The Art Of Healing Creatively (Season 3)

Today, Tami and Le Nolie talk to Jennifer Pazienza, an artist who lives in New Brunswick, Canada and creates poetic and contemplative paintings. Jennifer lost both of her parents when she was a child.

"Since I was young, the natural world has been my haven for refuge and renewal. A compelling feature in my work is what’s not there - most especially humans. I want people to visually step into my paintings to explore and outfit them with experiences from their own lives. Through art I express my regard for connection, healing and love".

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Stuck Stops here.

I'm LW Nolah and today we have a very special interview with Jennifer Passienza,

The artist.

This is her elevator pitch in her own words.

Hi,

I'm Jennifer Passienza.

I live on Kenswick Ridge in New Brunswick,

Atlantic Canada.

I create poetic and contemplative paintings.

Since I was young,

The natural world has been my haven for refuge and renewal.

A compelling feature in my work is what's not there,

Most especially humans.

I want people to visually step into my paintings to explore and outfit them with experiences from their own lives.

Through art,

I express my regard for connection,

Healing,

And love.

Welcome,

Jennifer Passienza.

Great to have you.

Thanks for having me.

So,

Jennifer,

What I wanted to start off with is if you can tell us a little bit about,

You know,

Your childhood and your experience with toxic parents.

And we have what,

A 40-minute call?

I know.

Everybody wants 40 weeks.

They don't want 40 minutes.

No,

Actually,

No.

I'm actually glad we have the limited time because I'd rather get to the the other stuff.

Sure.

So,

I was born in New York,

New Jersey,

Grew up in Glomfield,

New Jersey to Italian immigrants.

My Sicilian grandfather built the house that I lived in as a little girl.

He and my grandmother lived on the second floor,

There's three family homes,

And we had the first floor.

I have an older brother,

Eight years older than I am,

And I suppose things started to go sideways,

Hmm,

At least in my memory,

Probably when I was around age six or seven.

Things may have been going on before that,

But I don't know how much awareness I had around it at the time because I do have absolutely wonderful memories from that time as well.

And I think as we talk here,

You're gonna hear me go back and forth between,

You know,

This kind of light and shadow in my story.

Sure.

In every case,

So,

They didn't have this language in 1962,

1963,

Which actually were the years my parents died,

But in a couple years before that,

This is what you're asking me about when he started,

My father would have been considered a functional alcoholic.

I think more appropriately,

A dysfunctional alcoholic.

I mean,

It was functional because he worked every day,

He never missed a day's work,

The old people in the neighborhood loved him,

He looked after them,

He was himself very artistic,

He was a wonderful dancer,

Blah blah blah.

But there were times when he drank that he would wake up and we'd all hold our breath because we weren't sure what mood,

Either we were gonna have ice cream or all hell was gonna break loose.

Wow,

That's scary.

Yeah,

And in those times when that happened,

I have to be very clear that my mother and my brother took the brunt of that.

He never laid a hand on me.

There was a time when he,

I remember him standing me on the kitchen table and saying,

You're a pazienza and you will not cry,

And so I didn't.

And that went on,

So I was probably seven or eight,

My brother then would have been like 14,

15,

And that went on until he died when I was eight years old.

So I.

.

.

Your father passed away when you were eight.

Yes,

In August of 62,

Well actually,

Actually the spring of 62,

My grandmother upstairs,

Those days they didn't have the word for dementia,

They called it senility,

She either walked out of,

Jumped out of,

Mistaken the window for a door,

Walked out the dining room window and fell to the pavement below.

That was April,

She was in a coma for two weeks before she died,

And then that August,

That summer,

My father went into the hospital for lung cancer at 55 years old,

And in those days they didn't have chemo and radiation and that kind of thing,

They carved everything out of a person,

Stitched them back up.

Anyway,

He died that August of 62.

The following,

That,

Later on that summer,

No,

Excuse me,

The following summer,

In that year without him,

My mother went in the hospital to have varicose veins removed and never came out.

She was in the hospital nine weeks,

And she didn't come out,

That was September of 1963,

I was nine years old.

So in the space of just a short time,

There were some pretty horrific things that went on.

That's a lot of,

Lot of scary loss,

Wow.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

But you know,

For good or for bad,

Growing up in an Italian Catholic family,

We went to the,

You know,

I was made to go to the funeral parlor,

Made to kiss their hands before they closed the coffin,

Went to the grave site,

Saw them,

You know,

Go into the ground,

And then Monday I was back in school.

Well,

You know,

I can continue because it doesn't end there.

I go to live with my aunt and uncle.

How long was it after their funeral that you moved in with your aunt and uncle,

Your mother's funeral?

Oh,

Almost,

So my mother's funeral,

She died September,

That's funny,

They both died in the last day of the month that they were born,

In September 30th,

So she was,

You know,

Buried a few days after that,

And it took maybe a couple of weeks.

I was,

My brother was still at home in our house,

Right,

And my grandfather was still upstairs,

And I was very close with the neighbor next door,

Who had a wonderful little dog I loved,

Prince,

So I was staying with her for a little bit,

And then a few weeks after that,

I packed a bag,

And I walked with my little suitcase,

Five walks,

To my mother's sister and her husband's house.

They were my favorite aunt and uncle,

Aunt and uncle at that time,

Until a couple years later.

My father's family was in Rhode Island,

So that was the closest family,

It was my mother's sister,

So yeah,

Not too long after that,

And they had an only child,

Which of course,

There's another story there,

But like we only have 40.

So let's just jump to that,

So you said initially it started out okay with your aunt and uncle?

Yes.

Then what happened a couple years after that?

I grew breasts.

Why would you do something like that?

I don't know,

It's just one of those things,

You know,

I mean I love them now,

They were,

They really got in the way then,

But you have to have a sense of humor,

At least I do,

And I hope I'm not offending anyone out there,

But for me,

I need to stay on the light side of this,

Otherwise,

You know,

It devolves into whatever.

So what happened around age 12 was my first experience with sexual abuse,

You know,

Swimming in the neighbor's pool,

In one of those above-ground pools,

I mean this is New Jersey,

So there,

The houses are cheek by jowl,

And there was,

You know,

Just a little backyard,

And these neighbors had a swimming pool and went swimming,

And it was the first time I encountered what we now might call an unwanted touch,

And that continued for seven years till I was 19,

And I put an end to it,

Which I can tell you about at some point here if you wish.

Who was it?

Was it your neighbor?

No,

It was my uncle,

It was the uncle I was living with,

Yeah,

And fortunately for me,

I just,

For your listeners,

Because you should know too that this is the first time I've discussed this in any kind of public venue,

And we'll talk about that too later when we write,

Because that's significant.

I was very grateful I was never raped.

I was constantly,

Constantly compromised day in,

Day out,

In a whole manner of ways of unwanted touch and forcings and so forth,

That as I said,

I put an end to at age 19,

I'll tell you here,

When he offered me $25,

000 to quote-unquote take care of the house,

Because my aunt by this time was dying from alcoholism,

And I basically,

Very calmly,

I can remember,

I remember exactly what I was wearing.

Do you have those moments?

It's so poignant that you can remember what you were wearing?

Anyway,

And it was a great pair of shoes too,

And I basically said to him,

You have one daughter,

She's living upstairs on the third floor,

Because this is another one of those three family dwellings.

I said,

Imagine if her uncle did to her,

You've been trying to do all these years,

And made her the offer you just made me now.

I mean,

Thank God I had a brain,

Right?

Like,

This is the part where you just have to say,

Right?

So fortunately,

He was coward enough,

I said,

You know,

If you ever,

Am I allowed to swear in this?

Yes.

We actually demand it.

We swear regularly.

So the quote is,

If you ever come,

If you ever fucking come near me again,

I will fucking kill you.

And the reason why.

.

.

Wow,

That's impressive.

That's God.

The reason why he,

I told him,

I said,

The reason why you're alive is because I haven't told my brother.

My brother,

This is New Jersey,

This isn't,

You know,

New Jersey,

Italian-American family,

If I told my brother,

He had a clue,

He knows now of course,

But if he had a clue about what was going on,

He would have had him killed,

Killed,

I mean,

It would have been awful.

So anyway,

So the,

The attempt of overt sexual misconduct,

I love these words,

That stopped,

But the following three years,

Every opportunity he had to verbally abuse me,

To embarrass me in front of my friends,

To call me a whore because I was working late,

I was working,

By the way,

Three part-time jobs and going to school full-time,

You know,

I mean,

It was just crazy.

And then finally,

In February of 1976,

In the dead of night,

I had had it and I just moved out.

I packed up all my stuff,

My brother came with me,

I didn't tell him the details,

I just have to get out.

We literally picked up my,

You know,

Stuffed it in my dresser drawer,

Dumped it in boxes,

And left.

My aunt,

Who was barely coherent,

Sat down next to me and said,

He's been getting funny with you,

Hasn't he?

Right?

Funny with you.

And I said,

No,

Are you kidding?

He's a jerk,

But of course he wouldn't.

All I was saying was I had to tell him.

So she had no idea.

Your aunt had no idea?

Oh,

I'm sure she had tons of ideas.

It sounds like she had some idea and she was kind of letting it happen.

Yes,

But it went on for eight,

So where was she and what was she doing when you were 13,

14,

15?

Okay,

Well,

Most of the time,

And you have to understand something,

I loved Josephine.

She was an amazing woman,

A gorgeous voice,

Wanted to be a singer,

Had her own creative life literally thwarted,

Stopped,

Annihilated,

Right?

I mean,

That was her big problem.

And she became an alcoholic severely.

So here I am living in their house.

I become kind of Cinderella,

Cleaning the house,

Figuring out what to make for supper when I get home from school in eighth grade.

Right.

So she's drinking,

Slowly drinking herself to death.

It was not pleasant.

It almost sounds like you became the parent to them.

Oh,

Absolutely.

All that literature on the reversal roles.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And also that idea too,

That somehow if I can just get it right,

If I can just do the right thing,

If I can just,

I can fix it and it'll all be okay.

Well,

We all know now that that's bullshit,

Right?

I mean,

That's just horseshit,

But you don't know that as a little kid,

Right?

Right.

We talk about that a lot here,

Actually about that.

If only I would have been smarter or more successful,

They would love me.

They wouldn't be so mad or whatever.

And we know it's bullshit.

So where did you run away to or move to?

I should say with your brother.

No,

I didn't go with my brother by this.

My brother wasn't in the house at all.

When my parents died,

My brother was around for about a year.

He quit high school,

Went into the Navy,

Did four years in the Navy,

Came out,

Went to trade school,

Was in our house for about a year.

It was a nightmare because my aunt loved him and my uncle hated him.

That's another story with my brother.

But he's wonderful.

He's a retired architect.

He's a beautiful designer.

He has a great life in Raleigh.

We're both extremely blessed to have the lives we currently have and have had for a good number of years.

But I left and went to,

I moved in with a friend I was waiting tables with in Clifton,

New Jersey.

And then that June I got married for the first time.

You say for the first time.

So how old were you?

I was 22.

So by the time you moved out on your own at age 22,

You had experienced abandonment by way of death,

Abandonment by way of alcoholism,

Abandonment by way of denial,

And abandonment by way of parentification.

You have alcoholism and abandonment by the way of denial.

That's a lot of trauma to process.

So when did your healing journey begin?

That's an excellent question.

I think,

I don't think,

Well,

Let me just say it in the positive.

I think healing journeys is more accurate.

I think there are multiple journeys and they happen sometimes simultaneously.

Sometimes they happen one follow the other.

From the time I was a little girl,

I was blessed with a creative spirit and my family,

In spite of the horrors I just described to you,

I grew up listening to Caruso records on my grandparents 78s.

I grew up with a mother who was a fabulous cook,

Very creative.

I wanted to be a dancer as the little girl.

There was no money for that.

So she would give me grocery bags to draw on.

So the whole time I had opportunities to draw and create.

And from the time I was very,

Very little.

And again,

As much as I believe in social constructions of who it is and what we are,

There's something to be said for biology.

I'm blessed with an optimism.

I'm blessed with a spirit that is optimistic and that I have a brain that didn't put me in greater peril than I could have been.

So all along I've had great teachers,

Good friends,

Other significant people in my life so that I could see there are alternative ways of being in the world.

There are ways that I could live that I didn't have to live like them.

Of course,

I was still stuck with the original script of getting married,

Having kids and so forth,

Which I tried several times and didn't work.

A big part of the healing for me was more recent in 2002.

I got a terrible stomach infection from too many ibuprofen take for menstrual cramps and wound up with H.

Pylori bacteria infection,

Lost 30 pounds,

Had a partial hysterectomy,

Wound up in the hospital,

Wound up with panic and anxiety.

And in the return,

In the recovery of that,

A very dear psychologist,

A friend and my psychologist introduced me to cognitive behavioral therapy.

And at the time I was also practicing awareness philosophies,

Yoga and mindful awareness.

And those things worked well together.

But one of the things we did early on was talk about post trauma because I didn't have the language of post traumatic stress disorder.

What happened was all my years I heard people say,

Oh,

You're so strong.

You've been through so much.

Look at what you've accomplished.

You've been working,

You've earned three university degrees and oh,

Wonderful you.

And then 2002 my body and mind broke down and all those mechanisms I have for living well in the world fell apart and I needed to put myself back together again in a way that worked and came to terms with that.

Yeah.

I mean,

I could always say,

Well,

Gee,

I wasn't raped.

So how bad could it be?

Well,

All those years of constant hyper-vigilance,

Right?

All of that came out in that 2002 experience of getting sick and getting well.

And I'm so grateful for it.

As a result I changed my teaching practices.

I understood,

I mean,

I would in my head intellectually understood the idea of mind,

Body,

Split,

But I understood it in my very being through that experience and have since that time in my painting life and in my life's life come to have a greater understanding of what happens in the mind happens in the body and we need to respect and honor that and keep that as healthy as possible.

Does that make sense?

Makes perfect sense.

Absolutely.

Say you've always been an artist and that's great,

But when did it play a role in your healing and how,

You know,

You say you were,

You're coming out of the hospital,

You went and got therapy kudos to you.

A lot of people are too afraid to do that.

When,

And if you give us details on the role art played in your healing,

You know,

After you've seen the therapist,

Because the creative augments what you did,

What you learned in your therapy.

But before I answer that,

I do want to reiterate that in preparation for this call,

I was thinking this morning,

And I actually thought,

What's my earliest memory of making art that had anything to do with my,

And I remember making the drawing in like third grade of visiting a hospital room.

Like it's,

What did you do on your summer vacation?

And I drew this,

That's my earliest memory.

Now in terms of my creative practice post 2002,

I don't think of going into my studio as a way of obviously healing.

I understand the healing after I make the work.

I make the work because that's what I'm called to do.

I'm called to paint the world outside my window,

Asks me to recreate it in some way,

And I work.

It's only on reflection that I understand if any coming to wholeness,

Which is what I understand the healing to be,

Pulling the fragments of ourselves together into some kind of cohesive and sensible whole.

It's only after that.

And in my conversations with Dr.

Maurice Boulet,

He,

It was interesting.

He said to me,

It's so fascinating.

Like I look at your work and I would never think for a moment that you sustained any of the things that you've sustained when I look at your imagery.

Since that time,

I've been thinking a lot about the meaning and value of my work.

And sometimes I question maybe like a lot of artists,

How could it have any meaning beyond myself?

And I've come to understand that,

That if you look closely in my work,

There are tensions.

There are places of uncertainty.

There are places of doubt.

There are with the light,

There is shadow.

And the only way I know how to answer your question about when or how is that with all of the work leading up to 2000 from,

From childhood and everything post 2002,

I've come to understand that I am just healthier,

More whole,

More solid,

More grounded,

More centered,

More,

More,

More when I'm painting,

When I'm making.

So did you,

After 2002,

Did you paint more or differently or both?

Well that's another interesting question because these things don't happen in a vacuum,

Right?

Because in 2002,

I physically,

I literally couldn't work on a large canvas.

My husband bought me little six inch squares and I was making little tiny paintings,

Right?

Of Sicilian fruit and so forth.

Anyway,

In 2005,

2006,

I started,

I signed on with a gallery and,

And that's when I literally said,

Okay,

If I'm going to do this thing as an artist,

The way the world is,

Then I'm going to do it.

It's now or never.

So I started showing my work and I would say from 2005 to 2014,

That was my primary mode of publication as a university professor because remember we're expected to publish and do conferences and the rest of it and I had graduate students and all of that.

I was artist in residence in that time,

At that time for the,

Our provincial gallery at the Wiebewick Art Gallery,

Which was wonderful,

2007.

That paper I sent you,

Beautiful Dreamer,

Landscape and Memory,

I started writing it then,

Which talks about this whole experience.

And then I retired in 2014,

Six years ago.

And by that time,

My studio,

We built my studio in 2007,

The one I'm in now,

I used to paint the front room and the living room,

Which was fine.

So slowly things context shifted to make it even more possible for me to work more steadily day and every day.

So the last six years,

I've really sort of gone for it,

If you will.

That's wonderful.

Jennifer,

Would you say that before you had the illness,

The stomach illness,

Would you say a lot of the decisions you made,

Including when you say the first time you got married,

Were kind of like a result of the way you lived your life,

Sort of like maybe blindly,

Not knowing exactly what the trauma that you had suffered,

Like not knowing exactly where you were going,

Would you say that up to the point that you had the stomach illness,

That's sort of where you were,

Like making decisions that weren't necessarily always right for you?

The easy answer is yes,

But let me just say it's something like this.

I don't think you have to sustain the things that I sustained to have a situation where you're scripted into a life and you don't have other models,

Other ways of being in the world.

I joke about having married several times,

But it was in each of those marriages that I was trying to figure out who I was and what could possibly be.

So the first marriage was to a painter,

A wonderful painter.

I had no clue how to do that.

I left New Jersey for Pennsylvania.

We were married six months,

It fell apart.

Fast forward,

I married a Pennsylvania State Trooper.

I had a bowling ball.

I had a microwave.

You know,

I had a house with four bedrooms,

But I was,

And I was teaching public school art,

But I wasn't making art in that period.

I tried to,

But it was too much.

Suddenly I decide I want to go back to school.

I applied to graduate school and the world of ideas opens up and my love of learning and all of that opens up and the marriage falls apart.

I leave with what I can get in my car and $300 in my wallet.

Left everything behind,

The house,

Unfortunately the dog.

Go to Penn State,

Start my master's,

Stay on for the PhD.

I'm near and I'm determined to just be on my own,

But still no models for how to live alone,

Right?

So toward the end of my PhD work,

I meet this incredible,

We're good friends,

So if he hears this,

He'll love it.

Jim Stewart,

I married Jim Stewart.

He's a broom maker.

He makes beautiful handcrafted brooms.

We marry.

I get my first university position in Texas.

Excuse me,

Let me back up.

I get my first position in Texas,

Texas,

University in Lubbock.

He comes down for Christmas from Pennsylvania.

We marry on Christmas Eve.

I leave Texas for Wisconsin.

He doesn't want to come with me.

University of Wisconsin,

Milwaukee,

That's 88,

87,

88,

88,

89.

89,

I moved to New Brunswick to Canada to start my job here.

He comes here for a visit,

But says,

I'm sorry,

I just can't move here.

And I said,

Well,

I'm sorry,

I can't do long distance.

That was the last marriage where I made decisions like that.

I was determined to,

I had my dog,

I moved into residence.

I was a don in a women's residence.

That's what the British term,

Not the Italian one.

And then a few years went by and I fell in love with one of my best friends.

And he's the man I've been married to,

Have been with for 27 years,

Jerry Clark.

He was the Dean actually.

The Dean who hired me and the man who married me.

That's great.

So the journey ended,

It ended well.

It ended well at this point or it's on the right path.

Absolutely.

What are your thoughts to motivate a listener to say,

You know,

I can fix this because you came from way more trauma than me.

And it's not a comparison.

It's more like that holds a lot of value to say you healed,

You have recovered and you took a lot of the steps that I took and that I talk about to get to that point.

Sure.

First of all,

If you don't mind,

I'm not comfortable with the word advice,

But that's just me.

I know I couldn't think of a better one for the moment,

But you're right.

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

Not a criticism at all.

Tammy,

Not at all.

It's just that all I can do is tell you what my story is there,

But here's the thing.

No one's ever asked me that question before,

By the way.

So you're hearing it.

I'm hearing myself answer it for the first time I've come to understand that healing is not a fixed thing.

It's a dynamic thing.

It's an ongoing thing.

It's a relationship that we tend to daily.

And so to anybody listening,

First of all you know,

What do you want?

Ask yourself what you want and if you want to have some things be different in your life,

Maybe think about how can you get support for that?

I was blessed when I,

I mean throughout my life,

That's what I mean.

I've had people around me who were stronger,

Who showed me alternative ways of being.

When I got sick in 2002,

We didn't have any integrated health facility,

But I managed to have a yoga teacher and a psychologist and a naturopath and a GP and a terrific husband and a loving,

That I could put it all together,

Right?

And begin to work on the process of building myself back up or not even back,

But recreating myself in a way that was somehow healthy.

And to understand it's ongoing and to not beat yourself up.

I have bad days.

I have days where somebody says something to me,

You know,

Those issues,

They underestimate and suddenly I'm annoyed.

Oh,

I feel left out.

Oh,

I feel overlooked.

I mean those small things that can pop up just easily.

I do heartily recommend,

And it may not be for everyone,

But just take a look at the literature on CBT,

Cognitive behavioral therapy.

And it's,

It's,

It's something that works so beautifully with a whole other range of therapies and faith traditions.

It works beautifully with yoga practices,

With those kinds of things,

But it helps you to see how,

How it is when we say certain things,

Frame things with certain kinds of language,

That language can either make us feel good or make us feel bad.

And once there's an awareness about that,

It's really cool.

I'll be at a dinner party and I'll hear people saying things and I'll think to myself,

No,

That's all or nothing thinking.

Hmm.

No.

Oh my goodness.

Not judging.

It's not about judging.

It's about just suddenly hearing it,

Like having this awareness.

And when you begin to practice that,

I think there will be great benefits.

The other thing too is,

What do you love?

Is there something in your life that,

That,

That you love,

That,

That you love doing,

That you love doing for others?

I think being able to move outside yourself too,

Not always looking inward,

Looking out about where you can give,

What you can be grateful for,

What you can give to others is a huge help in,

In healing and staying whole.

I don't know.

Is this?

No,

It's perfect.

Cause I,

I say this all the time and you just said it in a different way coming from the,

You know,

Entirely different experience,

Which is,

Is fantastic.

You know,

It sounds like the inner conversations you used to have with yourself prior to 2002 are very different than the inner conversations you have with yourself today.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I mean the,

The other thing I need to say too is I have,

I can remember significant moments where in my faith practice,

My notion of God figured big,

Always.

I remember my mother,

If you look at my work,

My mother saying to me,

You see that sky,

You don't need a priest,

You don't need an anybody.

You just look at that sky and you talk to God.

I remember learning that on the back porch,

Looking over top of my mother's garden and into the sky,

The rooftops.

I can remember being in early days of graduate school and stopping my car,

Leaving a restaurant I was working at and saying,

Dear God,

I'm not doing great here.

I just need some help.

Like I can remember those moments of turning and I,

And it's been that way ever since.

I absolutely believe that there's a greater,

There's a greater something,

Somebody than me in the world because my experience tells me that that has sustained me through my life.

So that's another.

Jennifer,

Who encouraged you to paint?

Early on my earliest memory would be my mom because in our kitchen,

And I say this in an intro,

Another interview,

She'd be frying eggplant and draining them on torn open brown grocery bags.

And she'd hand me a grocery bag that Brad would say,

Here,

Go paint,

Go draw.

Right.

And I would,

And I would.

And then of course,

As I moved through school,

In undergraduate school,

I had to take painting and drawing and all the other things.

And it was in drawing,

It was in painting class that I started to paint,

But it was really,

Really in graduate school in my PhD work that I met beautiful American abstract painter.

He identifies as Native American,

Afro-American painter.

Richard Mayhew was my professor.

And he came over very quietly one day to me,

He said,

You know,

He said,

You may want to get rid of that tube of Payne's gray on your palette and try a limited palette.

I'm seeing something in your work.

And it was a game changer for me.

And I've been exploring that ever since in his words of the spiritual in my work,

He's identified the spiritual in my work.

He started to give me language in a way of actually looking at what I was doing with meaning that it mattered,

Like it mattered.

So those are,

Those are some of the folks.

And of course,

My,

My gorgeous husband,

As I said,

He was the Dean who hired me early on.

We were,

I hardly knew him.

He was the Dean.

I was a very young professor.

He poked his head in my classroom and he said,

When are we going to see you painting again?

And I said,

What do you mean?

He said,

Well,

You know,

In our collective agreement,

We have the creative work as part of research.

When are we going to see you painting again?

You interviewed with your paintings.

So,

Wow,

That's wonderful.

We're going to put links in the show notes to all of your work.

And I really encourage listeners to go and check it out.

Her work is stunning and breathtaking,

And we couldn't be happier to have Jennifer on today as our special guest on the Stuck Stops here.

And honored that you would share your story with us.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you,

Jennifer,

For joining us.

Well,

I just have to thank you both,

But I have to thank Yolky because it was because of Yolky that we're doing this.

So we have to absolutely thank her.

Another great artist,

My sister.

That's right.

My friend.

So Jennifer,

Please stay safe and healthy.

And we hope everyone that you know and love stays safe and healthy as well during this time.

And to you and yours.

Thank you,

Jennifer.

That was our interview with Jennifer Pozzianza,

The artist.

What do you think,

Tammy?

What a great and incredibly inspiring story.

I mean,

She was handed a bucket of misery.

And even though it took a while,

She was able to turn it around and live a productive life.

She handled it like a very strong woman.

Right.

And even though it took surgery,

But she came out of that and,

You know,

Sort of rebuilt herself even later in life.

And I think that's something that's the biggest takeaway.

That is not too late.

Yeah,

It's true.

It didn't you know,

It took her on this journey and on this,

You know,

Path that was kind of like a very windy,

You know,

I mean,

I guess in life there is no direct path to wherever we're going.

It's always a windy road.

But,

You know,

There are places that it took her that it might have been different had she not experienced what she experienced,

But it did bring her to the point where she's,

You know,

Feels like she's arrived at where she wanted to be.

And yes,

I always say the healing journey is not linear.

She said the same thing.

But that doesn't mean it's not worth it.

Right.

Very true.

Very true.

Well,

I think that was a very awesome interview.

And I really encourage our listeners to go to the links in the show notes and check out Jennifer's art.

It really is her her landscapes and her her work is you can really feel the emotion in there.

It's very breathtaking.

Can't wait.

And we'll definitely have her on again soon.

Awesome.

Very good.

And with that,

We're going to say goodbye to this episode of The Stuck Stops here.

And we will speak with you again soon.

Everybody stay healthy and safe.

Nothing I feel was ever really tired of being your next me.

Steal the blame inside you.

Heal the shame that finds you.

When the chains go to me,

When I ask for the key,

Time to let what's real find you.

I believed everyone else could fly.

Swallowed whole by what we deny.

All the dead monsters made us lose our way.

I hate what I love.

I loved it anyway.

We disappeared inside the bitter.

Living under everybody's feet.

I crashed my life over and over till I found a road so sweet.

Steal the blame inside you.

Heal the shame that finds you.

When the chains go to me,

When I ask for the key,

Time to let what's real find you.

When the chains go to me,

When I ask for the key,

Time to let what's real find you.

Reviews

As Jennifer’s story unfolded all one could think of was all the sadness and loss she endured at an early age. What a life journey she has been on to get to where she is today! So beautiful and inspiring. Feel good story for the day!!! 💜