Jodi Hills

So this is who I am – a writer that paints, a painter that writes…


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Underpainting.

The underpainting is not just the forgiving support of the image to come, but it is the voice of the story to be told. 

I ordered a book from the company Blurb. The easiest narrative to relay would be how the first book was damaged. How the carrier screwed up the delivery, twice. It practically writes itself with all the usual suspects of annoyance and waiting, and disbelief and angered conversation. A real yarn to spin. But is that my underpainting? The real story that I want to tell is the final outcome. The book is beautiful. Blurb was fantastic to work with. While that may not be as riveting, it rests well on my heart.

I don’t like the feeling of irritation. I don’t like carrying it. I’m as guilty as the next person, but I’m trying to do better. Of course to be a better person, but even just for my own sanity. 

When creating a new portrait, sometimes I like to stop before finishing, while the person is arriving and the underpainting still shows through. This is where I give thanks. This is where I see all that I have been given. Without my grandparents, my mother, my teachers and friends, (my forgiveness, my support) I would have no story to tell. They, you, are my underpainting. So I pause. Show you, so you know that I know. You rest well on my heart. 


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Juneteenth.

We honor people, not by becoming them, but seeing them. 

I didn’t even know the word pétanque before moving to France. I watched my new family throw the silver balls into the hardened sand. They pointed and laughed and questioned. They shook their heads and raised their hands, not out of strategy, but out of love. This was all I needed. We don’t have to love the same things, we just have to see that we are capable of loving. 

Instead of picking up a ball, I picked up a brush — because this is what I love. We show each other in the best ways we can.

I googled Juneteenth this morning. I was surprised at the questions that popped up. People were asking, do we celebrate? How do we celebrate? What do we say? I don’t have the answers, but I think we simply start by seeing each other. Sharing our gifts, our love, in the best ways that we can. I love to paint. I am free to paint. What a glorious gift it is to be free. This is for everyone. To be seen. Everyone. To give love. Every. One. To. Be. Loved. So I pick up my brush, not out of strategy, but out of love. 

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Getting in.

It’s my fingers that remember the three button sequence to activate the dishwasher. I count on muscle memory daily. Readying myself at the pool for the first time of the season, I knew if I just did the hard part, get in, that my arms and legs would take over. My head would turn to breathe. My brain would tell my chilly, but beating core, “oh you only have to do a few laps,” both knowing that when reaching that number, I would up it again, and again. Each muscle nodding to the one that always won out, the heart. I smile, certain that I will never finish loving you.

Walking by a photo or painting. Hearing the opening notes to a song. Breathing in the scent of flowered hope. The sequence is activated and I think of you. And it’s such a relief to know it. To count on it. To feel it to my beating core. This love.

When the new challenge seems difficult. When I think it perhaps too much to get through, I remind myself, I only have to get in. The heart will see me through. I smile, and go a little deeper. 

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All that she would sing.

Maybe it was to learn how to listen. To see. To love. She knew there would be singing again. The evidence perched ready on her shoulder. She knew that to raise her voice, her fists, would only scare that song away. She knew whatever she said about them would reveal more about her. So the heart gathered, not on sleeve, but on shoulder. Breathing in the words, the melody, the grace of all that she would sing. 

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Turquoise.

It was my mother’s best color. Of course she looked good in it, but there was more to it. We didn’t have google to ask why. It was enough to simply feel it, the power of turquoise. 

“Use what you have to get what you need.” I tell myself this daily. But how do you get an afternoon with your mom, when she’s not here? What do I have to make that happen? I have paint. I have time. I mix the blue and the green. The calmness of the blue, settles and gathers and the green promises the growth of all things to come. And wasn’t that what I longed for, the hug and gentle release of my mother. The open window tells me it’s all still within reach. And I sit in the power of turquoise. And I am saved.

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With this layer.

I was able to varnish her yesterday, this woman reading. It’s always the most joyful magic, watching the colors of the painted and glorious self come to added life with this layer. 

I guess it’s the same in real life. Under the varnishing of love’s protection, this is when we really shine. Unburdened by the fear of losing what we have. Being able to take the chance of the day’s exposure. 

When I listened to her sing in front of her 15 year old peers, standing alone on the stage, the notes braving the audience, my second and third thoughts were, oh, she’s really good, and she looks really beautiful. My first thought was, she feels loved. She feels loved enough to risk it all. And I was happy to be a small part of that varnishing. 

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Perspective

Simply by the title of his show alone — Perspective should be reversed —  I think I have my memories in the right place. Staying with dear friends, we went to see the David Hockney collection at the Palm Springs Art Museum. I love his art. I always have, but being there, with them, is what remains in my heart’s permanent collection. Experiencing it together, rather than the art itself — my reverse perspective. 

Passing this week, he fills the internet. He once said, “It’s the very process of looking at something that makes it beautiful.” And we did look. We looked at it together. We looked at it with eyes of France. With memories of Chicago. With collective music humming in our heads. With “remember when”s and “I can’t wait for”s swirling in our midst. And isn’t that what art is, what music is, what friendship is — all that color.

When I painted Margaux from her balcony in Marseille, I suppose I wanted to see what she saw. I wanted, want, her to see me, seeing her, seeing out there. I want her to know that it is indeed the very process of looking that makes it beautiful. It is. She is. 

It’s all I have to bring today. These colors of friends and family. This thought that maybe if we experience this world together, it may be just a bit more beautiful. That’s my perspective. 

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Filed under kind.

I was told once that our brains are like filing cabinets. And depending on where the memory is filed, is how they come up. Sometimes they are filed by color or date or sequence. They could be filed by event or object. So, for example, if you were thinking of a woman in a yellow dress, it could be filed under yellow, dress, woman or party. And being who I am, I see not only the filing cabinets, but also the person scurrying around with the files, who I call Vern, because that’s his name. Sometimes I have to encourage Vern. Sometimes I have to thank him. Other times, like this morning, he simply makes me smile, pulling up a name I was looking for weeks ago. He waves the file overhead and grins sheepishly. “It’s Carol Feldman,” he says, the name of your junior high gym teacher. 

She was filed under her face — a face that appeared in my sketchbook. That’s why her name didn’t come to me when I was talking about the gym activity. You wouldn’t recognize her by the clothes that I painted her in. But I knew her face, and so did Vern. Immediately I was beneath Central Junior High, in the dimly pink basement that we called the girls’ gym. And Vern wasn’t wrong. For it wasn’t her physical prowess that I remember. Her athleticism. Her zip up track suits are but a blur. But I remember she was kind. That she had a gentle smile. A relief, really, from all the math problems and social studies. And so how fitting to file her by face, her kind and gentle face. I pause in my sketchbook, run down the teenage stairs, waving, “Hi, Miss Feldman, Miss Feldman, HI!”

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A moment.


There is the rush to protect, but oils cannot be hurried. There-in also lies the advantage. Paint can still be moved. Decisions tweaked. And the painting improves. It turns out this permanence that I think I so desire, can be avoided, leading me to something better. 

The ancient stoics had a saying — The obstacle is the way. 

It has always been elusive. This patience. My heart struggles to capture, so it tells my hand, you give it a try. And joyfully, my hand, never burdened by lessons already learned, picks up the brush, trying to capture a moment of still, of within. And maybe it’s not patience after all, maybe it’s just being. Because patience itself implies perhaps still a waiting. And in all that naivety of hand, my heart admits, that WAS a good try. And it simply rests in the moment. In the light. In the being. A moment not captured, nor improved, just a moment. And I am saved.

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Before the flutter.

I had this idea. That all was forgiven. I don’t mean just with me, although that was a good start. I mean with everyone, the world. And I suppose it seems silly. It seems as unlikely as the bird atop my head that brought the thought of this peace. And yet, there it rested, tucked in tangles of hair and misbelief. And I closed my eyes to slow the doubt — nothing chases away the hope faster. Maybe it was the Peter Pan collar, bringing these youthful ideas, I thought. But my heart said, “Don’t laugh away the magic.” And I coudn’t see, well, only deep inside where the thoughts were taking root, where the thoughts thought, hoped, that maybe you felt it too, forgiven. Maybe it was messengered in. As easy and light as that. And my heart smiled, sending the confirmation of what had been given. Sending it through lengthened neck and blushing cheeks and all those hopeful tangles, and behind lid, I knew, I somehow knew, that even if it left, flew away with all that hope, all that forgiveness, it still was all possible.

Stay a minute longer, I said, before you flutter.

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