I’m on my knees in gratitude. For years now, my sweet husband has reached into his pocket and covered the bill for his community so that I could do my work that lays heavy on my heart.
I am delighted to get this news as it gives me HOPE that I’ve been on a great path.
I received the tourist tax dollars art grant from Bastrop’s Cultural Art Commission for my Message of Hope Garden location #2. It’s here in Bastrop, Texas and it’s located at #EdenEastFarm.
I have huge news about our first Message of Hope Garden located in Ruidoso, New Mexico coming Sunday, January 27. I’ll be talking about this announcement LIVE on my Facebook page at 4:00 pm. I hope you’ll join me!
But, back to BASTROP!!
Not only did we find a home for our art installation, we found some money to help build the canvas where the butterflies that we paint for our loved ones will lite!
Please come hear me talk about this development February 16, 2023, and then on March 3rd at the First Friday event. Let’s paint butterflies together honoring our loved ones and benefiting the Emergency Food Pantry. Again that will be March 3, 2023 First Friday, Downtown Bastrop, from 5:00 pm until 8:00 pm.
The following is from the email I received announcing the grant award:
“Congratulations! Your Mini Grant Application was selected for funding at your full requested amount. The Cultural Arts Commission and the City of Bastrop are so excited to support the arts in Bastrop by providing funding for events and art installations through the Mini Grant Program.
The first step to receive funding will be to complete the attached vendor form and send it back to me. I will also be drafting a contract that you will need to sign and send back as well. I will send that out to you soon.
If you haven’t already been contacted by a Cultural Arts Commission member yet, they will be reaching out soon. We would like all our Mini Grant recipients to give a short presentation at the Cultural Arts Commission’s next gathering event on February 16th at the Lost pines Art Center from 6:00pm – 8:00pm.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you for all you do for our community and congratulations again!”
Yea! Isn’t that the coolest?
(The top photo is of the new art I’m working on for the Bastrop installation, and the lower one is of me at my first installation in Ruidoso, NM. (photo of me by #jalynnWest).
For years I’ve kept myself from jumping down rabbit holes that consume my time, especially when it’s for someone else’s vision. BTW all artists once they find their way, must learn to cut away distractions.
All artists at the beginning of their career, should indeed jump down other artist’s rabbit holes to gain the experience. As they help a master with his work and learn everything he knows, it’s done in hope that one day they, too, will find their own way.
The video features the Disney Wish Cruise Ship, and the beauty of this ship confirmed all of this for me once again as I contemplate taking a ride on her. What a distractions she will be.
If I were to go on the #DisneyWish, I would befriend an 11 to 14 year old kid in hopes that I would be allowed into the immersive experiences that only children get to enjoy on this ship. I know I would be obsessed with all it has to offer, instead of my own interests, because it’s just that fabulous.
The Disney Wish will have to be a one and done thing for me, because it would be 100% about their vision and experiences. I would want to find the flow of their entertainment and do it all. And trust me: there is a flow. She’s just that aesthetically put together and fabulous.
The ships I travel on have “eye candy” experiences that just take minutes to enjoy, not entire days or entire vacations. But on the Disney Wish, as it’s all just too fabulous. Even the most sophisticated eye will miss most of her greatness. And, the truth be told, the majority of her grandeur will escape the casual viewer. Whereas, I would be in tears at every turn.
The color combinations alone are phenomenal; enough to make me cry. I would love to meet her designers in person one day.
I’ll have to cruise her someday as I know it would creatively juice me for years to come, and that alone would be reason enough for me to ride on her.
But then it will be back to my favorite smaller class ships that have an indoor pool so I’ll have my work space, no matter the weather enabling me to focus yet again on my own vision.
So see, it’s always been about me and my art, my content and my footage that GRATEFULLY has led me to new friends and potential art collectors.
How can I delight my viewers while entertaining myself in my own artwork? Is now my only focus.
As many of you know, I’ve spent a lifetime in service and support of the emerging artist, and I’ve learned so much from all of you.
And I will continue to do so, only this time around it will be with the emerging artists who are willing to go to work on my vision, because I have one. I’ve earned one. And it’s an important one. Together we will help grieving mankind by building a giant, hopeful, community-driven art installation for the world to see, and/or build for themselves in their community.
So this is the truth: If you see it or read it from me, simply put, it somehow always relates to my vision and my art.
I’m like a shark who has to keep swimming to stay alive. That’s how art feels for me now, I have no choice but to do it. And I thank God daily for my desire for it, as I love it so much.
Disney Wish for her sheer creative majesty, is now on my bucket list, second place only to Playa de Carmans’ Hotel Xcaret.
First: her creators have taken my breath away in her design that works so perfectly with nature.
Second: classes of living beings, other than the Homo sapien class, interest me greatly.
Third: I hope I can afford it one day? Lol. It’s on my internal vision board. Yes, I have one. It goes everywhere with me, it keeps me on my path.
Therefore, #XcaretHotel is the place for me.
If your wondering how does any of this relate to my art ? Well, we will both know someday. But I assure you, I’ve been placed on this path for great purpose.
Now changing the subject to Bastrop, as many of my beneficiaries before you understand, that anyone who is interested in learning the business of art, are all welcome, as they assist me with my vision, in order to find their own way one day. Learn everything I know to add to what you know, as I’m an open book, and the knowledge I’ve gained over my 60 plus years should NEVER simply find its way to the grave.
Time, plus sweat equity, plus passion = vision.
So attention local Bastrop artists, perhaps even a little money can be had, as you learn and work to bring visual delight to this community because… “good news Y she be a coming.”
Now back to my art, and for tomorrow I’ll be at Lost Pines Art Center as I get to teach a painting class about watercolor and ink, and I cant wait to meet you all!
Shoe design inspired by my last trip on the Ruby Princess. Next up #RoyalCaribbean’s Radiance Of The Sea. She’s the perfect class of ship for me.
Dane Porter, an American Photographer snapped photos of me that I never knew about.
Dane and Jana 1988
Thank you Chuck Palmetto for these great memories.
They say beauty is wasted on the young. I never got what that meant till now.
I did not like myself enough to see just how cute I was back than. I see it now. Lol. I was an artist in the making.
That cig makes me wanna light up. Lol. But I won’t.
Me in 1988 – 26 years.
Dane became a believer in Jesus Christ because I was stupid enough to say I prayed we would win. Thank God, the Holy Spirit was able to pick up that silly comment and make Himself real to Dane, and on 09/1/88 Dane placed is faith in Christ for Salvation and he starting learning the Mind of Christ.
The day Dane believed in Christ was the day we won the mega buck 2nd to top price. $8338 in 1988 was a lot of money back then. It was just the right amount to convince Dane I was right about God.
I received My Lil’ Plant the year I started college. I’m Grateful that it was young and healthy and didn’t need self-centered me at all.
After college, My Lil’ Plant followed me back to Lubbock. I was still young and dumb, I hardly knew anything – I think I watered it once a year, if I remember correctly. And I never loved on it, I never thought about it at all, and I certainly did not understood its importance.
But by the Grace of God, it survived my immaturity, and so did I.
Back then My Lil’ Plant loved the Las Vegas climate and it flourished, and there I paid it a tiny bit more attention, but just barely.
Then, Bless its heart, it struggled to survive in Ruidoso NM … it’s too cold.
So by the time I got to Bastrop, Texas It was damn near dead. AND not once did I EVER consider the age of the old gal.
But finally for the first time, with my plant barely hanging on, I prayed for it. I desperately wanted it to survive.
Because now I understand after 42 year, just how important this plant has been.
It’s been with me through my complete darkness, through all my mistakes and losses and loneliness, and then now, it’s here by my side, even in my wildly successful marriage.
See God honors His Word wherever it is found … every time. It’s His Integrity stake, it’s His Love.
SO If you got nothin’ between your ears about Him because you’re not interested, you need to know at a minimum that His Word is Truth, it’s foundational, and based on His Word there is FREEDOM.
31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly My disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
You also need to know that this is a God-given choice, and whatever you choose, He will honor your decision and butt out of your life completely.
FYI: I’m NOT TALKING ABOUT RELIGION. God did NOT invent religion. PERIOD. Religion is man’s attempt to gain God’s favor by man’s efforts. As fallen mankind (Rom 3:23 ..for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God), we have nothing of sufficient value that can earn or gain His favor.
I’m talking about a personal relationship between you and God through Jesus Christ. (John 14:6 Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.)
I’m talking about living inside God’s Grace pipeline. It’s like living inside the eye of a hurricane, all is calm in there even though a storm is swirling all around you. BTW the storm is allowed by God as a part of the invisible war, the Angelic Conflict that’s ongoing, that we’re here to play a part in resolving.
So back to My ‘Lil Plant, how do you fall in love with something?
You learn their mind and you start understanding how important they are in your life. Your gratitude overflows for what’s been provided.
I ramble so …
SAY HELLO to my lil’ friend. Back from the dead.
1980 – 42 years ago, a neglected friend that I prayed with all my heart for the first time that I would survive, because just now I finally GET it.
See it turns out, I was born with a horrific skin disease.
This plant has been with me every step of the way as I was cured of a disease that doctors say there is no cure. And it was through prayer that I found the right doctors who treat disease with REAL food, and a little plant that God provided.
So you see, GOD sent me a helpmate, that He knew I would would not appreciate but would desperately need.
LOOK AT it go! Looks better than the day I got it 42 years ago. It LOVES Bastrop’s weather.
“Is that Dinner?” my first egg tempera to start, and the second to complete, is ready for its forever home.
I’m offering a pre-online store deal on this painting as I need to cover my expenses related to my upcoming event in Ruidoso, and I pledge to give the Lincoln County food bank 25% of the net proceeds from the sale.
This beauty is 11″x14″ framed and ready to hang.
Here’s my special offer: I’m asking $400, and I’ll pay the sales tax and the cost of shipping it to you. Next week Jaybird Lynch Digital Marketing Works will put it up on my online store, Hello From Ruidoso for $900.00, so I encourage you get it now
Message me if you’re interested in owning this lovely work!
Let us for once not let Kevin Stepp, my sweet and generous husband, have to bare the cost of my zany lifestyle. Lol.
I look forward to seeing you. Love and peace to all.
(I hope you see the airplane that our eagle friend has spotted … is that what’s for dinner? Na)
My painting is complete. It’s egg tempera with pigments made from our community garden, and I framed it in a Bastop area tree branch.
This piece is to be hung on the wall.
It’s my first completed egg tempera painting. But what’s most interesting is that my friend Todd and I created the pigment from nature using a method inspired by Caroline McCoy’s restaurant FOOD NY 1970s and burnt cigar.
I have titled it ”On the invisible battlefield.”
it’s priced at $425, shipping included. This could be an important piece, but only buy it if you like it, and hope the best is ahead for me in my fine arts career. Lol.
I think it is.
Framed in a branch and hangs on the wall with one nailDetail
Nutrition, Hydration, Movement and most importantly, Soul Peace…
You get these things, right ?!? And that’s when the magic of the human experience begins.
You are on an invisible battlefield, whether you know it or not. I look around and fear the majority of us have layered down and forgotten how powerful these elements are.
Get up. Even though you’re been knocked down, get up. Then pull someone else up once you have your power back and then GO SLAY THE DAY!
Today I get to show my egg tempera to my teacher, William Clay. It’s what we will call from this day forward my “FOOD Palette.” The term was inspired by Carol Goodden (Caroline McCoy) owner of FOOD 1970 New York, with the help of my new talented friend Todd Jordan, who is creating pigments out of his garden and kitchen so I can experiment with their magic. In his own words, hear my teacher, William Clay describe his experience as a student of world-renowned artist Peter Hurd.
I recommend all my artist friends research the term FOODNY 1970. The story is well documented and was the inspirational place to hang where the food was the art and most anyone could afford a hot meal, and have amazing creative interaction with the best, most talented artists at the time.
SO…
What do you get to do today and HOW can you do it in PEACE?
