Creative Conversations with Lisa Parsons of Forager Studio

Tell us a bit about yourself.

Hello and thank you so much for inviting me to share a bit more about my creative journey. My name is Lisa Parsons and I’m a fine artist who currently divides my time between two provinces, my home province of Ontario, and the rugged shores of Newfoundland, Canada. As much as I don’t necessarily like artwork being compartmentalized or defined by a label, I would describe myself as an Abstract/Expressionist, with a primary focus on atmospheric landscapes and seascapes. I occasionally explore figurative work, as I am drawn to examining the similarities between the female form and natural landscapes. In addition to being an artist, I am blessed to be a partner, mother, daughter, sister, and friend. My days are filled with hikes in the forest or by the sea with my dog, Luna, countless hours in the studio trying to get it right, and living life through a lens of love and hope.

Tell us a bit about your creative journey - how did you get to this point?

As a child, I grew up in a creative household, a creativity that was largely born out of necessity. Both my parents received very little formal education and worked in traditional blue collar jobs. Money was scarce to say the least. Not to be defeated by circumstance, they used what we had to create a home. My Mother was an incredibly talented, self-taught textile artist. Her quilts were meticulously sewn using salvaged fabric, clothing, and linen. Each quilt was a visual story, a comforting legacy of people, places, and time. My Father was a skilled, self-taught carpenter, able to manipulate wood into functional, beautiful pieces, to turn lemons into lemonade. I learned early on the value of repurposing things, the joy a new colouring book and crayons held, the importance of making the world more beautiful around us. This creative foundation paved the way for my lifelong love of design, architecture, and art. While working full time in Special Education, I pursued my love of art on a part time basis by attending night classes at a local university. I completed numerous courses in art history, fine art applications, printmaking and textiles. In addition to this formal education, I was so fortunate to be mentored by a few well known artists in our area, namely master watercolour artist, Lynda Giles. These experiences solidified what I’d known all along – my life’s purpose is to paint.

Can you talk a bit about your work and the ideas behind it - what inspires it?

My paintings are simply emotional interpretations of places I’ve been fortunate enough to visit, rather than actual depictions. Nature continues to be my greatest source of inspiration and influence on my work. When I first started painting, I focused primarily on still life painting and soon realized that this wasn’t sustainable for me. It was difficult for me to emotionally connect to the subject matter, therefore, impossible to translate onto canvas. Transparency and authenticity is of utmost important to me, inside and outside of the studio, and I hope it shows in my work. To paint what doesn’t move me, what doesn’t connect with my spirit on a visceral level, is futile. I decided early on in my art career to remain true to myself, and each day as I enter my studio, my focus is never on the finished product, but rather pouring out my deep love and connection with the world around me. My only hope is that the viewer experiences an emotional connection to my work and that my minimalistic colour palette and understated lines, evoke a sense of calmness and belonging.

How do you fit your studio practice alongside your everyday life?

I truly am a creature of habit and my days are quite structured in nature. Whether I’m in the studio, teaching an art class, or mentoring online, each day begins the same – Luna, my camera, a green tea, and a hike. I find this time exploring my surroundings, these moments of solitude, an essential part of my art practice. As I rarely work from photos or other image sources, these visual experiences are the foundation to my art practice and the inspiration for most of my paintings. Once back home, I either have students come to my studio for class, mentor online, complete administrative work, or prepare pieces for shipping. I reserve the afternoons for my private studio practice, appointments, shopping, coffee dates, and family time. I typically wrap up my work day around 5PM when I take Luna for another short hike, do necessary housework, and prepare dinner. Evenings are largely spent with my partner and creating digital paintings for clients to review.

What’s your greatest joy/biggest struggle as an artist?

Without question, the greatest joy I experience as an artist is the happiness I witness when people deeply connect with my work. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully articulate the emotion I experience when someone ‘gets’ my work. I accepted a long time ago that my pieces aren’t easily relatable for some people, and that my use of muted colours and tendency towards minimalism can be misconstrued as depressive in nature. Truthfully, my work comes from a place imbedded in joy, contentment, gratitude, and wholeness, so when a collector emotionally connects with my work, I feel understood, accepted, and valued as an artist and woman. As a socially introverted person, these connections have paved the way for me building confidence and acceptance within myself like no other way.

I'd love it if you could talk about some of your recent work…

In late 2019, after months of struggling with a lack of motivation and purpose, I experienced a significant revelation in my life as an artist. The revelation was twofold - first, I knew I needed to find a way to merge my two greatest loves - art and photography and secondly, I needed to make significant changes towards achieving my goal of having a more environmentally sustainable art practice. So after some in depth research and self reflection, I began the process of creating mixed media pieces using photo image transfers and began making my own paint using naturally sourced pigments. The learning curve has been steep on both fronts, but I'm thoroughly loving the process and am excited to create again.

How do you manage social media? You are one of the most encouraging people on the platform, always offering your praise and encouragement to others and I would love to know (and share with others) how to manage this?

Since becoming a full time artist four years ago and jumping on the social media bandwagon, I've certainly learned a lot about myself and humanity as a whole, but the one thing I know for certain is this - WE NEED ONE ANOTHER. I decided early on that the role social media was going to play in my life was one of providing support and encouragement to others, and although a lack of time, algorithms, and a global pandemic has resulted in many obstacles, my desire to support and encourage fellow artists remains unwavered. In the interest of transparency, I openly acknowledge that social media has been a great platform to gain exposure and to sell work, but in order for it to be sustainable for me personally, it needs to have deeper meaning and purpose in my life. I honestly believe that success without community is meaningless.

I’d love you to share a bit about your natural pigment process; from finding a pigment through to making in into a paint? What has been the biggest struggle in starting this journey toward using natural pigments in your work?

There are two ways I approach pigments. One is that I source them from ethically run quarries in the US and Europe some of which are family owned and run by indigenous community members. I take part as a co-operative member and pay for both the pigment and the labor involved in finding and processing an aggregate into a workable pigment. The second way I source pigment is on a local level. I have certain regions where I work alongside local indigenous Chippewa members and they have earmarked certain spots where pigment can be foraged ethically, which is really important to me. I’ve worked with a lot of the elders in the community and we have a firm understanding that all the pigment is being taken from land that doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to the indigenous communities. They’ve been fantastic at helping me navigate the political aspects of foraging for pigment.

I really want to stress that working with pigment requires a much greater investment in terms of time vs. using commercial paint products. I’ve got pretty good at recognising what will work as a pigment. I gather enough pigment to carry me through a work or a series of work. Once I bring the aggregates back to the studio, I place them in a big canvas bag and I pummel the rocks with a hammer. I then place those pieces into a rock grinder that breaks the material down into a much finer pigment. I then sieve the material and the final step is the mortar and pestle where the pigment is worked into a fine powder. This powder is what I mix with oils to make paint. I use two oils primarily; organic walnut oil and safflower oil.

I also make botanical inks - I’m not a big ink user in terms of creating pieces using just ink; I primarily use it for underpainting. Blueberry, partridge berry, lavender and rooibos tea are my four go-to’s ink wise.

Certainly the largest challenge in transitioning from traditional oils and acrylics into handmade oils, is time. It’s also been limiting in the size of work I can create, it takes a lot of pigment to work on a large scale, so I’ve been working small on handmade paper and at the moment and that feels very doable.

I admire your transparency and authenticity, do you find this difficult in this social media landscape?

I don’t require a lot of external recognition in my art practice and I therefore don’t necessarily see, for example, the correlation of numbers to quality of work. I try to live my life on instagram, the same way I live my life everyday; with kindness and authenticity. For me it is the only real and sustainable way to live life and I can’t imagine turning a personality on and off. I’ve turned down opportunities to license work because I just felt that it takes art to a level of commercialism which is wonderful for some, but its not the story or legacy that I want for myself.

I think there are two schools of thought, there are people who find Instagram incredibly easy and rewarding and others who don’t. I tend to find social media challenging, but not for the obvious reasons. It’s not because of the algorithm or the lack of growth, I find it creates a lot of insecurity, questioning and self-doubt. I think its human nature to compare ourselves to one another.

Another issue I have is something that I feel is very rarely talked about and that is the external influence that social media has on our own art practice. I think its difficult when we’re constantly bombarded with images of other people’s work, and not have that seep into our own art practice. I’m not talking about plagiarism but of a genuine honest interpretation that is reflected in our own work. Social media has been great for building community, especially international community, but we pay a price for that. I don’t even know if we’re aware of what that is, we’re so deeply entrenched in it, its such an engrained part of our culture and its changing the way our brains process information. I don’t know if it’s too late to reduce the impact its had on us collectively, globally.

What’s your best advice you'd give to other artists?

I have so many things to say here, I’m afraid we simply don’t have the time or space. I will share this, however, the single most important piece of advice I have is BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND THE WORK YOU CREATE. It took me almost a decade to see worth in my art, a decade full of self doubt, fear, negative self talk, and anxiety. I promise you that no social media platform, algorithm, online course, or support group will lead to success if you don’t believe your work has emotional and monetary value. Being an artist at this time in history is equally joyous and challenging. Comparison, rejection, and saturated markets, leave many of us feeling deflated and hopeless. It is only when we push through these negative emotions that success is possible. So, as you move forward to living the life you’ve been called to live, know you’re not alone and that your work truly makes the world a more beautiful place.