Jennie Martin Tomlin

Inspiration

I receive my inspiration from many places, quite often from nature. It could be that I have been inspired by an awesome sunset, or a beautiful mountain scene, or the center of a flower! It could be an unusual cloud formation, or it could be simply a description of something beautiful or unusual that someone has talked about to me. Then again, I could be inspired by a fear – as in my cross current ocean scene , “Evening, Near the Point” . I have painted out of frustration and I have painted for sheer joy and happiness about a particular thing. I may paint something because I have dreamed about a certain color scheme and have to try it out. I like to experiment and some paintings are born as a result of experimentation. I do mostly representational work, and I also love to work in pen and graphite. Sometimes I work to solve problems with design and sometimes I work to solve personal problems and to try to “put things into perspective.”

One such painting, a very special one to me, is “Sasanqua and the 82nd Airborne Blues.” It was early afternoon on a pleasant , late October day in 1983. I have no idea what I was doing when the telephone rang. But from that point I remember the details very well. The call was from my youngest son’s Commanding Officer at Fort Bragg.(Michael was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division and the U S was involved pretty heavily with Granada. He had just come home for leave 2 days before, and he and a friend went on a deer hunting trip in the Uwharries, close to Morrow Mountain, NC. That area is quite large!)

The officer told me that Mike’s unit was about to go on stand-by to be sent to Granada, and he needed to find him and bring him back off of leave! I explained to the officer that I didn’t know where in that whole area Mike may be and he asked me to “please do everything I could to locate him”. I really did not have a clue about how to locate him. What’s a mother to do!! As I hung up the phone, I knew perfectly well that I would not be faulted for not finding him, but I also knew there was one thing I could do to try.

I went outside and took a long walk around the property. I spotted the Sasanqua bush, and it had one beautiful bloom on it! I picked it, brought it inside and began to draw and paint the blossom and do some soul searching. Should I keep my son safe or should I possibly put him in harms way and do the thing that could send him into a dangerous situation. I painted and thought and when I put the brush away I had made the decision to do what I knew Michael would want me to do. I called the state highway patrol and told them the situation. They agreed to try to find him.

Mike says that when the patrolman walked up behind him, deep in the woods, and asked if he was Michael Martin his heart dropped to his feet, not knowing what had happened. He immediately loaded his car and drove home, picked up his gear and went back to Fort Bragg. The happy ending to that story is that although his unit went into the stand-by mode, they did not have to go to Granada! Michael owns the painting I did that day, and as I looked at it a few days ago, I could see the tension I was feeling when I painted it. Every edge of the beautiful flowers is a hard edge! The composition may not be perfect, but its content and meaning are priceless.

“We Will Rise Above It” is a painting I had to do, the morning after September11, 2001. Sometimes I paint for myself and sometimes I paint to show others the beauty of things I see and feel. We are surrounded by nature and beautiful God given gifts – all ours, just to appreciate and enjoy and protect. Painting and drawing are wonderful learning tools. I always understand more about what something really looks like after I have painted it. I am always intrigued by the complexity of nature, the beautiful geometric shapes and exact repetitions. All those marvelous discoveries tell me that nothing “just happens.”

I bring memories of my grandmother back by painting things that belonged to her. She was a huge influence in my life and she supported my interest in art at a very early age. She was a real southern lady, and spent a lot of energy trying to teach me that “young ladies don’t whistle!”

I do drawings and paintings of our beautiful historical landmarks to try to preserve pieces of the past for our children and grandchildren. And so I paint for many reasons, and receive inspiration from many places, but I never paint to achieve the finished product or to anticipate that I will at some point sell my paintings. I paint for the journey, the process and the joy of the doing. Often the final result is not what I thought it may be when I started, and that is ok too! It is not to say that I don’t appreciate a sale of my work! I love to have someone purchase my work. It helps support my “art” habit, but more importantly, it reminds me that someone appreciates what I have done enough to want to hang it where they can see and enjoy it!

If you ask any of my students what I tell them is the most important thing about creating a painting or drawing, they will all say very quickly that I tell them it is the journey, the process, what happens to you when you are creating rather than the final product.

My other love is teaching. It is a joy to hear a student say, “I will never look at a sunset the same way again!”

Art has been a blessing to me – being able to share it is another blessing.