Jane Nowlin

1942-2023

 

Pensacola art member Jane Nowlin, 79, was our Queen of Show and Share. How we enjoyed seeing her exquisite watercolors and hearing the stories behind them. How eagerly she shared them.

She was our Queen of Gratitude and Enthusiasm. How moved we always were to hear her speak, as she often did, of her appreciation for being a part of the Pen Woman sisterhood and the support and inspiration we gave her.

Jane survived breast cancer and heart surgery, but passed away unexpectedly on March 9, 2023, from complications of a procedure to restore her heart rhythm.

It was always such a pleasure to see her at our meetings, and especially at the February meeting, where she chatted with many of us, stood up to speak of how great it always was to be among us, and showed us a new watercolor. She spoke to me of her upcoming procedure, and we parted with a hug. At 9 p.m. the night before her procedure, she texted me (which she had never done before) that the surgery would begin at 7:30 the next morning. She requested prayers. She wrote, “I’ve had God’s peace in a big way since this began.”

In our 2016 anthology, Nobis, Jane wrote, “I love working. I love painting and drawing. I love form, design, and compositional problems. … I use my studio nearly every day … to paint, sometimes to plan, sometimes to read. My outlook on life is sunny, so my art is considered sunny, high key, and happy.”

In Nobis, we also discovered that she was born and raised in Texas and was the only one in her family interested in art, not to mention that she didn’t love country and western music, and “this was even more of a sign that [I] was a rebel.” However, a stepfather, also a “sort of an odd duck” because he loved to draw and paint, too, shared his art knowledge, supplies and studio space with her but “complained that [she] talked too much.  … Imagine that.”

Jane had a fantastic sense of humor and a refreshing tell-it-like-it-is style.

After high school graduation, she joined the Navy in 1961 where she met her shipmate Linda, with whom she lived since 1967 and subsequently married. They loved to travel in the United States in their RV and visited many countries in Europe. They especially enjoyed going to art museums everywhere. Boston’s MFA was Jane’s favorite because of its large selection of Monet paintings. Attending workshops was a favorite way to learn new techniques and study with new teachers.

It is so fortunate that Jane attended our meeting on Feb. 28. It meant the world to see her, as it turned out, one last time. It hardly seems possible that we will never see her again.

At a meeting a few years ago, she approached me with arm-waving enthusiasm. She had a story to tell me and I just had to write a poem about it. I did write a poem about it, and Jane later painted a companion piece, a watercolor of a little lizard, for a branch collaboration with me a couple of years ago.

I hope that poem I wrote, “Landscaping,” gives a glimpse into the spirit and soul of this wonderful woman, talented painter, and valued Pen Sister, whose absence we will always feel. We love you so much, Jane.

— Submitted by Karen McAferty Morris

 

Landscaping

By Karen McAferty Morris

 

Her watercolors tint the page with bluebonnets

scattered below a sandy hill, woods aglow in autumn,

ponds and mountain streams. She loves the earth.

 

Today she is removing old landscaping timbers

from her garden, soft and rotting from years of warm

summers and rain, worn down by holding on.

 

Healthy again, with a new cloche of short silver curls,

she uses a trowel to lever off the top boards, then

carries them out front, only a little short of breath.

 

She kneels to resume the task, but pauses to inhale

the cold late-winter air. Clusters of clouds merge to

turn the sky whale-gray, azalea buds are swelling.

 

Prying a length of wood from the soil, she spots

something beneath it, a pebbly white oval, thumb-

sized, an egg, exposed from its dark, secret repose.

 

She reaches for it, fingers exploring its leathery,

pliant surface. Its sudden tremble startles her,

it seems to fold, and two tiny claws tear through.

 

A newborn lizard leaps from the hole and darts

away, its agile black body disappears into the

grass. She has disturbed it, upset nature’s plan.

 

She should not have touched it, her curiosity, her

fascination, essential to her art, may have damaged

it. What if its birth was too early, will it survive?

 

She will never know. But already her imagination

is forming the picture she will paint, its delicate

colors creating another lasting moment of life.