We were lucky to catch up with Lisa Hendrickson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lisa, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Volunteering is an important part of my retired life. Serving the housing challenged and food insecure communities in Philadelphia and Camden, NJ, I volunteer with several organizations that practice “radical hospitality”. At these organizations, volunteers and staff focus on interacting with guests vs. just offering transactional services. Personal conversations create a feeling of belonging and recognition in a world that is often blind to those less fortunate. Something I have learned through my work is the sense of invisibility that clients feel to the world around them. Making eye contact with those that are homeless, acknowledging their presence, helps them feel seen rather than invisible. Inspired by Dorothea Lang, Hung Liu, and Leroy Skalstad whose works visually tell the stories of people experiencing adversity, I searched for ways to connect my art practice with my community volunteer work, hoping to use art to raise awareness about the societal issues of homelessness, gun violence, and gender equality.

Most proud of:
My first foray into creating socially conscious art was with the Alice Paul Institute (www.alicepaul.org), a national non-profit organization focused on fighting for gender equality. While serving on their board, I created several works featuring Alice Paul and Ida B. Wells (both important suffragists and activists), to use for marketing and fundraising purposes.

Beginning in 2021, I started working with the Souls Shot Portrait Project based in Philadelphia (www.soulsshotportraitproject.org). Artists create portraits of local victims of gun violence in partnership with their families to tell their personal stories and honor the memories of those lost. Each artist meets directly with a family to learn about their loved one’s accomplishments, interests, and dreams. This information is used to create sensitive, meaningful portraits that strive to bring joy and peace to the friends and families of victims. The group of portraits travels to various locations around PA & NJ with the mission of highlighting the terrible consequences of gun violence in our communities.

In 2021 I started creating portraits of those in need with the hope that the portraits would inspire empathy and insight into the issues of homelessness and food insecurity. Because of this work, I was awarded the 2024 Kathryn Pannepacker Fellowship by the Da Vinci Art Alliance (www.davinciartalliance.org). This fellowship provides an opportunity for an emerging artist to curate an exhibition exploring social, political, or cultural content that engages local communities in the DVAA gallery space. The concept for my exhibition is to challenge the definition of physical beauty by sensitively rendering faces with character on unconventional materials to make compelling, beautiful art. My hope is that the exhibit will: generate empathy and awareness to the growing societal issue, educate the surrounding community that despite their current situations every client has a rich story to tell of families, hopes and dreams, and give clients a feeling of self worth. With the focus on eye contact, tight portraits of clients or closely cropped images their eyes will be displayed alongside written statements about their lives, hopes, & dreams. Portraits will be created using nontraditional supplies including cardboard, newsprint, and cork to show that beauty can be found in ordinary, “invisible” materials.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My love for creating things began at a young age. Born and raised in suburban Chicago, I began painting and drawing in high school, often inspired by old family photos with their sepia shades and vintage costumes. I excelled in art classes and my parents even allowed me to take a live nude drawing class at the Art Institute of Chicago. My dream was to become a fashion designer, which I did, moving to New York City after college. Although it was a creative field filled with textures, patterns, colors, and sketching, my long working hours and small New York apartment did not leave time or space for fine art projects. After a 30 year career in the apparel field as a senior level executive in product development and merchandising, I retired in 2017.

Upon retirement, I resumed my fine art journey by setting up a workspace in my home and began to awaken my dormant art skills. As my confidence grew, I began taking in person classes at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, Wayne Art Center, and Fleisher Art Memorial studying painting and mixed media. Then COVID hit and I had all the time in the world but was stuck at home. Luckily the art world quickly pivoted towards online learning and I was able to take live Zoom classes for a year with several terrific instructors continuing to hone my craft.

Experimenting with oil paint and mixed media, I try to visually tell the stories of people and places I have experienced. Heavily influenced by human expression, my work strives to capture the mood and emotion of the moment. I paint people and places with interesting features which reflect their rich histories and lived experiences. Closely cropped compositions and strong lighting are often an important aspect of my intimate, almost invasive portraits. The process of creation inspires me to experiment with textural techniques including work with palette knives, mixed media collages, stencils, and metallic paint. Vintage photos of everyday life often serve as subject matter with their imperfect images telling stories of the past. When choosing the medium for a portrait, I take into consideration the subject’s personality and interests, trying to capture their overall aura. Using unusual materials including cork, newsprint, torn paper, and cardboard also give my work unique characteristics.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Creating artwork can be both frustrating and fulfilling. Sometimes everything seems to come together easily and the piece works on all levels. Other times it feels like little is working as I create and it is frustrating to keep reworking areas or colors. But often, my freshest works are the ones where I overcame “road blocks” by experimenting with new methods; sometimes making “happy accidents”. Seeing a piece come to life from a blank page to a fully evolved portrait that captures the spirit, personality and likeness of the subject (whether it is a person, pet, place, or photo memory) is very rewarding. My art practice has introduced me to new groups of people, new ways of looking at my surroundings, and new skill sets which keeps life interesting.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Put an increased value on the importance of creativity in all facets of life, starting in school. Instead of just offering art classes, which can be intimidating for some students, make art a part of many class projects. For example: in a civics class have students design & make posters, in a science class have students print fabric using cyanotype dying methods, in a math class have students learn about the Greek Golden Ratio. In the business arena, companies should seek employees with innovative thinking/ creative solving problems skills vs. being solely focused on hiring for specific technical skills. Innovative new products serving the needs and/or desires of consumers drive revenue faster than cost cutting and maintaining the status quo. Integrate art activities as a part of everyday life by: buying original artwork for your home, taking children to museums, teaching children to make things instead of buying things, attending indie/experimental creative experiences to expand perspectives, and supporting art funding with donations. 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lisahendricksonart.wordpress.com/
• Instagram: lisa.hendrickson.art

Image Credits
All photos were taken by the artist