Windows were the “decider.” To a painter, they were nigh irresistible. Prospective home buyer Jeanette Jarmon knew the minute she stepped through the front door of the bluff-side house a year ago that it should become her new nest. From the entryway, she could see through to the rear room, where a 30-foot long wall of windows looked out over the lazy waters of Tibbee Creek and the lush wooded bank beyond.
“I knew when I walked in the door and saw the space and light and windows. I knew that was going to be my studio,” Jarmon said. “The icing on the cake is that it’s open to the north for the best lighting.”
As an artist, Jarmon is inspired by the natural world, by light and color. Since moving into the bluff house in west Lowndes County in August 2017, she has been at her easel, fueled by the sweeping view of water and woods, of herons, ospreys and gators, of dappled sunlight and leaves set dancing by summer showers.
Jarmon’s painting styles, she said, run the gamut from realism to abstraction and non-objective, with a variety of mediums and subjects. Her kinetic artistry emerges in landscapes, still lifes and portraits, but she also does wood burning, creates T-shirt designs, illustrated a children’s book and has her paintings on art pillows and greeting cards. She teaches painting and accepts commissions, too. One of the latest currently fills her carport — a camper trailer she’s decorating with murals.
“I like trying stuff,” she said by way of understatement.
A sampling
A painting in progress rests on a heavy wooden easel in Jarmon’s studio. The easel has a 80-pound wench to raise and lower her larger canvases as needed. This one depicts a stylized dragonfly with iridescent wings in delicate hues. Above the fireplace mantel are realistic paintings of a white egret and a great blue heron, early works in a series she plans on the birds of Tibbee.
A nearby canvas is far more fanciful — a young girl, curly-haired and barefoot, dozing on a bed of leaves at the base of a great tree. An open book is in her lap. Winged fairies investigate. Jarmon’s imagination expands to paint a scene beneath the tree, where curious elves scurry to a stairway for a peek at the sleeping visitor. The fairy theme resurfaces in other paintings Jarmon has in her Boathouse Gallery, a short walk from the house.
“The fairies are from my childhood,” said the painter who grew up in Vicksburg. “We played outside all the time — I just thought fairies were real.”
Impact
Jarmon’s range emerges from a diverse background. With a master’s degree in education from Mississippi College and National Board certification as an art teacher for seventh through twelfth grades, she has shared her passion in some notable ways, from a federal prison to a hospital for mental wellness.
With her first federal block grant, Jarmon created the Mississippi ETV series called ‘The Creative Child,’ which garnered an award at the Columbus International Film and Video Festival in Columbus, Ohio.
She later conducted a year-long arts residency teaching painting at the Federal Correctional Complex in Yazoo City. The result was an exhibition at the Mississippi Museum of Art in 2001 called “When the Caged Bird Sings.” It featured artwork by inmates and their instructor.
“After that, I taught art at all levels at Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield. A grant with the City of Clinton and the Mississippi Arts Commission culminated in a city mural produced with select students,” she explained.
Jarmon traveled to Costa Rica to paint in 2011 and, in 2013, served as an adjunct professor for Texas’ Wayland Baptist University at their campus in Kenya, Africa. She has also been an adjunct professor at Mississippi College.
Each experience has influenced her, especially the work she did with Mississippi State Hospital.
“There I gained a whole new perspective on human creativity,” Jarmon said. “I learned that everyone is creative, they just may not know it yet.”
Artistry can express itself in many forms, she believes — in the art of cooking, the art of teaching, the art of making a bed. And for those who aspire to become visual artists but assume they lack the ability to even try, Jarmon takes a different view: Skills can be learned.
“Look, learning to write is a form of drawing, of learning to create a visual language,” she counters. “People say, ‘I can’t do it,’ but they can learn how to use tools and learn some basics — I’ve seen it over and over again, at all ages.”
Growing those skills lies in using, honing and expanding them. “If I learn to sew, but don’t sew, I’m not a seamstress,” she said for illustration.
And if it’s inspiration any hopeful is in need of, that’s usually not far away. It may even be as close as the nearest window.
Editor’s note: Jeanette “JNet” Jarmon’s Boathouse Gallery is open by appointment. For more information, call 601-906-3458.
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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