Jean Martin Episode #8: Jeanmartinraven

Jean Martin, a Quebec-based artist, loves working outside; he admits that 90% of his work is made outside. Jean shares his multi-disciplinary practice with us and explains how he began his creative practice as a child. When he was introduced to other media, and what sparked certain paths to take in his creative journey.

Deciding to take further studies in art at Concordia University's BFA program, added additional talents and enhanced skills to Martin's practice that allow him to develop and refine his layers of creativity. He has had nearly thirty years of education, combined with being self-taught, in the art and design field.

Winning first place in a recognized art competition early on fuelled Martin to continue exploring his creativity further. Join me as we discover how Jean introduced new media into his practice, what they symbolized, and how they have driven his energies toward greater focus and nuance as his creative career has thrived. 

Connect with Jean Martin: https://www.jeanmartinraven.com/

Transcript

Carolyn B 0:03

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Creatively Thinking Podcast. Join Carolyn Vitello as she uncovers the inspirations behind some incredibly creative minds that are orbiting our local communities. Okay, so hi, Jean. Is it Jean Martin? Or am I am I saying it right? Jean Martin, okay. How are you? I am happy to have you on the Creatively Thinking with Carolyn B podcast. You are a Quebec-based artist originally from Morocco, thriving creatively with your multidisciplinary practice. When was it that you decided to make art your creative career path? Was it working with your hands, your emotional insights, or something else?

Speaker 1 1:02

Well, uh, I think it it really all starts uh in the 70s and in CJP, where uh I started uh making some paintings. And that's CJP is our our college here. And I started making a few acrylic paintings that uh and I really enjoyed it. And when I finished uh CJP that was in like 1972, a little later on in 1979, I was offered uh a huge uh abandoned dance studio as a um to to paint it, and I was fortunate enough to have it for like five years, so I was able to do very large paintings there, and inside that abandoned dance studio was also a lot of abandoned uh material, and I started doing assemblage work by uh making little totems and all that, and that sort of uh led me to sculpture from painting to sculpture, the influence of the Hemsley building studio.

Carolyn B 2:12

Yeah, I wanted to ask you how how is it that you can do so many sort of mediums? Like I just figured people usually are just a sculptor or a painter, or you know, like they choose one, but you're like doing everything. I mean, how do you have time?

Jean Martin 2:31

Well, the the time is like the passion, you know. Like you obviously uh it's it's like I try to do it like every day, uh as often as I can. I'm always thinking about art, anyways. And the the the fact that I'm using uh I I get very uh like excited by new materials and new tools. It's sort of uh so when I discover uh you know like painting oil, you know, oh I get excited by oil, then oh acrylic, oh acrylic is fun. Then uh watercolors. My father was a watercolor artist, so uh I dabbled in that, and that that was fun too. And and then when you get into sculptures, then you all the tools become even more fun, you know, like welders and grinders, and and that that's uh material and tools, that's that's what really drives me to do work.

Carolyn B 3:24

You are originally from Morocco, and you and your family settled in Quebec when you were around six years, six years old. What would you say, what would you say has been an influence from your home country, or do you find growing up in Quebec has left more of an imprint on you? What do you think has been the most important aspect of being surrounded by Canadian culture? And how does it relate to your artwork? I know that's a lot, isn't it? To just say all at once.

Speaker 3 3:55

Yeah.

Speaker 1 3:58

You know, I was born in Morocco. My father was French, my mother was Spanish, and they decided to leave the country when I was six years old. I I barely remember, you know, the we came by boat, you know, on it's like the real immigrants, you know, on a boat called Leonardo da Vinci. And but we didn't come right away to Quebec. We we came to we came to New York, where my mother's twin brother lived. So we went from Casablanca to New York. We stayed there about many months at my uncle's house. And my father was real a real Frenchman. He he he didn't he didn't want to to live in an English environment, speaking English. So he had heard about Quebec, and we moved to Quebec. And from there, when we arrived here, my parents didn't know what Montreal looked like, and we moved into the toughest neighborhood. You can imagine it was called the Faubourg à la Melasse. It's like the molasses neighborhood, it's called, where all the workers from downtown worked. And that's where I was brought up. And then my father, we're talking 1957 here. My father realized that even though Quebec was French, it was very much Anglophone for like if you wanted to work, you had to speak English. So he sent me to an English school to learn English. And that's where that's where I learned English. So I I have like I was always close to the French-Canadian culture, but I will but my all my schooling was done in English, my university, my grade school, everything.

Carolyn B 5:46

Yeah, it's like the French, from what I know. I mean, I'm not I'm not Quebec French, but from what I know that they're very, very particular about their language. And just but yeah, I I do notice that there is a big English, I was gonna say anglophone, but an English part of of Quebec, especially Montreal. Yeah.

Jean Martin 6:12

Montreal is uh very bi it's one of the biggest bilingual.

Carolyn B 6:16

Yeah, Quebec iCitys not so much, but but uh definitely no no no.

Jean Martin 6:22

As soon as you're out of Montreal, it's uh it's French. Yeah. It's it's a question of it's culture, you know. It's like a it's a different culture. Even uh outside of Montreal, uh, you know, like Montrealers are are not considered like uh you know like pure Quebecois, you know. There's a mixture.

Carolyn B 6:46

You are currently preparing for a group exhibition. Can you tell our audience uh what that will involve so so they can support you? The sculptures I saw on your Facebook are metal and enormous, very warm and inviting. Can you give yourself sort of a little endorsement here?

Jean Martin 7:09

Oh yeah, okay. Well, um, there's the group showed that I'll be participating. The like is it is in Benin. It's in Africa. It's been picked with I'm part of a group of six artists. The other five are painters, and I'm the uh the I think I'm the only sculptor. And we're going there, and it's organized by the Quebec government and the federal government and the uh the Afro Museum, and it's gonna be like in October and November, and we'll be going there invited by the government of Benin, which is in West Africa. And the Bénin has also uh the longest mural on the planet, it's five kilometers long, and the government will allow us, they're giving us a little piece of the of the mural to to work on, and we'll be speaking in different schools and universities to talk to students about the well, how it is to be an artist in Canada. And we'll also be showing our work what that we'll have done there in a museum, and we'll participate in uh videos and there'll be catalogs. So it'll it'll be a big um a big boost to my my career in a certain way that to that people will be able to have access to uh to what I'm doing through many different mediums like interviews and catalogs and everything like that. That that's a big thing. And I'm also part of uh another group which is called uh Usin 106U, which is a collective of artists that are situated in Montreal. At the base were like um about 10 artists of my generation, and every month we invite 20 other younger artists to exhibit their work, and some of them it's the first time they're exhibiting, and uh they're like very uh they're very excited. Others have shown their work before, but this has been going on, been part of that collective since nine nine 2015, and it's every month. And uh actually it's tonight is the vernissage, the opening of uh our one of our shows.

Carolyn B 9:49

Yeah, do you find uh like you were saying you were you you're primarily you know based in Quebec? Has that given you uh a lot more sort of access to other, I guess group shows and just sort of artist groups and and things like that? Likely you just more exposure in a sense because of that.

Jean Martin 10:15

Well, yeah, well, uh Montreal is very culture culture oriented, and there's a lot of galleries here, and there's a lot of collectives, and yes, it's it there's like if a you know an an artist can find um many many venues here. Like I'm also part of another group, which is like a collage group, and they they I just received a letter saying that I'll be the collage artist of the month, so they'll uh I have to send them photos and they're gonna publish that on their sites and all that. It's it's very active here. But I'm sure uh in Ontario and Toronto there's a there's a lot of activity there too.

Carolyn B 10:58

Yeah, yeah, I just thought just the the language and and everything would just seem to be giving.

Speaker 2 11:07

Oh no, no, the the language has nothing to do with it.

Jean Martin 11:10

It's uh it I think it's it's just uh being part of the right community. There's some of that everywhere.

Carolyn B 11:18

If you were to choose a medium that has been the most challenging, what would it be? And would the medium that is the most rewarding be the same one and why?

Jean Martin 11:33

Well, I would say that the the most challenging medium is like wood, because you're usually when you're carving wood, if you make a mistake, uh you can't put it back together, you know. And that's carving and when you make sculptures, there's like two different two different forms of sculptures. There's the assemblage where you you you add to make something, you take different pieces of wood or different pieces of metal and you put them together, and that makes a a sculpture. And then there's also uh like removing. It's like so uh carving is removing. So carving is uh is very hard. It's uh you can't make mistakes, you it's uh it's a very hard thing. My favorite, my favorite way of of doing art is definitely assemblage. It's it's much easier. You I I I work, I've always worked with found objects, so I have a like a huge bank of metal that I've bought and scrapyards and all that piles, and I know where everything is, and I go, oh, this piece goes with this one, and uh and uh I start welding them together, and I can usually uh make a sculpture.

Carolyn B 12:50

I was thinking about that that not specifically wood and the assemblage, but how I, I just picked up some markers for for a really discounted price, and I was thinking that you know, like I I usually have worked with paint, and paint is very forgiving because you can just keep doing layers and layers and just and not if you make mistakes, well you can go over it and and just make new marks, but then with working with marker, it's like once you've made the mark, it's committed. It's so in a way it's similar similar to wood. It's like what you've taken away, then it's it's the same as the marks you make with marker. You you've committed those marks and and now you're done, you know. Like it's sort of like watercolor, I find watercolor. Once you've made your uh your marks or your paint with watercolor, it's it's not very forgiving.

Jean Martin 13:49

No, no, no. Watercolor, my father was a watercolor artist, and uh you're right. You know, once you made the a mark on the paper, it uh usually doesn't leave, you know. It stays. Yeah, that's a hard medium too. Watercolor is very tough. I admire all the watercolor artists.

Carolyn B 14:05

Can you inform our audience on when exactly you started welding and why? Was it after you received your Duchamp prize? After after you have finished a certain level of education, or was it at another at another time?

Jean Martin 14:25

Actually, it's the uh Duchamp Villon Prize that I won was in 1987, and it was uh made from wood of that studio that I was talking about, the Hemsley studio that had uh an old dance studio that I use as a as an atelier. I I I got the prize, and that sort of really, really encouraged me. Like people said, Oh, your sculptures are so interesting, they have movement and this and that. And the having won that prize, and I remember that some of the people that had presented work were like famous artists. I was still self-taught, you know, like and uh so I was very happy. But I always in my mind, oh I I always had that that that sort of I don't know if it's called a complex or something, that I didn't have a formal art education. So in 1999, I went back to university, to Concordia University to do a BFA. And there that's when the welding started. They had like fantastic welding facilities, and I was encouraged by some of my professors there to weld, and that sort of um became my favorite medium. I think it it came from Concordia itself.

Carolyn B 15:56

Being a multidisciplinary artist, do you see all the mediums you use as different personalities of your character, or do you see them as different layers of your creative practice?

Jean Martin 16:12

Oh no, no. Every medium uh will will challenge your personality for sure. Like uh if you if you weld, weld welding is like fire and and hammering hard objects all the time. And that takes a toll on physically on your body and your and your and your mental on your mental also. Painting is is usually more relaxed and uh if you're doing small paintings, but if you're doing like large paintings like uh like the ones I did in the in the Hamsley studio in in the in the 80s, the large paintings using like very wide paint brushes that are like sometimes four inches wide, that that is also physically challenging. You you your whole body go goes into into action. Exhausting, it sounds like yeah, so it's like uh it's like a fight, you know? It's like a you're you're fighting with uh materials and and tools. That's the part I like about art the most. Uh I'm I'm more uh a physical person than uh mentally the for me what's important is the the process of making it more than the the image. Because the what you what you're doing, you'll always have like comments on whether they like the subject matter or not, which is it's it's it's everybody's opinion, but nobody can challenge, tell you that you know, like you you're using too small a brush or too big a brush or you're putting too much weld or this or that. That's that's personal, you know. I don't think uh as long as it's well done, it's important. You have you have to have like uh quality.

Carolyn B 18:04

Yeah, you're the action artist. There you go. I'm an action artist. Yeah, because there's all those painters from what the 70s that were all about action painting and and whatever, and and they still continue. But I mean, so you're you're an action artist of all all dimensions, I guess.

Jean Martin 18:25

Well, uh like in for the past 15 years, I've been uh removing uh publicity posters from the walls and using them as uh art collages. Yeah, giant collages.

Carolyn B 18:37

Oh yeah, that's uh that's that's very the the repurposing or upcycling, that's it. Upcycling.

Jean Martin 18:58

Upcycling is the new word, the new buzzword, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Carolyn B 19:02

And we'll be right back. Do you see your creative practice as having any specific influence from art history, or do you see your style and techniques as original or a blending together of many different artists and styles from various movements?

Jean Martin 19:28

Well, since I'm self-taught, it all it all started by magazines, and I was influenced by everything I read, you know, like from the Russian Suprematist to the Pop Art in the United States to the Nouvel Nouveau realist in in France, you know, and all that to me was art and different ways of doing it. I I didn't I didn't see it as like a history or uh uh a form of I I had no schooling, so I didn't know much about art history. So I I did all these things at the same time, not knowing that there's a difference between uh abstract expressionism and uh Surrealism and this and that. It just didn't, and and I thought all the artists, I I never thought like, you know, like when when you look at the the old masters like Picasso and all that, and I have his books around, he did like ceramic painting, sculptures, everything. So I didn't think, you know, like you had to have like one medium that you did the rest of your life and uh or you painted the rest of your your days in the same style. It wasn't it wasn't for me. So that what and I come from, don't forget, I come from the group that was that got brought up in the 80s, when uh in the 80s all the galleries were closed in Montreal, all the galleries were closing. What was left was the uh the houses of culture and a few galleries. So basically, you it was very hard to find galleries to show your work, and the the museums would only take like well-known uh artists. So uh as an upcoming artist, you you had no chance. So what was left was uh experimenting. Experimenting is what uh is my specialty, is like of all the artists of the 80s, we start, okay, uh, since we're not showing our work and we don't really need a particular signature, let's have fun. Uh let's try wood, let's try metal, let's try paint, let's try acrylic, uh, let's let's do this, let's do that. So basically it's uh I think I'm just a product of the eighties. It's like uh something like that. You know, that's how I see it. It's it could be uh just or it could just be in my in my nature, you know.

Carolyn B 21:59

Yeah, you're just trying. Everything on for size just to see how it fit, right?

Jean Martin 22:03

Yeah, yeah.

Carolyn B 22:04

Yeah. Yeah. When you begin a piece, do you know what your result will be, or do you figure it out while you are working on it? Does it depend on the media you are using, or does it depend on the piece exclusively?

Jean Martin 22:21

Well, absolutely. If you're doing a commission for someone, let's say you definitely have to start making little drawings before and you try to deliver what you uh yeah what you drew what you drew. But if you're if you're doing things for yourself, and in my case, let's say we're talking about welding, I will I will have like even since I picked up a piece of metal, you know, from the scrapyard, I buy, I when I buy the little the little piece that I find, whether it be an old tool or a piece of machinery of some sort, I already had in my mind what it looked like. It looked like a nose, a near, a face, a foot, you know. So that little piece already had a life that I was gonna give it.

Carolyn B 23:10

It had an essence of some kind.

Speaker 1 23:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's uh that's when uh the magic starts, you know, like you you start putting all these little pieces together. And an error of welding will sometimes be a fantastic thing. You go, oh wow, this is like uh I it wasn't supposed to go there, but if it goes there, it's it's super nice. You know, like you thought you'd put it like right side up and you put it upside down, and you go, oh, it's it's it looks better that way. So I think that an artist that that works himself on his on his art, his mistakes will maybe be the best part of the uh of the piece. You know, because the today I know there's a there's a lot of artists that get their work done by others. They have like like ateliers, they have like support people that mix their paint and the others will weld for them. I, I prefer doing my own work myself.

Jean Martin 24:13

Yeah, that that sounds better because then it's really you, it's it's not just people working for you. Well, it's like uh Andy Warhol's factory and Picasso had people working for him too, right? So exactly. Although he is said to have had 20,000 pieces that he made, but did he make them or did he have other people make them? Some of them anyway, right?

Speaker 24:33

So well, I'm pretty sure he was a very passionate artist. Yes, you're talking about Warhol or Picasso?

Speaker 4 24:40

Well, I was talking about Picasso, well, both of them were Picasso, I think. Yeah, because Picasso, he did, or no, Warhol had the factory, and then he had people working for him. And I don't know about Picasso, but yeah, he was very prolific. And he did have all those, like you were saying, he was the sculptor and the the painter, and he had so many different mediums he was using as well. I never thought of it that way.

Jean Martin 25:08

Then you have uh well, one of the artists that just passed away this week was uh Basilitz. Basilitz is one of the rare painters, and he's a painter and a sculptor. He's very well known for his sculptures, too. But I don't know if you know who he is.

Carolyn B 25:24

No, I don't.

Speaker 1 25:25

Oh, he's a German, uh, a German artist, and he's he's very well known in his country. He's known all over the world, and he paints, he paints uh his paintings are known to be political and his sculptures also. So he has like wooden sculptures and beautiful paintings.

Carolyn B 25:44

I'll have to check this guy out. He's definitely probably worth a lot more now that he's dead, right? That's how that's how it works for artists, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 25:52

Yeah, yeah. By art, well, we're still alive.

Speaker 4 25:56

Yeah. When working on a sculpture, collage, or painting, do you find yourself posing a specific mindset or perspective as you begin the piece? With this, I mean where do you start? Do you start with sketches, drawings, dreams, discussions, or moments?

Speaker 1 26:17

Well, like I like I said before, it's like uh if it's a it's a commission, I'll make a drawing. But uh, I don't I don't usually draw what what I'm gonna be making. I I I start from from scratch, from from the material itself, putting it up. Yeah, like from the base up, you know, you're looking uh because in sculptures the an important part of it is is the base. So you you you have to find a base first. And the the base is always like a problem in sculpture for all the sculptors. What kind of a base do you use? You know, round, square, is it big, is it small, you know? But it's always I remember like in Concordia, you know, like all the students would ask questions like that, you know, what what what do we do with it? You know, if we have an electrical uh light on what do we do with the cord, you know, or what do we do with this? You know, it's it's it has to be hidden, or it has to be part of the piece.

Speaker 4 27:23

Yeah, I guess it's like what do you start with? And then that's that determines kind of where it's going and and uh everything about it, I guess. Yeah, as a sculptor, you'd you you'd have to start. Yeah, you have to start with the beginning. But then Michelangelo would say that he would see the image in the rock and then he would just carve it out, right? Carve out the excess from I I could understand that though.

Carolyn B 27:54

You know, like you you maybe especially in a rock, you know, you probably see already like a shape in there. Yeah.

Jean Martin 28:02

I'm not uh like I said, I'm I'm not that kind of an artist. I I add instead of taking off, you know. Yeah. Yeah, the adding is is like you you were saying, one way or subtracting is the other, right? Yeah, it's two different forms of uh of making art. And uh you you realize fast enough if you if you're one of those, you know, which which one brings you the more pleasure and which one makes you stand out of what you wanted to do, you know, that you express yourself more clearly, you know. I'm an as I'm a assemblage person for sure.

Carolyn B 28:48

Looking back at your previous work, I saw the transition from more realist pieces to abstract. What sparked this move in your creativity? Was it the time, was it the time your travels or your creative journey that made this change happen?

Jean Martin 29:07

It's more the journey and the people you meet. I was doing uh figurative work and they were kind of some people told me they they were kind of uh naive, and so I started doing more like abstract work, and so I started doing more like abstract work, and that uh sort of also was interesting, but it wasn't it wasn't my style. I'm still like a figurative person, and abstraction is not uh is it's not exactly what what I want to do. I probably uh the pieces you've seen were probably uh experimental or suggested by, by some friends or after discussions or this or that, or maybe it's just the material that I had bought from the scrapyard that that that season that sort of maybe led me to do that. Maybe they were like pieces that had like geographic uh forms that sort of when assembled together did not give a figurative shape, but more abstract. It's probably I'm not sure what what pieces you're talking about, but I understand. I've I've I've dabbled in that too.

Carolyn B 30:27

Yeah. Yeah, I think it was like you were it just seemed like you were going more abstract with the collages that that you were the Oh the collages. That the way it seemed like that was the way your creativity was taking you for a while with your your Facebook sort of posts.

Jean Martin 30:43

Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. That's the collage.

Carolyn B 30:46

There was a significant, I guess, period in in in the the photos you have where you could see the really figurative, like you could uh I did there was no like dramatic shift in your in your pictures, but it was like I I could see that you went from like the the figurative to the more abstract, and I was like, Oh, I wonder what that is. Oh yeah, there was a something that that well why that happened. I thought I just asked.

Jean Martin 31:15

Oh, I I know exactly why that happened. Uh I know. Yeah, it's in the collages. The collages. Well, what happened was these collages, like I told you, they they're they're like posters that I rip off the walls, publicity posters, and they're they're like uh some some of their 20 thick, you know, like there's like one an image at one on top of the other. And I put all these huge posters into baths of water, and they start uh decomposing themselves. So when I started like removing the image and placing them on canvas to to make my collages, because I do five or six at the same time, there were a lot of little pieces that were left. And all these little pieces I didn't feel like throwing them away. So I started uh placing them uh in on on uh on on the canvas, and what happened is all these little chunks became uh they started looking like abstract paintings, and I did a few of those with the leftovers, and they're yeah. I know exactly what what pieces you're talking about.

Carolyn B 32:25

Okay, so see there we go. We figured it out where the transition happened and and what what I saw. Okay, that's good. Yeah, because I could see those pieces that you took off the walls and how they were dissolving and then they became something that you just couldn't let go of because they were they spoke to you as as something that you you were gonna make, right? So yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, so I saved it until we were closer to the end as uh I didn't want it to I did as I didn't want to lead with it, but would you like to share your story of how your Raven moniker came about?

Jean Martin 33:08

Oh yeah, yeah, in um I was offered uh to make a show at a solo exhibit at uh la Maison de la Culture Notre Dame d'Agres in Montreal, and I had some totems there and some uh some some cones that I had made with it's a technique that I that I learned in Africa about making sculptures using armature and covering them with burlap and then you paint them and they become rigid. Well, I needed the sculptures I were I was showing were had all been They had already selected the work done. , but I wanted I wanted to show something new, and I decided, oh, and all my travels , because I I love to travel a lot, and in every every country all the countries I go to, there's one bird that we haven't come in all over the world, is is the raven. He he's everywhere, he's in every country, and I decided, oh, I'll do something. So I made this 14-foot raven made from metal, burlap, and tar to make it black and to show. And as I was working intensely on this sculpture, I started doing research on ravens. And then I realized that ravens were they were the first, they in in ancient mythology they they were regarded as very venerable birds. Like Odin had two, two ravens on on his on his I found out that on the Noah's Ark, before they sent out a dove, they sent the raven out, and he came back with nothing. And only in like later later years did the bird get a bad rap, if we call it, because he was like on uh call a scavenger on the on on the battlefield, you know, eating corpse, and then people started not liking the bird and thinking it was like a bad omen and this and that. And I decided to give it back uh some some credit, and I I made the sculpture, and I and then I got I got involved in many opportunities to to work with ravens and in other forms. I I made a totem for uh a festival called the Festival de la Periculture, and it became and it was a the trophy that they were given given to the artist was a raven that I made. And slowly it sort of became um what do you call a subconscious uh feeling that that I had with ravens, you know. I just I I I practically not communicated with them, but I fight see one, I I sort of tried to notice what they were doing, and I and I learned so much about them that I took on uh the artist's names. People started calling me Raven, and also because I I I walked around the streets at night in Montreal removing publicity posters from the walls, and so the the name stuck to me as Raven. So now it's my fashion.

Carolyn B 36:48

You got some respect back for the Raven because as you were saying I did I never knew that about the scavenger and and during the war and dead bodies and all that, but I was thinking more of the connection with Hitchcock and Edgar Edgar Allan Poe, yeah. That's what I was thinking.

Jean Martin 37:06

Edgar Allan Poe. So the Raven nevermore. Oh, uh no, it's uh the the bird, as my poets have written about it. The the the Vikings were like very it was one of their fetish animals. Uh if you take the Hidas from the west coast, they uh they're very into ravens, they have beautiful raven sculptures. Where I'm going in Benet, they have they're very uh they have a female raven that's uh that's well known as uh a female warrior that's a raven. So uh yeah, it's um um I'm sort of I'm in I I see ravens in art everywhere and I like it. It's uh it's a good bird. It's supposed to be a very smart bird, too.

Carolyn B 37:57

I noticed there are many photos of you and people at galleries and openings. Have you managed to keep your personal and professional life separate online? If yes, congratulations. This is quite a feat. I didn't think it was possible.

Jean Martin 38:14

Uh no. I'm a very uh in Montreal, I'm a very public person. I'm invited. I have a lot of friends. Well, like I've told you that because of the the gallery that the collective, 30 artists every month are showing their work. Obviously, I have a lot of friends and they they have shows also, and they invite me, and I go to their exhibits, and then I have this. I like taking photos. So people so when I go to different shows, I take I take photos, I document it. And like you're saying, I do a lot of selfies, and that's half my face. It's my signature selfie. I jumped, huh?

Carolyn B 39:00

And we'll be right back. You you have made an obvious effort in having many photos of you and your artwork taken where half of your face is absent. What does this symbolize? Is this you creating additional artwork with your artwork?

Jean Martin 39:27

Well, that's what it is. It started uh uh I wanted to photograph where I was, and but I wanted to include myself in as being present uh at that at that event or in front of uh a sculpture or somewhere in the world in front of the La Tour Eiffel or somewhere, London Bridge in England or whatever. And I didn't want to put my whole face, so I started taking taking photos with just half my face, and I started getting comments from people. Hey Jean, when are we gonna see the other side and uh of your face? And I'd go, okay, I have something there. It's interesting. So and people started uh commenting on my on my photos that I posted on social media, which I'm very like like you're saying, I'm I'm all over the media if I can, you know, like uh I'm on uh I'm on Facebook, I'm on uh Instagram. Uh it's uh it's it's it's a very it's a very powerful tool for uh an artist like me from the 80s that uh you know we no galleries, no nothing. We had to do our own promotion.

Speaker 4 40:35

So uh it's just it's perfect.

Jean Martin 40:39

So uh actually all those photos I have maybe like thousands of photos of of my of half my face and some something interesting in the background. And I was thinking of making a little book with all these photos together from different parts of the world and different exhibits and different friends and calling them the art of the selfie, or the half something, like I don't know what you would have the half selfie, yeah.

Carolyn B 41:09

Yeah, half selfie. So you notice that yeah, it's like this has to mean something, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jean Martin 41:16

Yeah, and and now some people are are sending me photos of of half-selfies saying, Hey, we we we copied your style.

Carolyn B 41:26

Yeah, it's funny you're influencing others to to do the same.

Jean Martin 41:32

Yeah.

Carolyn B 41:34

Well, yeah, right. If it why not if it helps other people get creative and you know everything's good to do work, you know. Yeah, exactly. Well, we've reached the end of your interview, Jean-Martin. Thank you. Thank you so much. Uh it was a pleasure having you here. No problem. Yeah, I hope we can chat again in the future and and see where your creativity takes you.

Jean Martin 42:00

Well, if you're uh if you're in Montreal, uh feel free to come. And if you ever want to show your work at the Uzen 106U on Roi Street in Montreal, it's a collective.

Speaker 4 42:12

Very nice.

Speaker 1 42:13

It's there's a lot of people are showing their work in Montreal through the gallery. A lot of some people from Toronto, actually.

Speaker 4 42:21

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.. I'm I'm not really on Instagram. I am, but I'm not, I don't, I don't know, I don't really look up people on Instagram. I should probably get more into that. Instagram's the way now.

Jean Martin 42:39

Oh, yes, definitely. If you go to New York, people they when they ask you what do you do, you you if you if you have a website, it's great. But if you don't have a website, you you show them your Instagram. And they they'll they'll look they'll look you up on Instagram and they'll look at your work. It's it's very uh it's it's a fantastic tool.

Speaker 4 43:03

Yeah, yeah, and it's free.

Jean Martin 43:05

You don't have to post photos of yourselves, you just put not like me. You could have just your work, you know.

Carolyn B 43:12

Yeah, a great, great tool for sure. Yeah, it's the way to go for artists because they use the 21st century.

Speaker 4 43:19

Yeah, yes, and thank goodness it's free, right?

Jean Martin 43:23

Oh, yeah, it's free.

Carolyn B 43:27

So thank you, Jean.

Jean Martin 43:28

Thank you Caroline for the interview.

Carolyn B 43:29

Yeah, yeah, all right, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 43:34

Well, thank you, Caroline, for the interview.

Carolyn B 43:37

And yeah, hopefully we can talk in the future.

Jean Martin 43:40

Yes, no problem.

Speaker 4 43:42

All right, pleasure.

Carolyn B 43:43

Okay, bye.

Jean Martin 43:44

Goodbye.

unknown 43:47

Join me next time as I go down another rabbit hole with another creative professional on their insights, their inspirations, and their ingenuity.