Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: beauty


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The care of the varnish.

I had to google the expression, because it didn’t seem right to me. It still doesn’t. To “varnish over the truth,” is said to be a way to hide or deceive; while in painting, it’s just the opposite. After the paint is dry, applying a varnish not only protects the integrity of the painting, it actually brings all the colors together. The image is more vibrant. More clear. The colors are no longer individual. The painting becomes whole. Revealed.

The other day I applied the varnish to two paintings while working on a commissioned piece.  Just as they had months ago by my heart and hand, they came to life again. I can’t say that I remembered each stroke. Each movement, but the experience became alive again. So very real. 

When I tell you of my childhood — memories of family, of school days and summer suns — it feels like a varnishing. Not one of deception, but revelation. Making whole these images — these moments. Even the most simple of times (the tiniest of strokes) — a cow, a book, a walk, a promise, a bike, a hand — they become part of the picture. The story becomes whole. Even in the parts where it felt like a “taking away,” something was given. Maybe it takes time. Maybe it takes the care of the varnish…but the story is always revealed. And when I take the time to really look, I can see the beauty of it all.

I sit today in the comfort of the stories that live around and beside and within, knowing a bit will gather in this new creation, this new painting. Each moment is so precious and deserving of our care, even and long before the meaning is revealed, the beauty is there. 

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Wild tulips.

We have a lovely bed of roses at our front door. When in bloom they are, of course, spectacular. My husband takes good care of them. Weeding. Watering. Pruning. Getting rid of the pests. And in return they reward us in sight and scent. 

I only mention it because each year in the pre-spring, as the roses lay dormant, something else happens (I would argue just as beautiful, maybe more.)  Without our knowledge or permission, without our planting or care, a bouquet of wild tulips pops through the earth in the corner of this sleeping bed. So confident. So strong. They have the audacity to bloom orange at half the height of their soon to be red-headed neighborhood. Seemingly without comparison or worry, they open each morning to the sun. 

It’s easy to envy the roses of this world. But I think for me, I am more than happy being a wild tulip. If I can wake each morning, petals to the sky, grateful for what I have, and bloom, bloom without need of praise or vase, bloom merely in hopes of gathering up the sun, then my life will be so much more than a bed of roses — my life will be — is — beautiful!

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I’m with the banned.

I remember going to the new church with my mother. She wanted a fresh start. After the divorce, she just wanted to fold her hands without anyone judging her ring finger. The choices seemed plentiful enough. But after being turned away from communion in one, and altogether in another, it was all a little too “no room in the inn.” The second one offered for me to stay and go to Sunday School. I declined and chose to stay with the banned.

I mention it only because I saw the sign at the airport bookstore — “I’m with the banned.” I smiled for all the books and, too, for all the readers who have found themselves turned away from one door or another. All the stories will be told. Will find a way out. Will find a way in. And this is what will save us.

There will always be churches that won’t ask you to belong. Clubs you can’t get into. Groups who will snicker and turn their backs. This is not your story, only theirs. You get to chose your own faith. Your own path. Your own journey. You can step to your own beat. Create your own soundtrack. And if someone dares to claim, “I don’t recognize that song,” you simply tell them, “Well, I’m with the banned.“

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Becoming.

There is a moment in the painting when I see it. It’s no longer just colors. Shapes. It becomes a person, in this case, she. And then I feel it. The responsibility. A joyful one, but still. I’m involved. And I become, well, part of the becoming. And it is beautiful.

Whether we’d like to admit it or not, we shape each other. From one encounter to lifetimes. 

When you place a stroke on the canvas, you can’t take it back. Just as with the things we say and do. Oh, we tried in school, at Washington Elementary. “No take backs,” we’d say. We didn’t know how right we were. But I’ve learned not to abandon the canvas. I keep going. Some turn out glorious. Some are worked. Saved. Painted over even. But something always comes of it — even if it’s just another chance to make something beautiful.

I hope I can see it with the people around me. And those around them. And beyond. I suppose we’re all just trying to become. Moment by moment. If we could see that, wouldn’t it be, couldn’t it be… isn’t it, just beautiful. 

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Not waiting for Georgia.


They have the museums for cowboys. Statues of horses and gunslingers bronzed in front of banks — even in the smallest of towns. Bison guarding the road. Oil pumps, methodically telling a piece of the story. But no one told us how beautiful the landscape would be. The rolling fields of my favorite palette. Muted greens and golds, with subtle tans. Simply gorgeous! We pointed out our respective car windows. Look! Look! The red dirt contrasting, bearing witness to all that had been survived, and still came out beautiful. And I wondered where was Oklahoma’s Georgia O’Keeffe? Who was singing the praises? What would Cezanne have done with this landscape?

There was nowhere for me to pull the car over. No shoulders. “I guess no one but us wants to pull over and take pictures,” my husband said. I smiled, because it made me feel special — us feel special. We could see it. The extraordinary beauty. I memorized the colors in my heart.

It’s funny how our first thoughts are always “Why isn’t someone doing something…” But I can be that someone. I will paint that palette. I will do it! Let it be me!

It is not a hardship to bear, to see it. It is a privilege. With everything. With everyone. When someone lets you in, it is the gift they give to you. Don’t be careless with it. Embrace it! They are not waiting for Georgia or Paul, they chose you. You. Give thanks for that. Every day.



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Beyond the tracks.

It was exactly one mile from our house on Van Dyke Road to the railroad tracks just before town. When I was 6 years old, I was allowed that far on my own. I walked it, or biked it, every day of summer vacation. The first thing in sight, besides the large Viking statue, was our local museum. Truth be told, I wasn’t that interested in the Runestone. My sunburned cheeks, along with the pink part in my blonde hair, marked a head that was sufficiently filled with everything Washington Elementary had to offer, so I wasn’t hungry for the town’s history.

I earned a quarter each Thursday for cleaning the mirrors and vacuuming. With know stores in my one mile excursions, my collection of pocketed quarters was building, burning like the summer sun. I twirled them in my sweaty fingers at the edge of the tracks. I could see the sign for the gift shop. It was just a few steps more. I made lines in the dirt with the tips of my bumper tennis shoes. Surely a few more steps wouldn’t matter. I was going to be in the first grade in only a month. Please, please, please, I begged my mother when she returned home from work. “I just want to go to the gift shop. It’s only a few more steps.” “You don’t even know what’s inside,” she said. Which was true, but I had quarters, and I knew what the word gift meant. “It’s not toys,” she continued. I said something about needing it, wanting it… I’m sure I through in a “everyone else gets to” — even though I never saw children racing toward it. By the next Thursday, I had worn her down and she agreed with a “fine, go ahead.”

The first few steps beyond the tracks felt like I was floating. Maybe all freedom feels this light. I skipped the air to the front door and waited. And waited. I didn’t have a watch. So far I had only learned digital time. I sat twirling the quarters through my fingers. I jumped up with the click of the door. Open — the word felt just for me. I sprang through the door. Still sun blind, I couldn’t see anything on the shelves. It wasn’t what I expected, it was even better. I wandered slowly past the woman seated by the counter, so she could see me seeing. Someone should witness my first outing, I thought, and it was going to be her. She looked up from her paper, not nearly grasping the importance of this moment. And then I saw her. This little Native American doll. (I’m sure I still called her an Indian at the time, but we wouldn’t learn that for a few years.) She had the shiniest black hair. A little leather dress. I wanted her. I needed her. She was glorious. Two dollars. I had eight quarters. It was my miracle of freedom. I placed her on the counter along with my quarters. “That’ll be $2.08,” she said. I smiled, still not realizing, pushing my quarters closer.” “$2.08,” she repeated. “But it says, two dollars. I have two dollars. I Windexed for two months.” (Which wasn’t really true, we only bought off brands, but she didn’t need to know that.) “It’s the tax,” she said. Tax? I didn’t know anything about tax. “You can take from the penny jar,” she said. There were four pennies left on the side of the counter. I was still short. I looked at the doll. I looked at the counter. I looked at the woman. She took the doll and turned around. My heart sank. Gutted, I began to turn toward the door. She placed the sacked doll on the counter along with her purse. She pulled out her coin purse and added four pennies to the cash register. My heart floated again. She handed me the doll. She had seen me after all.

This was our town, I thought. I belonged here. On both sides of the tracks. I smiled in the knowledge. I had so much to learn, but for one brief shining summer moment, I knew everything I needed to know.

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It’s not the Louvre, but then again, it isn’t trying to be.


My grandma never made apologies for her wide feet. Standing on them for decades, as she did, rubbing her rounded aproned belly, holding a rootbeer float — “it was bound to happen”, she smiled, and sported her men’s Thom McAns proudly. And I loved her all the more.

My mother never made apologies for her long feet. “I’m going to rely on my heart for balance?” She laughed. They lengthened her already long legs, and stabled her heart that bounced and bruised and giggled again. And I loved her all the more.

We have been, I gratefully say, to the finest museums in the world. From Paris, to Rome, London, Amsterdam, New York, Chicago…seeing the finest artists of all time. So it may surprise you when I say we enjoyed our visit to the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma. Not because it could compete with a Cezanne or VanGogh, no, but it wasn’t trying to. It was cowboys. From films, to wars, to horses, and cattle, it told a story, their story. And it was beautiful.

Sometimes, when visiting a smaller city, they try to compete, and it never works. But when a place embraces their history, goes all in, wearing their shoes proudly, (or boots as it were), now this is something to see! I hope I do that. Give that. I was taught this, by two of the most different and lovely women that I know.

I hope we all can, step into each and every day, proudly, lovingly. We all have a story to tell.

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Another pocketed miracle.

I had to stop wearing my little pinky ring. I need to have surgery on the finger that has held that ring for decades. It waits for me now, in a tiny little bowl. I know I will wear it again. And it’s not so much that I have faith in my finger (which I do) but I also have faith in my ring. It knows the way home.

Years ago, I was filling large orders for framed art work. It was just after the New York show, so I had product and packing everywhere. My hands were in a constant blur of activity. It wasn’t until after making a haul to UPS that I noticed it was gone, my little ring. I checked my apartment. The garage. My car. Nothing. I had more orders to fill, so I kept working. My thumb often reached to give it a phantom twirl. But my brain said it was gone for good.

Two weeks later I got a misshapen envelope in the mail. I opened it quickly — because mail!!! It was a handwritten address from the east coast. My ring was inside. The note said they found it while unshrinkwrapping my artwork. They took the time to compliment my work, bubble wrap the ring, and send it back to me. The stone of the ring is not precious, but their act of kindness certainly was!

I only mention it because this morning I reached for my permanent necklace (the one I never take off) to move the clasp to the back. Something poked me. Only prongs. The stone was gone. We shook the sheets of the bed. Checked the bathroom. The carpet. It could have been anywhere — even in another state. The possibilities were endless.

On our way to hotel breakfast, I stepped into the fitness room. Looked at the floor between the elliptical machine and the treadmill. There it was. Preciously waiting. It was a tiny miracle really, but not my first.

I was only 5 or 6 when I went out into the field with my grandpa. Maybe the sky was bigger then, but it seemed endless. Nothing but blue above and black dirt below. I couldn’t see the house from where we were. I began to panic. I wanted to go back. I didn’t want to be here. How would my mom find me when she came from town to pick me up? She would drive up the gravel and we wouldn’t be there. She would swing open the screen door and call my name, and I wouldn’t hear. She would be sad and scared. And she might cry, I gasped between my own tears. And I felt terrible because I had begged to come with. I had been warned that we would be out a long time, most of the day even, and yet I pleaded. Now the tears that tracked black down my dirty face wiped with dirty hands wanted nothing else but to see the way home. He didn’t argue. Didn’t make fun of me. Didn’t “I told you so,” or “I warned you,” he just took me home. Gently. Easily. “We all find our way home,” he said, dropping me off in full sight of the farm house, in full knowledge that my mom, too, would find her way.

I put the gemstone into my husband’s pill case. Safe. Sound. Another pocketed miracle.

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Making magic!

My grandma never measured anything. And I thought it was pure magic — she was magic. Because it all turned out. Her kitchen was filled with Bohemian treats — treats that I’m still not sure if the names were real, or if she was just making them up as she went along as well.

The thing is, I never saw the beginning. I wasn’t there when it was just Rueben and Elsie. When the bride from the picture, wearing the necklace I now treasure, burned the dinner, or didn’t add enough flour to the baked goods, when Rueben tried to assure her it was just fine. I wasn’t there when her first born came and she had to strap him to her apron while still trying to perfect the recipe that was never written down. Maybe my mom caught a glimpse, being the second. But it wouldn’t be long and she would be asked to start taking care of the seven that followed. And certainly my mom didn’t know how to be one, she was a kid herself, but I smile thinking of her doing the same, guessing at the recipe for what would make those younger siblings happy, or at least stop crying.

No, I didn’t see any of this. I suppose none of us do, see the work behind the magic. And it’s happening all around us. But I like thinking about it. I find it hopeful. Because for me, it’s maybe even more “magical” to think it was created all along. It’s what drives me to fill the sketchbooks. To arrange the words in a different order daily. Even to bake the croissants. We create our own magic by putting in the time. Making the mistakes. Learning. And trying again.

Today I may find myself covered in life’s flour, but one way or another, it is going to be delicious. Let’s make some magic!

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Uff-da, y’all.



Two of my mom’s sisters ended up in Texas. Being a child in Minnesota, that seemed about as foreign as it could get. (Little did I know…) When my Aunt Sandy returned on her first visit, she already sounded different. I didn’t have the word for it then, but she definitely had a drawl. How strange, I thought. But I wasn’t that worried, until years later when my mom and I took my grandma down to Texas for a visit. Tired from the drive, I didn’t really notice when we arrived, but the next morning, there she was, my full-on Texas aunt, asking my grandma — the one that her northern children only called “mother” — “Mama, do y’all want to go for biscuits and gravy?” Wait! Mama? Y’all? Biscuits and gravy? What was happening???? Perhaps there was a slight emphasis on the word mother when they returned and my mom asked her, “Did you like the biscuits and gravy, Mother?” I was already smiling when she answered, “Uff-da, y’all…”

I can see now how it happens. Living in France. They say I have an accent. There, of course, and even when I return. We all want to belong. Be a part of something. And we gather ourselves in, word by word, bit by bit, to make ourselves whole, to find a place at the table.

Visiting the Starbuck’s in San Antonio yesterday, they were all out of the butter croissants, so I said “I’ll take the pain au chocolat.” She looked at me so strangely… Uff-da, y’all, I thought. “I mean the chocolate croissant,” I smiled. I am a part of it all.

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