Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lisa Daria Kennedy. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Lisa Daria, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
One of my projects that has meant a lot to me is my daily painting project. I’ve been making one small painting every single day for the last 5,400 days and counting. After fifteen years, I’ve no intention of stopping. Having cancer as a young adult, I discovered living is not just surviving. Young and faced with an existential crisis, I questioned, who am I? What does it all mean? Psychologically, existentially,
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I got where to where I’m at today by starting out in college in graphic design, I loved the field but was also interested in illustration, so I continued on to receive my BFA in Illustration and then later on, well after the start of the daily painting project, I went back to school for my MFA in painting. from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston where I’m an Associate Professor of Illustration at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and Design Editor for Mount Hope Literary Journal. When my daily painting is complete, I work on larger, narrative paintings in varying styles and content. I also study and create work on the topic of Graphic Medicine and Diary Comics. Currently I’m completing coursework on Media and Medicine; How to Tell Stories That Make a Difference. I also enjoy working one on one with artists and teaching workshops on creating daily practices, called Embrace the Practice. As a traveling workshop artist, I teach at art centers, studios, and museums specializing in daily practice techniques called Embrace the Practice, as well as workshops that use observation as a launching point.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
The value of a specific art-making practice as in the The lifetime commitment to an on-going work of art, and art as a daily human practice is my driving mission. For me, the routine practice is both grounding and freeing, it’s an insistent act of documentation and with it, offers a way to make sense of it all. The on-going nature of these paintings leaves the viewer rooting for the next day, while the parameters keep focus on the day to day.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
Making Your Life as an Artist by Andrew Simonet The Art of Activism by Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
What It Is by Lynda Barry
Contact Info:
- Website: lisadariakennedy.com
- Instagram: @lisa_daria_kennedy
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisadariakennedy/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisadariakennedy/
- Twitter: @lisadaria
- Youtube: @lisadariakennedy1483
- Other: Daily Painting Archives https://www.dailypaintworks.com/Artists/lisa-daria-46 http://lisadaria.blogspot.com
Image Credits
Joe Berkeley