Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: becoming


by Leave a comment

Trying it on.

In the “Age of Innocence,” (if there were ever a time), they used to say, “I didn’t think they’d try it on,” meaning, I didn’t think they’d have the guts to do it. Some may have said that about my mother, but not me.

I’m not sure she ever really knew how brave she was. I know she wanted to be. I guess I knew first, because my grandfather told me. Standing in the kitchen, opposite the sink – grandma in elbow deep – in front of the window that framed the stripped and hanging cow from the tree, he told me I could turn in, or turn out. That I could armored like my Aunt Kay, or be open like my mother. He didn’t mark either as good or bad, both would be difficult, it was just a choice. My mother returned from the other room. Broken, she had the guts to still be ruffled in white. I had already made my choice. To be wounded, but still believe in love, I would ever be “trying it on.”

It was years later, I relayed his message to her. She hadn’t known that he saw her. It wasn’t the way. I suppose it was thought, “Well, it goes without saying…” but mostly I think that means it simply goes unsaid. I can’t let it be one of those times. Ever ruffled in ruffles, I come to the page, to the canvas, to you, wide open, daily. And on those days when you think you don’t have the strength, the courage, the will, you will think of these words, these images, see my mother’s face and heart, and you will find yourself “trying it on.” 

Shop Now!


by Leave a comment

Perhaps, to bloom.

“I was leaving…to fling myself into the unknown… to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns and, perhaps, to bloom.” Richard Wright

My painting style keeps evolving. Along with my writing. And why wouldn’t it? With only a pocketful of native seeds, I left my small hometown, for a slightly bigger city. First 60 miles away. Then 120. Then more. And more again. Scattering from field to sidewalk. And picking up more along the way. 

My first business card was topped with their name. Then mine below. Smaller. But fitting, I suppose, as I was a mere version of myself. But I wasn’t afraid. It was my grandfather who taught me that everything grows in its time. Its place. He rotated his crops. I didn’t have the words for it then, but here they are now, so elegantly put  — my grandfather, he too, was in search of “new and cool rains,” “bend in strange winds,” and the “warmth of other suns.” 

I just received my new order of business cards — tiny blossoms of the seeds I have sprinkled here in France. Planted on canvas and in person. This is not my humid soil of youth. It is cracked and dried from centuries old. And I can feel it against my skin as I work my way to the daily sun. But it is warm. And it is my name atop the card. I am becoming more of myself. Embracing (not the promise) but the perhaps of it all — the glorious perhaps of the bloom. 

Shop Now!


by 1 Comment

Becoming she.

I often use the word she when making a card. Some have asked, “Who is this she?” “All of us,” I reply, “possibly even me.” I say possibly because I’m not always there yet, but it’s where I want to be, who I want to become. So I “she” myself into being. 

Change is rarely simple. And it can be frightening, this unknown territory. We want to know “what happens when…”; “what happens if…” But we aren’t always given the answers. Rarely even. What we’re given is the light coming through the crack of the door, and a choice — to let fear stop us, or to keep growing. Sometimes it becomes a space to let things go. Sometimes a pathway to move through. And the strongest of us — this she — is not afraid to do either. I am sometimes her. Each time I give her a voice. Write her. Paint her. The doors become a little less frightening. Even welcoming. And I become a little more she. 

It’s what I wish for all of us. To be a little less afraid. A little more open. They’re only doors after all — a passage to possibility — to becoming anything, anyone!

Shop Now!


by 1 Comment

And so she would dance

Perhaps the most useless thing I almost learned in junior high was square dancing.
At Central Junior High, 6th – 9th grade, the girls took physical education, not in the gym, but in the girls’ gym. To get to the girls’ gym, you had to take the back staircase, down a small tunnel-like hallway (which they painted pink, as if the point hadn’t already been made), through the final doorway into a windowless box. 

Once a year, we were invited into the center of the school, gleaming wood floors, bleachers, windows, two entrances, and a stage — the boys’ gym — for square dancing with the boys. 
It was almost shocking at first, the glow of it all, but reality unpacked its bags as we were dosie-doed for one week, then returned to the pink of the back stairwell. 


I loved sports in both junior and senior high, but it wasn’t until after college that I found my place. I began to run and bike, by myself. The open roads. The wind in my hair. The thoughts. The music in headphones. The books on tape. This was my world. This for me, was winning.


On my morning walk, I listened to a podcast about Choreographer Twyla Tharp, the legendary choreographer and dancer, who got her start performing on subway platforms and rooftops in the 1960s. She knew she did not have the perfect body for ballet, the perfect technique, but she was strong, smart, and she loved dance. She knew her path was to be made, not followed. And she did. She combined modern moves, with classical moves, she introduced new music, and she created a world of dance that no one had ever seen, or felt. And they followed her, men and women alike.


Today the sun is shining. My legs are strong. And I am happy.  You can take what they give you. You can envy what the others have. Or you can find your own way, and really dance!


by 3 Comments

A case for dreams.

When I was six, my family went to the Wisconsin Dells. This is about the most exotic place a Chevy Malibu could take a family of five from Alexandria, Minnesota. I know there was water, probably rides, but my clearest memory is of the pencil case my mom bought for me in the gift shop. It was a white vinyl case, shaped like a giant pencil. There was a zipper just where the eraser would begin on a normal pencil. Inside, more pencils. Oh, the possibilities! Imagine that, pencils inside a pencil. This was indeed the most exotic place!

The first museum I visited as an aspiring adult was the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Inside was the giant portrait of Chuck Close. It was magnificent. He says in painting this portrait, “I think I was trying to find out who I was as an artist.” I think at that time, I was just trying to find out who I was as a human. I wasn’t sure how I was connected here, in this place, with this art, but I felt it — once again, I felt it — the possibilities! My pockets were mostly empty, save for these brewing dreams, but I had enough money to buy two pencils. One represented what they created. One represented what I could create. I named them, “Did” and “Could.”

Through the years, I have purchased pencils from The Chicago Art Institute, The MET, MOMA, Van Gogh’s Museum, The Georgia O’Keefe museum… The Louvre! And everywhere in between. I have purchased pencils from book stores, universities, anywhere the dreams seem to hang in the air and call things out as possible.

That’s what pencils are to me – the possible! Each pencil tells me that Dreams have come true – Dreams will come true.

At my desk, next to my portrait of Chuck Close, and a small collection of pencils, I tell you that what you dream matters. Gather in that dream. Grasp it in your chubby little hands of youth, and hold it until your fingers gnarl around it with warmth and gratitude. Did and Could. Can and Do! Wisconsin Dells and the Louvre! Oh, the possibilities!