You have stumbled upon the web site of Quincy-based artist, John Greiner-Ferris. Thank you for visiting.

I have 1,019 “friends” on Facebook, down from around 1,200 before I began culling people on their birthdays. If I didn’t have a clue who they were, yes, I unfriended them on their birthdays.
 
I have 661 contacts on LinkedIn (659 followers.)
 
1,328 contacts on Gmail, 1,889 contacts on Apple Contacts,
 
1,206 on a theater mailing list on MailChimp,
 
And I have to ask: Who are you? Many of you I have never met. We connected through some common interest on social media. Or if I do know you, mostly I have only the vaguest remembrance from some long ago time in my life.  I know this because I have only a handful of people in my close, inner circle. Between friends and family, I imagine that number is around twenty.

And I do wonder, just how well we really know anyone. Even ourselves.
 
So, it’s only through social media that I still have even the thinnest connection to seemingly ninety-five percent of the people I ever engaged with in my life. And I just wonder, do you ever think of me? At all? Do you remember me during my worst of times? (and there were a couple of doozies!) Or some time when I actually rose above being an average human to act like the person I’d hope I’d become?
 
I guess what I'm asking is, what is my legacy.
 
 

2022 continues to kick my ass. Health issues both for Sue and me. Three dear friends died! I can't take much more! Work seems to be slowing down, which I'm taking as a blessing. It means I'll be able to work on art more, than keep putting it aside for the almighty dollar. But I did finish these two. Family continues to baffle and intrigue me.

The moon, the earth, and the sun did a little dance together the other night.

So seductively time seeps
out through your veins
pooling around your wingtips
            Or you, Ms. Corporate I'm Going Places
            be careful of your patent-leather pumps
            step carefully around the sticky puddles
            collecting beneath the conference table
            do not soil your white stockings.
Your smile will soon turn to a grimace
            as lost opportunity twists your heart
            like an old rag, unknowingly you’ll strangle
            as the intoxicating sound of your own voice
            replaces the importance of your life
            with the irrelevance of your action items. 

A polar bear grows a thick white coat, paws broad as snowshoes, armed with sharp claws, and mighty jaws with razor teeth to be the supreme killer in a harsh, ice-bound environment where food is scarce, where being a ruthless killer is the difference between life and death.

Can you imagine a polar bear feeling remorse for killing a seal?

The polar bear has adapted.

We are a species capable of destroying ourselves. There is a reason we have developed emotions such empathy, kindness, and hope. Just like the polar bear, we developed them out of survival.

If we hadn’t, we probably would have destroyed ourselves long ago.

Humans have adapted.

And while you are not perfect, I maintain because of the love and care you have for other human beings, there is a very good chance that you are further along the evolutionary scale than some of your fellow beings.

You might very well represent a higher form of the species, while the others will go the way of the dodo.

That is what it means to be human.