I spent the week with Jackson Browne.

Well, not really,  but listening, watching, reading about and channeling the mojo of the man.  A super fan and collector wanted a commission (I seem to be developing a tiny niche with celebrity portraits - wahoo!) and really wanted it to express the depth she gets from the man and the music.  When I asked this super fan what she wanted the world to know about Jackson Browne, she replied: "His relentless passion for human rights & the environment- and walking his talk."   We can sure use more people like that in the world right now.

'"The slight burn of being here" - Nepo wields words in a ways that resonates deeply with me. When I am floundering for the right words, a way to cut through the muck and get to the unabashed heart of things, it is always Nepo.

​The year fearlessness, the emergence of Lola (which really means, the year of being afraid but leaping anyway, the emergence of all that I have always been but was too afraid to be) has had some unexpected consequences.  By opening my heart to see my own pain, I see the pain of others, even (and perhaps especially) those who have caused my pain.  By opening my heart to the beauty of others, I see my own extraordinariness.  And I discover it is harder to look at what is bright and beautiful in me than to look at what is broken and flawed.  I strive to wake close to the bone...where pain and wonder meet​.  It feels very close.

I'm like a dog with a bone.

Or rather, my dog with my bones.  Which he was, while I was off hiking.  He climbed up on the table, grabbed a few choice pieces (bird pelvis, elk hoof, deer femur, vertebrae) and had himself a feast while I was away.  Sigh.  I can't blame him.  It was there.

Things come and things go.  

And Hirshfield's words, as I contemplate bone and legacy and life, are a perfect fit.  

​

​A little lovely surprise this week, as my witchy and wonderful "Adelaide" was featured in an article for children's book authors at The Charmed Studio.  Check it out!  Thea's blog is OUTRAGEOUSLY good!

"Boneyard". - acrylic on arches 300 lb watercolor paper, 30" x 22".  Available here and at Artfinder.


We all know that fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun.
- from Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert

It is no-fear year for me.

That doesn't mean I won't be afraid (if only!), but it does mean I won't let fear prevent me from doing, dreaming, thinking, feeling or trying anymore.  It tries, that pesky, persistent fear.  Tries to fill me with anxiety, dread, stomach-ache and shallow breath at the thought of attempting something I haven't done before.  But I don't want to live in a desolate boneyard.

And the bones....they keep appearing.  In front of my eyes, at my feet.  I bring them home, reminders and relics.  Wait for them to talk to me.  When Gilbert's quote landed in my lap, just as I'd finished googling "how to clean found bones" (desiccating in the hot sun is the preferred method, by the way), I smiled.  Bone-talk.

If you've followed my journey, dear reader, you know bones are a theme in my life.  That my very bones have taken some hits, been stitched and glued and caged back together and are, well, something to consider when I do anything.  The universe reminds me that those same bones will be here long after my essence is gone.  What do I want them to say to others?

A few close to me have known that my inner name is Lola. 

Lola is fierce and feisty and confident and wildly unfettered and brave.  Lola is not afraid.

In the past few years of radical change in my life (some by choice, some by happenstance, misfortune or the choices of others) I have become more Lola than Jen.  As I began reimagining my cyber art pages, my personal pages began waving their arms and demanding attention.  And so instagram (personal) is now instagram.com@thewanderingsoflola.  And Facebook followed as Facebook.com/thewanderingsoflola.

I was overwhelmed by the support, encouragement and acceptance of this change.  And tickled by those who now call me Lola.  It feels like anything is possible - anything can be.  Anything can become.  ​Lola knows.

The thing about lost hikes (wandering places where few feet have been) is the preponderance of bones.

And the more my eyes are trained to see in the wilderness (shadows, hidden paths, lichens, scat, briars, poison oak, loose rock) the. more I see the bones.  It seems they are there for me to find - messages from spirits long gone, reminders of the preciousness of life, invitations to get close to the center of everything.

On a recent hike, the bones of a juvenile deer lay strewn about near a dry creek bed.  Dainty, delicate, decayed. She came home with me, this little one.  Cleaned gently with bleach and soft brush.  Dried in the sunlight on the kitchen counter.  Weird?  Maybe.  Exquisitely beautiful - yes.

Her stark coloring inspired this painting, in which I set about to capture just the bones of an image. 

Trina suggested a collaboration.  We had a general idea...but then blew that out of the pond and just let it run wild.  Between us, we have a lot of mutual history - spinal injury, baddassery, big love and big loss.  And art.  

So sending boards through the mail and painting on another person's work - whoa!  But we did it.  And it is something neither one of us would have independently dared to do.  We've redefined how to fight like a girl.  

Enjoy the video - turn up the volume, see what happens when artists collide. 

​About the art:  acrylic applied to unprimed birchwood panel using rubber wedge, squeegee, chopsticks, fingers and paper towels.  Paying attention to one color talking to (or arguing with) another. The requisite 80 million layers.  A spot of cadmium red.  A sigh.  Yes!

I've had a few reader requests for background tips.  So here's a quick video showing one way to begin building backgrounds (similar to today's piece but larger).  The unprimed wood allows a lot of sub-texture and the absorption of paint into crevices and woodgrain. 

I wonder what background music Wonder Mike chose for this one?