Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: pencils


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A permanent connection.

I always imagined myself as the number one. Not in the sense of being first, but as the connection to my number two pencil. She never explained it as such, Mrs. Bergstrom, our first grade teacher at Washington Elementary, but I felt it right from the start. It was such a magical connection. When she passed out the number twos they felt like little wands. Little wands that took the words she wrote on the blackboard and put them into our hands. Words that were filtered through our hearts and graphited to the sheets of paper that lay dormant for six years, never to be blank again. 

I was sketching in my book the other day with a pencil that I bought from MoMA. In this book, to gain the desired effect of lightness, the actual paper must be erased away. I couldn’t find my eraser. I thought it was probably down in the studio. Being upstairs, I didn’t want to make the trip. I started looking. Holding the pencil in my left hand, I felt it. I had never noticed it before. It was colored in black, this eraser. Indistinguishable from the rest of the pencil, but it was there. It had always been there. I smiled to the heavenly blackboard that I imagine Mrs. Bergstrom still directs. And give thanks for the magic.  For making me the number one to my number two. A permanent connection. 

If you’re wondering what teachers can do, I offer you this — this giving of an intelligence so far from artificial that it can still be held in the palm of my hand. 

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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!