The Artwork of Jackson Bloch

            I grew up cradling unsuspecting bumblebees between my fingers, drawing boats and Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, and practicing my signature in preparation for my career as a major league baseball player. The Red Sox never drafted me, but I have always retained my love of nature and art. In high school, inspired by the ducks in Portland Harbor and a large flocks of Cedar Waxwings that visited my yard every spring, I combined these interests and embraced the challenge of bird photography. At Bowdoin College, classes in ornithology and oil painting continued to fuel my excitement. The summer after I graduated, I worked on a remote ranch in Wyoming where, without my oils, I started to experiment with a small watercolor set provided for ranch staff. I was captivated by the detail and elegance of watercolor and now use it for all of my nature paintings.

            My artwork reflects my long love of nature, particularly bird life, and my enjoyment integrating these charismatic animals into hidden images, illusions, and unexpected scenes. Now in medical school, I recently have begun to use painting as a way to connect medical and non-medical ideas to understand my own and patients' experiences, and to communicate incidental observations about medicine in unique ways. In painting, I have long enjoyed the close observation, fine motor craftsmanship, and sensitivity to composition required to understand how small details shape the whole. I have been grateful to find parallel ideas in medicine, where the most minute clinical details, precise interventions, and amazing life stories contribute to the care we try to provide patients. I hope this same attention is communicated through my work.