Interview with artist Lisa Thorpe
Lisa Thorpe is a mixed media fabric artist who describes herself as an explorer and observer. Her elaborate, fascinating, and often inspirational art quilts are in a way, personal travelogues. Lisa is also a highly sought-after educator, teaching and presenting at local, national, and international art quilting venues and on several television quilting shows. More of Lisa’s work can be found at her website lisathorpe.com.
AAS: Lisa, are you originally from Arkansas.
LT: I was born and raised in rural Northern California and lived there my entire life until 2.5 years ago when I moved to Little Rock.
AAS: Do you remember your first exposure as a child to art and being creative?
LT: I know I was exposed to lots of experiences of making art and creating. I spent a lot of time making “clothes” for my dolls, I loved paper dolls and drawing. One of my most vivid memories of seeing myself as an artist was when my mom was at a watercolor retreat in Yosemite Valley, and she set me up with a small, stretched paper on wood at a little easel. I had to be around 8 years old I felt very moved by the meadow and the rock and sky. I squeezed out an enormous glob of Cerulean blue – my mom gulped but let me proceed painting the most vivid blue sky. That painting has been lost to many moves but lives on in my memory.
AAS: Your art incorporates sewing, stitch, printing, and painting. When did you begin incorporating all of these elements, and more, into your art pieces?
LT: Most of my young creative endeavors were connected to fabric and stitch. As I mentioned, this took the form of clothes for dolls and me. My grandmother lived with us growing up and she and my mom taught me embroidery, and tatting (a kind of knotted lacework). My mom made all the special occasion dresses for my sister and I and I soon began sewing clothes for myself. When I went off to college, I looked for a design program with clothing and fabric as an emphasis. I found it not far from home at UC Davis. I was a Design major and had classes in dying, screen printing, weaving, pattern design and construction. I really learned deep stitch skills in my on-campus job as a seamstress in the costume shop of the drama department. I worked for a very strict traditional costume Mistress who stressed traditional clothing construction. No short cuts and no sloppiness. I worked there 20 hours a week for 4 years.
Since my college days, I have continued to explore fabric printing and dyeing techniques and I’ll try any medium that will give me the effect I’m looking for. For example, somewhere along the line I began spray-painting with stencils on my fabric to create pattern and layer. The digital era has opened up the possibility to print photo images on fabric. I do this sometimes using my home inkjet printer and sometimes uploading images to a fabric printing service if I want a larger image.
AAS: I have to ask you first about Again And Again We Are Invited In. It is an astounding piece. Every time I look at it I see something new. Did you have the overall concept pretty well solidified when you started it?
Again And Again We Are Invited In, 72” x 36”, mixed media fabric collage including photos on fabric, hand printed fabric, hand and machine stitch
LT: As I said, I moved to Little Rock 2.5 years ago. My family moved when my husband got a new job that he was excited about – but it put me into a big reflection mode about – who am I, what am I doing, what do I want to say…. I spent a lot of time in my first six months here walking different neighborhoods taking pictures of everything macro and micro in my new world. I found that I had been taking lots of photos of doors and I was especially drawn to open doors. My neighborhood had had a bunch of teardowns - homes torn wide open, doors thrown wide, piles of bricks and stones of broken entry ways kept filling my phone - they looked like how I felt. I began organizing photos in my phone by theme – I found an abundance of doors and hands that I had photographed again and again. That phrase “Again and Again” seemed to roll around in my head for a while as I began to imagine what this piece might mean. I decided the doors and open hands were an invitation, a welcoming. I just needed to choose to enter.
All the photos are from my new life in Little Rock. I selected the photos to use in this piece and uploaded them to a fabric printing service because I knew I wanted it to be large. I wanted it to say both solid and crumbling at the same time. I began with the central image of the buildings first and stitched the smaller hand and door images next. I chose to use some commercially printed fabric stitched in rows as a nod to traditional quilting, a connection to the quilts my foremothers made. The printed floral shapes are stamped on tea dyed fabric and I put those down after much of the rest was set – I felt it needed some softening - some movement. I had an idea of the red thread at the beginning, but I hadn’t worked out how to achieve the effect I wanted. There are so many layers of fabric that hand stitching through all those layers was not possible, so I devised a way to machine stitch lines then by hand loop the thick red threads to create the motion and idea of convergence – again and again - merging into my backlight image of me at the threshold.
AAS: Shadow Me is another extraordinary piece. I am guessing it tells a very personal story?
Shadow Me, 56” x 42”, mixed media fabric collage including photos on fabric, hand printed fabric, hand and machine stitch
LT: This piece is born again of my noticing. Noticing my shadow on the pavement, noticing the shadows made by the metalwork of an old fence and railing. The peeling paint of a handicap parking spot. How everything can seem like a sign if you are looking for something. I have a book that I love called “Dictionary of Symbols” that I love to pour through. I kept thinking about the human urge to communicate and the ways different cultures organize ideas, and I began putting some of my favorite symbols in my sketchbook to remember. This got me thinking about the signs and symbols in the world around me and in my own body, the beating heart, the breath, the hand outstretched. We are such temporal beings – here for such a short time, peeling paint, shadows, moving clouds. When I was working on this piece, I found myself digging in a box of old photos of the photo of El Capitan at Yosemite (included at top right) that was taken by my grandfather the month and year of my birth. It seemed like another sign, a message from beyond telling me to savor this existence, that life is short, look for the signs – they’re everywhere.
“All my art is a story. “
AAS: Your art really is about telling a story, isn’t it?
LT: All my art is a story. Most of my work begins with a word or phrase or poem that I have scribbled down in my sketchbook. These ideas poke and prod at me until I can’t ignore them, and I begin to formulate a visual to translate the feeling or idea of the words. That’s almost always how my work begins.
AAS: Another of my favorites is Na’amah of the Ark. A very different feel and I love how you crafted the background. Why that story?
Na’amah of the Ark, 72” x 36”, mixed media fabric collage including photos on fabric, hand printed fabric, hand and machine stitch
LT: This Is the untold story of Na’amah of the Ark. She is my imagining of the wife of Noah. I am a church going, questioning, feminist Episcopalian. Even in this liberal leaning church I am frustrated by the lack of representation of women. I stumbled upon the mention of Na’amah as the name given to Noah’s wife in some obscure Jewish midrash literature. I thought this was a story that needed to be told. So, I chose to tell the story in the best way I know how – in fabric. I imagine her as the sower and saver of seeds. All those animals would have to live off of something once the waters receded didn’t they? Noah didn’t do this thing alone. I wanted her to be both this biblical character and a universal earth mother character both specific and universal. I wanted this piece to invigorate viewers to wonder what other stories have been lost and obscured. I wanted them to imagine what those stories could be and tell their own versions to repopulate the pantheon of stories with new interpretations and images and representations. I have used this piece as a jumping off piece for forum discussions at several churches to discuss representation, specifically in Judeo/Christian context.
You asked specifically about the background. These are botanical prints done using leaves and grasses placed on a soft gel printing plate that was rolled with white acrylic paint. The botanicals serve as a mask leaving the shape of the leaves on the hand dyed green fabric. This places Na’amah in a natural world that she is called to nurture.
AAS: You have done a number of pieces that are about empowerment. Insist is one of those with an important message. It also really shows off your design and technical skills.
Insist, 18” x 24”, mixed media fabric collage including photos on fabric, hand printed fabric, hand and machine stitch
LT: I did a series of three small pieces in the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling striking down Roe v Wade, Insist, Resist, Persist. Reeling from the knowledge that young women in large swaths of the country, including Arkansas, would no longer have a right to self-determination about their own body and thus their own personal life trajectory feels like a call to arms. What am I armed with? The ability to create a visual image that I hope has visceral impact. I chose photo images I have in my phone. The image of my shadow over a red strip of hand dyed fabric felt was filled with new meaning in this context. The stop sign in my neighborhood “all way”, the reflection of trees in a puddle, red branches on a brick wall, all speak to a disorientation. I also included pages from old books and an image from a medical book of a female reproductive system, a palm reading chart, a dictionary page, a sign language lesson book and tarot and loteria cards. Finally, my own scanned hand as if to say I am real, I have rights, I can’t be ignored. There are 12 images in a 4x3 grid printed on fabric and stitched with a deep red thread. There is an overlay of sheer rust-stained fabric and indigo dyed swatches that have raw edges and loose ends and serve to convey those feelings as well. The word insist is spray painted, then stitched in silver thread. These three pieces, Insist, Resist, Persist, are meant to show both a sense of despair and call to action.
AAS: You have been teaching and presenting at national and international art quilting venues, you have written for a while, and were even a featured artist on The Quilt Show in 2022. What do you like most about teaching and why do you think it is so important to share your knowledge and expertise?
LT: These days most of my teaching is with quilt guilds at quilt conferences and in quilting magazines. These include a lot of folks that come from a traditional quilting background. So, what I’m offering in my workshops and lectures is a way to create that is still in the context of a quilt but with personal voice. I teach classes on monoprinting, block printing, and putting photos onto fabric, plus fabric collage. All these classes empower the participants to create something new and unique to them. There is never a pattern (this can be wildly scary for traditional quilters) I just give, and guide through all the elements and principles of design for them to each find their voice. When this happens in a group it is always exciting and wonderful to see all the variations that come from the same table of materials and day of content. I always learn something from my students – sometimes it’s a traditional stitch technique that makes something easier or sometimes it’s in the questions asked that help me learn how to be a better teacher.
I just finished taping 4 segments for Quilting Arts TV which will be available to view on some PBS channels this fall, and I have a technique article coming out in the fall issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. I teach virtual classes online via my website lisathorpe.com throughout the year and I’m teaching at the International Quilt Festival in Houston this fall, at Virtual Craft Napa in January and all around the country for quilt guilds and some church groups as well. I’m excited to have made a local connection with the Stitchin’ Post quilt shop here in Little Rock and will be giving a lecture and teaching there in early 2024. I hope to teach and show more locally, as the travel is starting to wear on me. As a newbie to Little Rock who moved during the pandemic, I’m still in the process of building connections and networks here in my new home – so if anyone out there knows someone you think I should meet for teaching or showing I would love to hear from you – go to my website lisathorpe.com to the connect page.
AAS: Lisa, what advice to you have for artists trying to discover their own artistic voice?
LT: One thing I found in this big life change and move to Little Rock was that I feel most grounded when I’m connected to the inspiration in my everyday life. I began attending more closely to what sparked my interest. I take pictures of the strangest things, shadows on a wall, reflections in a puddle, the light on a window. All these things provide information and inspiration. The act of organizing these photos in albums of commonality such as – “shadows”, “branches”, the color “red”- help me tune into what I’m seeing and responding to. These particular images may or may not make it into a piece of art but they inform me about what is speaking to me. I also keep a sketch book that is a lot of words, poems, quotes and scribbled unformed sketches. Sometimes I’ll print out some photos from my phone and write around the edges in a free unedited stream of consciousness way. The sketchbook sits on my bookshelf – when it’s time to create I pull it down, say hmm – this is interesting or look I’ve commented on this multiple times perhaps it’s time to pay attention. Don’t think that your thoughts or feelings or ideas are too specific and won’t be interesting to others… they are. There is always something universal in the personal.
