A glimpse into your mind.
Imaginary gardens growing, twisting, concealing.
Only you know what you’re looking at. Only you dream the dreams inside your brain.
Shifting visions of flowers, vines, and songs all tangled up in knots.
Colors and shapes blend and germinate…
When you’re staring off into space with that faraway look in your eyes.
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In progress shots:
Details and view of stitching from the back
New embroidered watercolor painting. Subtle white thread on flowing blended blues.
Stitched pathways, tender trailing touches, cold air.
Meandering through quiet beauty, snow under starlight.
You can follow me, but I don’t know where I’m going.
DEPTH OF MOUNTAINS
5″x7″ watercolor on paper 2019
Following shadows. Don’t look back, look inside. Old paths leading you astray. Was it just a dream? Mountain and music inspired.
Works in progress…
“It’s all the unwordable things one wants to write about, just as it’s all the unformable things one wants to paint” -Emily Carr
“Neural Pathways” 5×7 inches watercolor on paper.
Inspired by neural pathways/neural plasticity/brain function. Sort of an abstract/colorful representation of neuroscience. (Nothing about this is actually scientific haha, just my own artistic interpretation)
Home by Sunset, 5″x7″ watercolor & ink on paper
5″x7″ watercolor on paper (left) 18″x24″ watercolor on paper (right)
Digitally-manipulated version (below)
Three versions of the same painting, “The Music Became Honeyed”.
Abstracted nature. Petals, leaves, branches, hills and mountains fragmented, re-imagined and arranged into a fluent composition.
I loved this composition so much, I did it in two sizes (both slightly different of course) and then manipulated it digitally to create a new kind of harmony within the painting. The result was a unique, entirely new symmetrical/mirrored/balanced piece.
Do not copy or reproduce any images without permission.
Leave a comment below or contact me here if you wish to purchase this piece.
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“Found Dancing, Push the Sky Away”
Watercolor on paper (5×8 inches on paper)
This is one of my favorite pieces that I’ve made this year! The composition just appeared naturally and effortlessly from a spontaneous under-painting. The flow of shapes and colors just makes me happy to sit and stare at.
(In progress photos– under-painting and peek of color swatch/notes during the painting process)
*This painting is available, contact me if you’re interested in purchasing!
I painted/designed the cover for this beautiful book full of empathy, fierce women, and a touch of magic realism…
Have you ever read a fiction book with a chronically ill main character? (Probably not, right?) Any young woman with an invisible illness/disability will see herself in this book, and anyone else will gain some much-needed insight into the lives of women who are “still sick”.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been asked that question, too- “You’re still sick?” goes hand-in-hand with “but you don’t look sick!” and “get well soon!” after you’ve just said you have a c h r o n i c illness. Yup. Thank you [sarcasm].
Find more about it on the author’s website (which I also helped design!) or purchase her book on Amazon, etc!
I went many years trying to hide my illness. I didn’t want to appear like I was complaining or exaggerating (which I think is very common particularly for young sick women who are often dismissed as “faking” symptoms), and I didn’t want it to define me. I wanted people to remember me for my work, my art, not as “the sick girl”.
But I did myself a disservice by doing this. Illness is a part of me. It has shifted my priorities and dictated my time. I would spend however long my body allowed me to “act normal” and then I would go home and collapse. I would have to recover from doing normal things. I had to schedule my time so wisely.
No one knew in my college classes that being there that day meant I would not be able to cook dinner that night. That the energy I expended on learning and working those couple of hours would mean I’d spend the next day holed up in a dark bedroom waiting for a migraine or some other unbearable pain to lessen. I had to plan my days around tasks like showering (if I did that before class I might faint while standing waiting for the bus, so I’d try to shower the night before, etc etc etc…. endless planning of things most people don’t even think about. #spoontheory)
Looking back, I wish I had shared more with my friends, family, professors, etc. Perhaps if they were open to learning about chronic illness, I could’ve helped spread some empathy. They would’ve been a little more understanding of the next person they met. Perhaps they would consider that just because someone doesn’t LOOK sick, doesn’t mean they aren’t. They would know that despite what popular movies and books portray, illness does not end in only death or miracles. Sometimes you get sick and just stay sick and that is your new reality.
I no longer want to hide my illness. Years of misdiagnosis meant years of extreme suffering. But I am finally beginning to heal and want to share all parts of myself and my art, not just the pretty end products! There is so much more to come!!
Thanks for reading,
xJenna
Left: “Discordant” watercolor 5x7inches.
Dripping, flowing jewel-toned notes of music. Experimenting with new layering techniques. Loving this bright color palette of olive green, red violet/magenta, and deep golden yellow.
Top Right: “Place Undreamt” watercolor 8×10 inches.
Shapes in constant motion, forming abstract dreamy landscapes and blooming colors.
Bottom Right: “In Your Brain?” watercolor & ink 8×10 inches.
Inspired by turning music into art.
Some details and before/afters of paintings I’m currently working on.
“Quiet people have the loudest minds” – Stephen Hawking
Details:
Shapes inspired by ocean plants. Muted, pastel colors composed in an organic puzzle of shapes joined and fit together.
xJenna
Lyrics from “Spinning Away” by Brian Eno & John Cale:
“Up on a hill, as the day dissolves, with my pencil turning moments into line…I have no idea exactly what I’ve drawn. Some kind of change, some kind of spinning away, with every single line moving further out in time”
“Lush Melodic” Jenna Decker 2018
(watercolor on paper, 8.5 x 12 inches)
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Another music-into-art work. Shapes and colors composed to visually represent music. I think there’s an interesting sense of motion in this piece, moving from the detailed layers at the bottom (which could translate to individual notes in a piece of music) to the free-flowing shapes at the top (which represents more of the emotional component and over-all feeling of a certain song).
xJenna
“In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.”