Mythos & Marginalia

life notes; flaws and all

  • many more reasons

    I don’t think I am a “perfectionist,” but I do have expectations of what I can, could, or should be doing; particularly when it comes to my art. 

       I struggle with it. Many times, my intentions do not line up with expectations.

       I want to do more.

       I know I can do more.

       I know I need to take more time.

       I officially retired some months ago. For many years I nurtured a retirement plan to create, to make art, to improve and expand upon skills and talents I have spent a lifetime developing.

       It is personal to me.

       Through the years I have attempted to continually learn more and develop what I can do. I does not always come naturally. This week I am, again, embarking on an attempt to redefine another facet of my art; it is what I do.

       Yesterday, before I got started on my next artistic adventure, I completed an oil painting I have been working on for almost a year. It has not been continual labour; I’ve been working on the piece as time, or life, allowed. Progress has not always been easy (or enjoyable), but there has been some satisfaction as I worked my way through the process.

       As I finished up the final layer of glaze last evening, I was reminded of something I wrote way back in 2015. Yesterday, it made more sense to me.

       “Art is not the result, it’s the reason.”

       Completing this one piece of art reminded me that, perfection be damned, I have so many more reasons to keep going.

    © 2026 j.g. lewis

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  • art for sale

    Potential

    @ 2026 j.g. lewis

    Archival Inkjet Print

    signed + numbered 

    limited edition of 11

    Image size: 9 ¾” x 15 1/5″

    Canvas size:  12″ x 18″

    $135.00 (unframed)

    plus shipping

    payment by e-transfer or Pay Pal

    email:

    j.g.lewis@live.ca

    j.g. lewis is a writer/photographer/printmaker

    based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

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  • the sadness of summer

    It hits, annually, about this time of year.

       Could be the third week of August; at times, earlier. It hurts. You feel it. It’s that time of the year; summer is, again, nearing its end.

       Now, calendrically, there is still a good month left to the season, but the signs are showing up now. Naturally. Last night the thermometer dipped to single digits. All those events you had lined up over the summer are done. Most of the produce has been picked from the garden, and the flowers don’t boast that friendly same fresh appearance.

       As a Gemini, summer is the first season I experienced. My childhood memories are full of summer: bikes rides, sailing, water skiing, days at the beach (because the beach was right there). Family vacations, camping our way across Canada; sweltering in the family station wagon in the days before air-conditioning. My first summer job, and the one that followed; my 17th summer remains one of my most memorable. Decades later, as a parent, I shared many similar memories with my daughter.

       I believe my life is marked by summer. It is, or has always been, my season. Mid-August, to me, has always marked its end. 

       As a kid, even a teenager, it was knowing you were going back to school in a matter of weeks. You tried, especially as a teen, to squeeze a little more life into summer, staying up later, pushing the boundaries of your curfew or lamenting that baseball season was over.

       Summer is a feeling, more than a season.

       Now, as a full-fledged adult (I recently celebrated my 65th summer) I’m feeling it a little more. There is less to look forward to: no new classes, no new back-to-school wardrobe. Yes, it has been like this for a couple of years, but it hits a little harder, as a senior citizen, this year.

       These past couple of days I’ve been rather lethargic, even unmotivated. I’ve struggled to even do the stuff that I enjoy doing. 

       For the longest time I’ve associated Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) with winter but for me, I can feel there is a tinge of depression that comes with the end of summer. I’m even feeling it a good month before it happens. 

       Yes, right now, I am stuck in the sadness of summer.

    © 2026 j.g. lewis

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  • just what I needed

    I treated myself to lunch the other day at Cindy’s on Portage Avenue. It’s a ‘close enough to a greasy spoon’ that has been located close enough to downtown Winnipeg for decades.

    The location that was once one of the many Junior’s restaurants that dotted this city when I was a teenager. I had my first fresh-cut fries at Juniors and those memorable burgers kept me coming back to the local chain.

    Cindy’s Burgers & Subs does the same sort of thing, and it does it consistently. It’s a family restaurant in the sense that there is family behind the counter that greets and serves you, and family hovering over the grill. It’s the kind of place that exists less and less in these days of trendy foods and national and international fast-food chains.

    It is nothing fancy, but it’s clean and convenient.

    It’s the kind of place that needs to be supported; and Cindy’s is. Noticeable are the local patrons who frequent the place. You’ll see moms and dads with a couple of kids from nearby Wolseley or the West End out for a meal. Google reviews rave about the burgers and the souvlaki and list it as a “go-to place”. I keep telling myself I should try a sub, or the souvlaki, but I keep longing for burgers that are so close to home cooked.

    I ordered the Fat Boy Special (chilli and all) with those fries smothered in gravy; it was just what I needed.

    © 2026 j.g. lewis

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  • open to interpretation

    Ambiguity counts when nothing is clear. Each element contains 

    a hint of the unknown, thoughts mainly rented and never owned.

    Frequently we live in this state, an indescribable location, where 

    all that becomes accomplished has no reason, probability, or space.

    Open to interpretation, abandoned by the muse or inspiration, a 

    hesitating reality too far gone. Accountability is obviously vacant.

    We do not talk about specifics. We speak more in generalities.

    Conceptually abstract, conceivably incomplete, yet bewildering.

    The art has a greater dimension than the canvas or its substance.

    © 2026 j.g. lewis

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