Tag Archives: Bastrop

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We’re going to South Padre Island on February 27,2023. Will anyone join me? 

I’m going to sip something with coconut in it while sitting in the ocean, painting and jewelIng leather iPhone watch bands and ducks. 

I’ll even paint butterflies for your loved ones as I’m ready to paint on anything other than the eyeballs for the solo show, which will be hung at the Bastrop Public Library. This is a huge undertaking for me; I bet it will take over 250 hours to complete. How exciting! 

Speaking of butterflies: Come see me and view the art called HOPE that I made. It’s the first piece of art for our community art installation called Message of Hope. 

I’ll be speaking at #LostPinesArtCenter because the city, through the Bastrop Cultural Arts Commission, gave me some money to help cover the costs of preparing the canvas for the butterflies that we’ll make to honor our loved ones. All those butterflies need a beautiful place to live. Thank you #EdenEastFarm, I’m so grateful to all involved!

So, join me February 16, 2023 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m at the Lost Pines Art Center. There will be free food and drinks. 

You’ll enjoy loads of great art and booths to tour, and I promise I will not bloviate. Luck you, I’m only allowed 5 minutes to speak amidst this great line up of cool stuff to see and taste!  

There will be a sign-up sheet at my table where you can request a one-of-a-kind painted butterfly as a tribute to your loved one. The butterfly will live in our art installation at Eden East Farm, and a majority of proceeds from the sale of the painted butterflies will benefit the Bastrop County Emergency Food Pantry. 

Come play!

The Message of Hope Garden Bastrop

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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).

The importance of the outdoors when living tiny

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I’m surrounded by talent.

Check out my outdoor studio below! It will be weighted to protect against the winds, thanks to my talented neighbor Todd.

I love my neighbors already.

It seems that Todd brought this entire community together. Well, at least he’s brought our two buildings together (that’s eight units), by building a community garden. I has an outdoor movie theater with a drop-down movie screen, speakers for great music, and a gaming center. It has little lights strung in the trees and a composter where I’ve been instructed to put the girl’s poop. Oh, and it also has a pond with a waterfall and a fire pit.

Everyone gathers there to listen to music or watch movies. I played a version of the Pac-Man game called Munchies. I was playing against a guy named DJ who kicked my butt. And if you know me, you know I’ve always claimed no one under age 50 can beat me at that game, but he did. Rum and cigars seems to be the flavor over there, and an abundance of animals come around the area. It’s magical.

Todd is my favorite because he has as special kind of talent. He forges metal. I hope to learn mold making with his help. He is extremely talented with his hands, and he can make, build or fix just about anything. So I believe we’ll be making assemblage pieces of art together. Jay Lynch will help us market them.

Yesterday Todd helped me build my little outdoor studio. He’s going to weight it down so it doesn’t blow away in the wind.

He’s also going to wire my outdoor space for electricity so I can cool myself or add a spot light.

I got up last night to go see the lunar eclipse, I walked across the little stretch of land that separates my building from the garden that Todd built, and people were still gathered there. When I told everyone why I was there, Todd ask Alexis when the event would be taking place. Sadly we had missed it. My point in telling you this is to explain just how equipped that garden is, and how it seems this community has made the most out of outdoor living.

I still have to complete my home office/art space. I have available about 180 sf of our 420 sf of space for that. My climate control storage for everything art is still a complete wreck. We will call it ArtCave from this day forward.

I hope everything will fit in that space so I can put my hands on my supplies when I need them.

I love this rock pathway that winds around here.

Getting down to Tiny living. It’s no joke.

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Well we moved 300 square foot worth of stuff that we’ve been living on over to the 420 sf efficiency yesterday. Mind you we lived just fine on just that stuff over the last 5 months.

Since April 20 I’ve been pairing down two completely packed floor to ceiling storage units. This efficiency apartment is where I worked to get it sorted.

My new efficiency apartment. Another round of pairing down must happen today.

What was left after this process was what I felt we should keep out of all the stuff we still owned. Mind you, we started this process last year in Ruidoso where I had a huge garage sale and we even sold all my furniture with the house.

If you’re going to do something like this you have to understand you can only wear one shirt at a time. You are extremely blessed if you have seven shirts so that you only have to do laundry once a week.

The rest of the stuff you have is just a heavy burden that keeps you from moving freely about the planet.

And trust me once you’ve been evicted from your life a few times you realize just how ridiculous it was to acquire all this shit in the first place.

This tiny live thang is no joke folks. You got to be ready to let it all go. It’s an emotional journey because you learn that no one wants your old memories.

My advice to the young? Live way below your means. It’s a blast to be able to move around your day financially free.

I recommend a storage for your seasonal stuff like ski wear, scuba gear, and suitcases. But only stuff you know 109% you will use again. (Store no memories)

My reward. And future home to my outdoor art studio.

I will not be selling my stuff this time. It all will go to a battered women’s shelter where there’s a new gal arriving almost daily, someone who was evicted from her life with only the shirt on her back and a child on her hip and one wrapped around her leg.

Selfishly I ask, when do I get to make art again?

I can feel my heart quake as I still have to build an outdoor studio space and still have to get 1200 sf of Art Cave stuff to fit into 300 sf in the cold storage. I will be donating extra supplies somewhere because again, I can only use one tube of white paint at a time. But truly I hope it fits. Lol I love my art stuff the very most.

FYI when this is all done I will still own too much stuff.

Gawd will this ever end?! lol

I’m beat.

My Art stuff in cold storage has to be organized into a workable studio.
Our summer river gear hanging on the outside.

Creating in tiny spaces is interesting

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I’m excited! I got my climate controlled storage unit for all my art related stuff today, so I’m setting up a little place for my art production.

I won’t work in there, but it’s a place where I can put inventory and unfinished projects to be completed etc. And it’s where I have all my paints that cannot live in hot spaces.

Making art in tiny living has its challenges, but having a little help like a climate controlled storage will make it easier.

I was juried into a group show that will be featuring birds, which is being offered since Bastrop was voted a Bird City. Trying to prepare for that in tiny living can be challenging.

Come play May 6 where I’ll be painting live at Nieghbor’s. On this painting I’ve titled it “Will we let our history fall into the River?”

The painting below is a painting that was made by a group of my artists in Las Vegas, Nevada. Let’s do something like this on May 6th!

Be sure to wear your paint clothes. I’m starting a group paint on May 6 that we can work on together. It’s going to be a birds-eye view of our river, I’m thinking. What will you add to this new piece?

This is the group that painted the art shown above. My talented brother Wyley Lynch, who was a very talented musician, used it on one of his CD album covers.

Monster High Painting is Complete.

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This is finally complete and Nicole Sligar has first right to refusal. Although it doesn’t look like it, it’s a flat canvas with a cutout window area. It’s 28″x28″x2″ in acrylic and loads of cute 3D objects added.

It’s called Monster High Doll House. It’s a one-off item (meaning we can not ever make prints of it) as I will not own the rights to Monster High once it’s sold.

The price is $1500 plus insurance to ship it, plus the cost of shipping.

® 2022 Jana’s painted Artist. All rights reserved worldwide.
® 2022 Jana’s painted Artist. All rights reserved worldwide.

God brings me beautiful moments often

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These moments for me are respites; they are breaks from a crazy, busy world. Sometimes I think I’m an animal whisperer.

This little horned toad just jumped into my lap
This wild raccoon I named Baby Rose just hanging out with me.
Deer watching me create. It makes my day.
Lady and Siisi Grace and a deer friend at the PaintedArtist Ruidoso.
Friends.
A little bird just landed on me and I got like 10 minutes with this baby ’til she said, “farewell, time to get off to the business of being a bird.”

From birds that land on my hand and stay a bit, to deer that leisurely hang with me for a while, we are drawn together.

Today I was blessed by a visit from a gorgeous moth as I was heading into town to get the greatest BBQ I’ve ever put in my mouth. It was so good I dream about this stuff. I got it at Billy’s Pit BBQ here in Bastrop. Seriously, that’s just how good it is!

This beauty has an eight inch wing span with a furry body.

God brought me an extremely special gift today. We had a nice long visit, well, at least in moth time. I got to view this beauty up close and personal for about a minute, and then just like that, he was off.

Thank you Lord!

My pocket book is happy

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Ok, we got the word.

This region had the greatest need for Store Director within the H-E-B company, so they put us here in Bastrop. Kevin will travel to various stores around this area for probably a year, or forever until they determine which store will be his.

That’s good news because we like it here.

We will probably need to rent a place in Bastrop for six months or so, maybe even a year.

Let the search begin. I wish I could just paint a place for us to live like I’m doing for my Monster High Doll. She’s a lucky girl.

I’m painting a bedroom for Monster High Doll to sit in.
Reference photo for her floor lamp.

Sherry Ann asked a good question, so I included it here: Is Kevin happy?

Sherry Ann, oh yes. This is an exceptional company. They want to make sure their leaders are fully immersed in their culture, and it’s a good one. H-E-B is very favorable to their workers. The money is great and the insurance is even better. Everything is great. I’m still getting over the shock that this area was not even an area where we applied for work. It’s lovely, and God must have a plan for us here. I know He does.

UPDATE:

We found our place! It’s 420 sf of living space, which is huge compared to the 300 sf we’re living in now. It’s a golf course hotel converted to apartments, I think there are 16 units. It has a floor-to-ceiling glassed-in atrium that I can see out from my bed. The ceilings are extremely tall. The bathroom sink and the kitchen sink are one and the same. Lol. Funny, tiny living is…but my pocket book is pleased, as we are hoping to build our final tiny home somewhere, some day.

Loads of beautiful outdoor living space. The guy who lives across from me built a water feature in front of his door. I can’t wait to have comfy outdoor chairs so I can listen to the lovely sounds.

Tomorrow I’m going to First Friday in Historic Downtown Bastrop to see if I can rent a studio art space in a co-op.

More stories to come about our strange, transient life. Thanks for following me!

My digs for the coming months.

Employee appreciation

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New art I painted for Neighbor’s Kitchen and Yard
Brandy, the best bartender in town! Go meet her!

It’s Thank You day for the employees at Neighbor’s Kitchen and Yard who tolerated my ass over the last four weeks. It’s been so much fun painting here! I can teach anyone to do this, so whatcha’ say we start an interest list? Who would like to learn to express themselves through art?

I started teaching art a few years ago in Ruidoso, NM at Jana’s Art Cave, my working studio. It became a tourist attraction for visitors looking for entertainment aside from skiing, hunting, and fishing. It was so much fun for all ages to enjoy together. If you guys are interested, I would love to do it again in Bastrop. However, I’m going to need a location.

Originals will be available soon on my new website that’s being built. You’re welcome to watch the progress at JanasPaintedArtist.com.

I hand signed the front and added a special note to each employee who assisted me over the last 4 weeks.

My Artists…you won’t believe what we are trying to build for you!

Sarah and Cameron are two really neato kids. They will rise to the top like cream in a butter churn!

The food is so good. Here is a bread-less Italian sub. It’s not on the menu but Neighbor’s Kitchen and Yard aims to please!

I can teach anyone to paint what they see with a twist of fantasy. I’m collecting an interest list NOW, Bastrop Texas. I need a location, but that’s usually not a problem. If you’re looking for exact, take a photo…’cause this class ain’t for you.

Student work from a 4 week paint class full of drink and eats over at Lost Hiker Brewery, Ruidoso NM