Life is going to take you wherever it wants—so you might as well play along the way

Hi, I’m Lisa. I’m an artist, writer, and proud owner of a free-range brain. My mission is to celebrate this weird and wonderful life. My weapons of choice are painting, essay, and comics.

I also like cheese. A lot!

Those of you who actually read bios know that this is the part where people share a list of their accolades. Unfortunately, I have never been on the New York Times bestsellers list nor received a Guggenheim Fellowship. I have never been asked to be a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Oprah or anywhere else.

Not even one of those tinny-sounding podcasts people produce in their basements.

But no worries! Being 60, I’m old enough to realize that all the things I thought mattered when I was younger don’t matter so much after all. (Though, of course, I would welcome and enjoy the things I mentioned earlier, if they were to happen.)

In addition to painting, writing essays, and drawing comics, I enjoy travel, taking my grandkids to the zoo, and eating pretty much everything from tweezer food to brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts.

In addition to my special affinity for cheese, I’m pretty crazy about chocolate, ice cream and pastry. So all the major food groups.

Some other stuff about me:

My dream job, other than writing this blog, is to work at Lucas Film or be a Disney Imagineer. Though at this point, the ship has sailed on both of those.
One of my hobbies is to wander the produce section at the international market to locate and examine exotic fruits and vegetables—Including some that I have no idea how to eat or cook with. It’s more fun than you would think.
If anyone has any recommendations for what to do with dragon fruit, please let me know.
I once spent the better part of a day on Apple.com studying and breaking down their copywriting tricks. And then I bought an iPad I didn’t need. Which proves that their copywriting is extremely effective—and did indeed deserve to be studied.
I love TV and movies. I love up trying to figure out what the heck is happening on Severance, feeling superior to the awful rich people on The White Lotus, and mocking any character played by Seth Rogan.
Does anyone know when the next season of Bridgerton starts?

It took a long time to get here

My passion for creative projects started early on. When I was a kid, I drew, and painted, and macramed, and decoupaged, and embroidered. When I was in third grade, I decided I was going to be a professional candle-maker. Kudos to Mom, who was a neat freak, for putting up with puddles of molten crayon and paraffin all over her stovetop. She understood how happy making things made me.

But by the time I was in high school, fear had crept in.

When I was young, my father said I needed to pick something and become the best at it, and I could see that I wasn’t the best artist in my high school. And if I wasn’t the best in high school, how could I possibly be good enough to make art my career? Ditto for my writing for the school literary magazine. I was pretty good, but not good enough, I thought. I decided that continuing to pursue art was a waste of time.

I ended up studying architecture in college because it seemed like the best of all worlds.

Architecture was creative and a business where you could earn a living. I reasoned that this direction would please both me and my parents. Dad was happy with my choice but eventually I discovered that my heart just wasn’t in it. I remember looking around the office at my co-workers one day during an internship in an architect’s office. All of them were drafting up the principal’s ideas—except for the principal who sketched ideas for an hour or so every morning before turning his attention to sales. Nope, I thought. Not one of them has a job that I’d like to have.

Architecture eventually led me to the tradeshows and corporate event industry.

This is where I spent most of my career. My writing skills made me invaluable in content marketing and after a few years, I was able to launch my own freelance business.

My plan was to work on my business part time and create art the other half of my time.

It worked for a few months, until my inner critic used a critique from an art teacher as an opportunity to hijack me. “You will never be a great artist,” he said. I quit my art classes and refocused my energy on my business. Soon, my business was doing well enough that I was able to support my husband, daughter, and I—without being tied to a location.

We moved to Peaks Island, an unbridged-Maine island.

I told myself that this would be my big opportunity for a reset—to live a creative life. My husband took over the island ice cream and souvenir store on the island and I made homemade fudge sauce for the sundaes. On the island, we were surrounded by writers, musicians, and artists of all kinds, so it was easy to weave art practice into my life while keeping my business going—if not daily, at least in spurts. I had some essays and food writing published and attended lots of writing workshops. It gave me great joy, but I still had a sense that because I wasn’t making any money from my art, I was wasting my time. So my day job continued to be my #1 priority.

After a decade, it was time to try something different, so we moved to Decatur, Georgia.

I self-published a mini-memoir, My Mother Served Gouda When Company Came. After reading Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, I got inspired to pick up a pencil and start drawing again. I drew comics for a while, then transitioned back to painting. I also started a novel about the goddess Athena. I just couldn’t shake the urge to create. But I also couldn’t silence that little internal critic who kept making me feel guilty with his accusation that I was wasting my time. He said my day job was what I was best at—and that I should continue to invest my energy there.

It took COVID (and the resulting loss of my tradeshow industry clients) for me to realize that I’d been wrong.

It happened when I was cleaning out the dresser in the extra bedroom. I was sitting on the floor, sorting the contents of four drawers filled with paintings I’d created over the past three years. As I surveyed my work, I became giddy remembering the fun I’d had creating each piece.

It was a walk down memory lane in the best possible way. I grinned—hard. And I probably shed a tear or two, too. It didn’t matter what my paintings looked like. Each one embodied just a little bit of me and a healthy dollop of joy.

I saw that all of the courses and workshops and hours painting and writing had not been a waste of time.

The measure of the value of a piece of art you create isn’t what someone else will pay for it. And it isn’t how good the work is. The measure of the value of a piece of art YOU create is how much bliss YOU feel while you create it. And if you get joy from creating, it is NEVER, EVER, a waste of time.

I also realized that I’d been living the creative life I wanted all along.

I’d just never given myself permission to enjoy it without guilt. To think of myself as a creative. Well, I thought. Now is the time. LET THE ENJOYING BEGIN…

You probably think that the next thing I’m going to tell you is that I quit my day job and am now pursuing art full time. That hasn’t happened—and it might never happen. I’m not even sure if I want that to happen. Needing to earn money from my art to pay the bills might just squeeze all of the happiness out of it. If there is one thing that being house-bound because of COVID makes you realize is that bliss is precious and the sources of that bliss need to be nourished and protected.

What I have done is given myself permission to elevate the importance of art in my life to be equal to earning a living.

Once I’ve made enough money to pay the bills, the rest of my time is MINE.

Of course this shift requires an ongoing dialog with my internal critic. For someone tiny and invisible, he is very persistent. But I’m working on that too. And little by little, I’m making some headway with him. I’m sure they’ll be setbacks. There always are. But right now, things are looking really good!