We recently connected with Lisa Federici and have shared our conversation below.

Lisa , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

Earning a full-time living from creative work can be a difficult task. When the time came to pick a path or a career the desire to be a creative was strong, but my options were not many. I desperately wanted to be something creative but I was never the most talented artist in the room, I did not have access to unlimited funds and was being pressured to choose something stable and secure. Even though I was getting outside pressure to pick something outside the art field I was convinced that I could find stability and security in being something creative if only I could find my way. I went to college, but there I struggled. I transferred schools several times, looking for a place where I felt comfortable, and a major that I felt fit.

After college, I dabbled in the fields of photography, graphic design, and page layout, working for a major NY newspaper, and a swimsuit designer. It wasn’t until I fell into a career in health care/pharmaceutical marketing I knew I had to follow my passion and come back to a job in a creative field. I decided to pursue a master’s degree in the area of art education. I knew then that my passion for art could be applied in a way that would not only benefit myself, but also influence the lives of many others, be stable and secure, and offer me a way to pursue an artistic practice of my own, something that was becoming more and more important to me.

Being a Visual Arts Teacher is an amazing experience and job opportunity. Getting to work with students every day, seeing their inventive ideas come to life, and helping them become their most creative selves is something that I cherish. While finding and keeping an art teaching job is not always easy, due to budget cuts and other circumstances, it is absolutely one of the most fulfilling and gratifying careers one can have. Making art every day and passing on the creative pursuit to others is exceptionally satisfying. Seeing someone create something from inception to completion, knowing that you helped guide that process, is amazing. I am so lucky and fortunate to be working in a field that I love doing a job that I love.

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.

As a visual arts teacher, I teach a variety of art classes in a public High School on Long Island, NY. Teaching grades 9-12 I teach Studio in Art, an introductory art class, Sculpture, a 3-dimensional art class, and Digital Art, the introduction to the Adobe Creative Suite. I have been in the field of art education for over 15 years. As a dedicated art education professional, I am extremely involved with the professional organization NYSATA (New York State Art Teachers Association), serving as the Co-Chair for Nassau County. Being involved in the school community, and beyond, has always been very important to me, and so has passing down the craft of teaching. I have hosted several student teachers and student observers, Being an art teacher is more than just going to work in a school and teaching kids how to draw or paint, it is advocating for students’ best interests and the importance of art education.

Being an art teacher allows me not only to work with students, and advocate for their best interests, but it also gives me the time and freedom to have an artistic practice of my own, which is extremely important to me. My body of work is primarily figurative and anatomical. Using a mixed media approach that highlights pieced and sewn together recycled sari silks. I sew together my pieces by hand and machine into crude facsimiles of quilts which I call “Bastardized Quilting”. By using the silks, along with sari ribbons and other materials typically relegated to “women’s work” and “craft,” I’m able to establish strong feminist themes within my work. By sewing the materials into rudimentary likenesses of the human figure and anatomy, I play with the juxtaposition of traditional women’s roles and modern technologies here and across the globe. My hope is for the viewer to have a visceral reaction to their own body and allow them the opportunity to investigate my work for its nuances and textures. Engaging the viewer, so they can experience and interpret the materials and the human form in new ways while exploring the female experience. I am most proud of the fact that I can maintain a healthy and robust personal art practice while still being devoted to a full-time teaching career.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Growing up and throughout my career, I have not been the most talented artist. I’ve had to work hard to get where I am creatively and artistically. In middle school, you had to be picked for art in the 8th grade, I was not picked. In high school you had to be picked to take Advanced Placement Art as a senior, again I was not picked. These were definite knocks to my confidence as a creative. When it came time to go college I was not getting into an art school. Again, my passion for art was there, but my ability and skill level were not. When I finally settled on a school and a major it still did not feel right. At the time, going to a liberal arts college and focusing on graphic design and photography I felt as if I was a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. Bouncing from major to major, school to school, and later from job to job was taxing to my creative confidence. It was not until I found my way to art education that I felt like I could be my most authentic self. Practicing the craft of art every day alongside my students improved my skills and abilities significantly.

Something else I felt that was keeping me back from being my best artistic self was that I had not found “my medium”. Experimenting with various materials, it took a very long time to find a medium that fit. It was not until my sister introduced me to recycled sari silk ribbons that I was able to come into myself fully as a creative. These recycled silk ribbons, which are intended to be knit or crocheted, are sourced from women’s collectives in India and offer the women who gather and prepare them an opportunity for self-improvement and financial gain. Not being able to knit or crochet well I was determined to do something beautiful with these materials. Using them to construct anatomical and figurative pieces, or “bastardized quilts” was new to me, apparently the art world. No one, to my knowledge, is using these materials, in this way. Finding this medium has allowed me to learn to trust myself and be confident in what I’m capable of.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, the most rewarding aspects of being an artist or creative is sharing my passion and love for art with my students and developing relationships with them that go beyond the art room. Giving students the opportunity and space to be creative, have a safe space to express themselves, and be themselves is so very fulfilling. In addition to being able to create and make daily, having the chance to show and share what I make with the world both personally and professionally is an incomparable feeling. Being given the space to express myself artistically is a gift that I am most grateful for. Having a sense of community and meeting like-minded people has been an immeasurable experience. I was once told that I was “so far out there” that I was “never coming back”. At the time I found this offensive, but now I realize that “out there” is where all the best people are.

Contact Info:

• Website: lisafederici.weebly.com
• Instagram: [email protected]

Image Credits
Michael Hardgrove