art works for comment, discussion and critique, and will welcome your feedback.

By now you have noticed my “signature” image, a cardinal experiencing his world on a particularly challenging day in the midst of near-blizzard conditions.  I have chosen this image to identify me on related Internet sites, and I’d have to say that I can often identify with him!  I am drawn to images and to the thoughts and emotions that they may evoke in each of us, and this is just one example.

The image is a photograph taken during a particularly harsh winter storm recently, in my part of the world.  I often like to attach captions which my images bring to mind, and the first caption that came to mind in this case was “who said it’s just another cold front?”.  In second place was the caption “it’s a tough life!”, and isn’t that often the case?  We all face our own challenges and difficulties in life, and they shape and mold our characters.  They are what make us what we are, and who we become.  Sometimes we must work hard to overcome them, and sometimes we can welcome the fact that they have occurred and have become a part of us.

In saying that, we realize that there can be both good and bad in every experience.  We simply have to learn to profit from the good, to learn from the bad, and to take whatever lesson we can find in it to heart so that we become the better because of it.  In the little cardinal’s case, he had little control over the situation in which he found himself.  Perhaps more often than not, we ourselves have little control over the situations in life that confront us every minute of every day of our existence.  To the extent that we learn to accept and learn from the bad and benefit from the good, we influence our own abilities to succeed and carry on.  Life is full of adversity.  Without adversity we might never have the opportunity to reach our full potential. Success grows out of failure, and is almost always preceded by it.  I think that almost every great person in history had to overcome a certain amount of adversity to become what he/she eventually became or accomplished.  Thomas Edison tried over 1,000 different possibilities, including bamboo, before he found the tungsten filament that made his light bulb a success.  Just look at how he changed the world!  Think about where we might be if he had ever accepted defeat.  There are a thousand lessons in this example, but perhaps one of the most important is that we should never give up on what we believe we can accomplish.  If we do, we guarantee failure.  If we don’t, we never close the door on the possibility of success and it’s certain that we will gain valuable knowledge and experience in the process.

Well, this brings us to where I now find myself.  I have done a lot and experienced a lot in this world.  Along the way, I discovered art and photography and became fascinated by the possibilities that I could see.  I don’t necessarily mean for wealth or success, but just for the opportunity to explore something new and exciting and to see what I might be able to do with it, if given the chance.  I wanted to know more and to learn to do it all myself, if possible.  Over the years I have acquired a certain amount of knowledge and skills, and now I have accepted the challenge of creating a real career as an artist, if that is possible.  If not, I will carry on, as before, because the important thing to me has always been to be able to try, and to just see what happens. I am constantly amazed by what can happen if you only try.

You can play a part in this.  By following me and giving me your feedback, you will help to mold my future career.  Perhaps I can do something of the same for you – I’m not a beginner and I have a lot of past history and experience to build on.  If you can take advantage of that, you are welcome to whatever I can offer to you, as well, and perhaps this blog will help to serve that purpose.  One of the most important lessons that I think I have learned in life is the power and fundamental value of communication in almost any form.  We’ll explore that idea here, and we’ll see where it can take us.

Welcome to my world!  You are now a part of it, and I look forward to whatever may come of this.  If you’d like to subscribe, you will be notified of new works and new blog posts as they appear.  I’ll hope to see you often…

–  Jim