Jacquie Clermont - Author Illustrator

Author & Illustrator

Here find essays, poetry, and illustrations that put a light on injustice, draw insight from history, and argue for humanity.
I write about what I’ve learned over my sometimes difficult journey from a small blue-collar town to the Ivy League to France to academia to corporate America to life in Mexico. You win or you learn. I’ve done both.

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Art Quilts Completed

Just finished this two-year project to design and create portrait quilts depicting Saint John as a young man at the cross and as the author or a Gospel in his later years. The quilt on the right is the latest addition. Both quilts hang in Saint John’s Church, Arlington, MA. For more information about the project, I published an essay, “John Zebedeeson, Man for Our Time.”

Recently Published

My poem, “Crossing Massachusetts Avenue,” was just published in The Silver Note, a poetry anthology. It’s not easy to cross the street when it seems like everyone is trying to run you over. I wrote this poem after being plowed off the road (I was on my bike) and onto a sidewalk by a woman in a black sedan.

Make it or die, 
as frail old ladies do, 
too slow for the light and cars,
who go by the light, 
speed over them.

.....

You can access the full poem here.

Buy the book

Insight

“What I’ve Learned,” my LinkedIn newsletter, is where I reflect about life lessons from my life and career. Join me as I wade the rancid waters of politics, power, and personal l0ss.

Latest Post

New post in my LinkedIn newsletter, “What I’ve Learned.” Do you think the Middle Ages ended? Ha. Ha. Ha.

Alert: Medieval Thinking Among Us

There are many misconceptions about the European Middle Ages.

That they were “dark ages” — Gothic art is all about light.

That they passed without any progress whatsoever — credit these times with the spinning wheel, the compass, and most of all, the printing press.

And finally, and most dangerously, that they are over.

We condescend to the past as being somehow less than the present, expired, and most of all, irrelevant. In fact, we carry it in us: in how we think, often as a subconscious anchor that keeps us from moving forward.

In the 70s when I decided to pursue studies in medieval literature, relevance was a popular buzzword. It meant “relating to current events.” The Middle Ages not being “current,” friends questioned my choice.

I didn’t know what to say. I do now: ha, ha, ha.

Writing

Writing is my way of fighting for justice, respect, and reason.

How Immigration Made Us Great

Now in New York’s Neue Galerie, artist Gustav Klimt’s opulent “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer” is just one of the many gifts bestowed on the United States by Nazism and bigotry, along with multiple advances in art, culture, and the sciences.

Hate DEI Programs, but Love Free Markets? Read On.

What is holding women and minorities back? With more than 40 years in corporate, I think I’ve figured it out.

Here’s to a Crazy One

Everybody loves disrupters, but only after all the disrupting is over, when the disruption becomes the norm, and the disrupter becomes, say, CEO of Apple Computer. Or, as is more frequently the case, after the disrupter is burned, beheaded, shot, or indefinitely detained.

Art & Illustration

Although I just finished a project for a local church, I do not take commissions or sell my work unless it is part of a published article.

Poster: Longfellow Bridge in the Fog.

Portrait of Shakespeare, created for social post in Illustrator

Digital art created to illustrate an article.

Portrait Quilt: Saint John of the Cross. This quilt hangs in Saint John’s Church, Arlington, MA.

Portrait Quilt: Saint John writing Gospel. This quilt hangs in Saint John’s Church, Arlington, MA.