This time I’m talking with artist Lisa Solomon. Lisa lives in Oakland, California, where I was very lucky to visit her a couple of times pre-pandemic, after being online friends for about 15 years. Lisa works in mixed media and across genres from intimate self portraits to huge installations, often directly addressing issues around identity and personal histories. She also teaches at university level and has written a number of books too. We had a wonderful long chat, which I hope you will enjoy listening in on!
Lisa Solomon resides in Oakland, California with her husband, teenager, an assortment of oddball rescue pets, a garden, a backyard studio, and a bevy of art supplies including: many, many spools of thread (Gutterman is her favorite), quite a collection of embroidery floss, and enough watercolor to last for the next five years (she hopes). She received her BA in art practice from UC Berkeley, her MFA from Mills College, and has been an Adjunct/Visiting Professor in the Bay Area for twenty years. Her layered mixed-media works and grand-sized installations often utilize unconventional mediums, humor, and color to explore gender, identity, and personal histories, as well as the nature of art and craft itself. She has exhibited internationally in a multitude of venues. As a Hapa (her mother is Japanese, her father Caucasian), she sees hybridity—in materials, in concept—as integral to her practice.
When not focused on her own work, Solomon likes to think she is pushing the next generation of artists to refine their skills, think beyond accepted techniques, and reflect on their own lives, including the potential political ramifications of just being an artist/maker in our society. She is profoundly interested in bridging the gaps between being creative, living creatively, and making a living as a creative.
Play here
Download the full transcript here
Find Lisa’s work
website :: www.lisasolomon.com
instagram :: www.instagram.com/lisasolomon
a color meditation deck – follow up to field guide :: www.roostbooks.com
a field guide to color – my book :: www.roostbooks.com
creativebug :: www.creativebug.com
artists take action:: www.instagram.com/artiststakeaction/
#chromasfchinatown is up thru may 2024 at Edge on the Square in Chinatown
Under The Same Sun — edge on the square
We’ll be collecting items for chroma 2025 in JAPA starting next year – so please stay tuned for that
– + – Walter Maciel Gallery – + –
Find Your Focus
Finding Your Focus is an holistic & mindful approach reviewing your year and thinking about your creative life. We cover core values and why you do what you do, review the last year, decide your own criteria for success and only then create your gentle goals or guiding lights which will give you focus over the year. This workshop includes 5 pre-recorded video lessons and accompanying workbooks. The new course starts on 3rd January 2024 and includes a live Zoom Q&A session with me half way through the month. Join me here
Ruth Singer 
Let me know what you think