The Alices are restless.

They want to be released into the world, so here we are, tumbling down the rabbit hole into a story of multitudinous meanings and a heaping helping of malarkey.  The combination is quite irresistible.

Congratulations to Dotty, Robyn and Niki!  Your comments about transformation landed you in the winner's circle, where Wonder Mike and Lilly insisted you all win an original piece of art.  Hooray!  Send you mailing address to the shipping hounds at thewanderingsofllola@gmail.com and your treasures will be on the way.  Thank you so much for your participation!

There is a new Reader Giveaway each month this year...stay tuned for June's giveaway - coming soon!

I have always been dazzled by transformation.

Whether it was rearranging the living room furniture as a kid (which my mother, for some reason, never minded), painting a wall, cutting off (or growing out) my hair, even simply pulling weeds to make a patch of the garden look better - something about transformation makes my eyes light up.  I understand Marie Kondo's desire to tidy.  Except I see it as magic.  Perhaps it is the hope that accompanies visible change.  If I can change this small thing, maybe I can also influence that big thing to be different.  And by different, I mean better.  Safer.  Happier. Rut-less.   

 And, well, if you want to go all out, you can always change your name. :)

It's time for the May Reader Giveaway!  Leave a comment below describing a moment of transformation (or the hope of one to come) in your life.  One (or more) lucky reader (s) will be drawn at random by the giveaway team of Wonder Mike and Lilly to receive a small piece of original art.  Hooray!

Coming soon!  A Song for the Hunted, a new collaborative on-line show with the amazing mosaic artist, Helaine Abramson.  Details and sneak peeks coming in June.  Get ready to get WILD!

I have blamed my own mother for many things.  In fairness to me, she was an abusive and critical alcoholic.  In fairness to her (the benefit of hindsight, information gleaned after her death, wisdom and the passage of time), she was doing the best with what she had.  I now imagine her somewhere being loved, encouraged and held; smiling and content.  She might have loved me, had she herself been loved.

As for me, I was not a perfect mother.  Not even close. There are many (so many) things I would do differently had I known what I know now.  But I loved (and still love) my kids.  Fiercely, strongly, over protectively, probably. As the pendulum swings from one extreme in one generation to the opposite in another. 

But it makes no difference, I realize, the mothers and their methods.  In the case of my mother to me, and me to my own children, she simply must be to blame.​  

As with most of the pieces that emerge in the studio, I had no idea what this one's story was at first.  She stared at me from the wall of finished and drying pieces for over a month.  That gaze, that hair, those odd beings hovering near here.  What the heck?  And then she whispered modor....and I knew. 

Which got me to thinking, when in my own life (creatively, professionally, personally) have I remained trapped in a metaphorical tower while the path to freedom was right within my grasp?  And oh, dear reader, there are many times.  The "towers" that trap us might be in the guise of security, predictability, fear of (insert any word you'd like here), or the things we've been told (and come to believe) about our own strength, talent, tenacity and creativity.   I think I build my own towers, mostly.  Fortunately, there have been people along the way who have opened my eyes to the ladders hanging from the windows.  And now and again, I've cut off all my hair.

I am in a bit of a conundrum.  Puzzling through the path to growth, happiness, flow and finding it increasingly a journey un-embraced by others.

This happens in art just as in life - people love a style or subject matter and are disgruntled when the artist wanders away from it.  Change is unsettling, unnerving, sometimes scary.  And in life, when people love you for being a certain way, they may get jumpy when you grow into a new version of you.

In the poem, Gill grabs this concept and anchors it to my very bones - there may be snowflakes (or sundogs, or eclipses) in my eyes - I am becoming another season.  

In this painting, the motion of the ever-changing landscape spins within the very bones of a tree, which transforms even after the final winter of its productive life.  It is never too late; you are never too old for transformation.  No matter what others may say.

It is April and this morning it snowed.

In the studio, the wild god continues to nudge and prod - there are directions I'm heading in which are mighty peculiar.   The inspirational can of worms has been opened and the horse is out of the barn.  I fall asleep visualizing brush strokes and color.  I awaken thinking of  composition and subjects, stories and themes.  Oh!

The A.I. bot and I are heading down the rabbit hole of fairytale and fantasy.  If only I could paint faster!  And yet, the whole point is to paint more slowly.  

Perhaps the morning snow is a message - slow down, Lola.  It's too soon to put away mittens and boots.  

Here we are, at the end.

The end of the exploration of Tom Hiron's wild god and all the poking and prodding and demanding it has made of us - a gut-check and a reminder to nurture our passions.  Oh and Oh.
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There is something deeply satisfying about creating a body of work in response to a poem.  Beginning last summer with ​Nudge - Shove with Sylvia Plath's poetry and artist Helaine Abramson, the unfurling of a thread between the words, the thoughts, the emotions and the arts became a lure, a whisper, a nudge.  (Helaine and I will travel this path again, we think!  But view last summer's exploration here.)

Wandering with Hiron's wild god in the paint pushed me places I've not been, and also renewed passions I had let wither a bit.  Not dissimilar to the wanders my husband and I take in the wilds, where the ways are difficult but the payoff is placing your feet (and eyes and ears and skin and heart) places where you've not imagined before. Oh again.

The full poem and the paintings it inspired are gathered for viewing here.  A solo exhibit, of sorts.  My cheeks are wet with tears, my mouth aches from laughter and shouting.  A minotaur sits in the paint.

We're so near the end of Hiron's poem.  Are you listening to the snakes in your arms yet?  Hiron's wild god wants us to inhabit our passions - to nurture and protect our unfettered creativity.  The words are visceral and rightly so.  It resonates deep within my bones.

Just one more piece to this poem, which has kept me company in the studio for a couple of months now.  It has prodded, poked, stabbed and shoved.  I will miss its daily prickliness.  And yet, I am now  holding a knife, a bottle and a handful of black fur.  A beast emerges in the paint.