Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: fields


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Corralled in all that I love.

Besides fields of grain, my grandfather had cows. And while he taught me many life lessons, the actual day to day farming, how the cows got from one field to the next, into the barn, I really have no idea. But it’s possible the instincts were not lost on me, as I have the continuous desire to corral my make-up, shower products, and various items on the coffee table. 

It’s hard to explain the satisfaction if you are not of like mind. But if you are straightening your mouse pad as you read this, cornering your books, gathering pens in a holder, then you know. Some might argue that it’s a “control thing.” Maybe, but I think, for me, it’s more of a coming together, a calmness, a peace. No competition of chaos and clutter.

When I walk into our library, my joyful heart exhales. The details of art, books, music and plants, down to the Paris Review on the footstool I made from a stump in our garden — they make me, I want to say happy, but that’s not exactly right. It’s more than that. I am corralled in all that I love. It is a calm and safe place where my heart can rest, and my mind can wander. I suppose that’s home, isn’t it?

I love to roam the fields. Walk. Run. Fly even, in the yet to be traveled. In the unknown. And maybe that’s only possible because of the safety (disguised as love) that I was given first from an earth-roughened heart, on a farm just outside of Alexandria, Minnesota — one that rests me still in the south of France. 

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Out wandering.

“If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes.” Agnes Varda

I cannot pass a golden field in any country, without thinking of my grandfather. The breeze that blows through the harvest to come is the breath of hard labor and kindness.

I was 19 when he got pancreatic cancer. They cut him in half to assess the damage. They closed him almost immediately. When I saw the row of staples, I couldn’t imagine they couldn’t see something — something that could be salvaged. Clung to. Some hope. Because that’s what I imagined beneath the scar. This was the landscape I knew lived within him. A field that had turned from brown to green to gold. A yearly harvest to be counted on — this, I knew for certain, was inside my grandfather. A landscape I carry still today.

We went to visit Dominique’s mother at the cemetery. She rests between two vineyards. We stopped at each one. Tasting the white. The rosé. The red. Delicious. What a fitting landscape for her. The vine that doesn’t end. From the work of the fields. To the joy of the table. The French landscape I will carry too, within.

We’re not always given the answers. But we’re always shown a way. If you look for me today, be patient. My heart is wandering landscapes.

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First, the field…


I have been commissioned to paint a field of poppies. Looks pretty green for poppies, you’re thinking. Yes, for now. But first the field… my grandfather taught me that, I suppose, on his farm. Each year he would take the browns and turn them into greens, and eventually into gold. “You can’t glamorize the dirt,” he said. It was work. So much work. Rocks needed to be picked. Dirt turned. Seeds planted. Watered. Care. So much care.


And so I paint the same way. I cut the wood. Stretch the canvas. Gesso. Prepare. Underpaint. Start with the field. My hands dirty. My heart full of promise that the flowers will come. Patient. Care. So much care.


Life is very messy. Terribly messy. My Uncle Nick passed away yesterday. I can’t glamorize that. I know he suffered. But I believe in the golden fields. Those of my grandfather. I believe they are there now. Together. Held with care. So much care.


Today, maybe, the poppies…

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