About Jill Levien

I draw. I doodle. I fidget anxiously with my hands. I experiment. I fall in love with a process and then I get bored. The mind wanders. I stare and observe with big eyes. I think about computers and the English countryside; a landscape filled with stories from my childhood, sheep, dank wool and warm pubs. I crave the glorious taste of salt crystals in cheese, rich dark chocolate and I smile thinking about the joy of finding a ripe tomato hidden among stinging nettles. The thorns that prick when I pick a plump autumn raspberry do not hurt. In the fall before a storm,the humid tropical air feels electric as I stand on rich dark soil that nourishes carrots and dark leafy greens. Dirt reminds me of buried history and past wars. Wars feed the theater I love about Kings. There seems to be no shortage of fighting. Fighting stopped and the whole world paused fearing something smaller than a grain of dust. It was peaceful until it wasn’t. The interval was too brief. The toddlers among men went back to building and destroying. Those actors were babies once, with breast milk dripping down drunken cheeks. My younger self never imagined love would be this powerful or painful. Now as I try to fight physics and ponder what gravity is, I try to quell the feelings of inadequacy. I lose myself in mathematical topologies. Death; how easily life can be snatched away. Will this duality exist on other planets? Space is expanding. Nothingness.