Author Archives: Lisa Lesniak

Unknown's avatar

About Lisa Lesniak

Born in Springfield, MA and lives in Los Angeles, CA. Her work is informed by historic textiles, fashion, dance and the human form. Life drawing has grounded her studio practice since her teenage years. Her professional life began at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where she worked in the textile conservation lab for many years. She went on to work in wardrobe departments for major motion pictures in the Boston area where she was known for her work in aging, dyeing and distressing costumes and fabric. She has both dressed and designed for well- known musicians, actors and background players. She came to All Saints Episcopal Church, Beverly Hills to promote temporary employment opportunities with the 2010 Census. She learned of the church’s work with in-need populations. Having had begun orientation at a mission in Los Angeles’ Skid Row, she found that she could support homeless and at-risk individuals closer to where she lived. She was invited to take on processing clothing donations and taking clothing orders from the Monday lunch guests. She was right at-home in the clothing storeroom and began to fine-tune its organization. She began each week, dressing those in need according to the notes she takes about individual style and color preferences. She matched donated clothing as closely to the wishes of each guest’s request. It is hands-on, and hand-to-hand work that brings her to the heart of prayer in the tactility of contemplation. Her work had taken on a measure of economic redress—recycling garments from those in abundance to those in need. She earned a BA in Art at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a Ford Foundation Award in 2D Design and an MFA in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy of Art with the Jack Lenor Larsen Scholarship for her second year of study. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Los Angeles, in her native Massachusetts and elsewhere.

Mystical Artifacts Beneath a Microscope

Posted on by
Reply

Amidst the pandemic, this project took shape.

Artist and Researcher 4

I met with Professor Ya-Wen Chen to discuss the work conducted in her laboratory. While her presentation was clearly informative, the daily workings of the lab remain a mystery. That opacity drove my artistic process. After the first of our two meetings, Professor Chen emailed me a photo of a lung organoid that had grown into a heart shape on February 14th. Both lung and heart, I began to grow and multiply this sample onto an imaginary wall. Layered upon these repeated cell motifs are life-size drawings of lungs and their structural protector, the ribcage. Glassine, a semitransparent paper used between pages to shield prints or illustrations, provides the surface for this double-sided drawing. Placed above, metallic strands trace contours of the lungs, trachea, bronchial tubes, arteries and veins and are sutured to a “pleural” silk membrane. From cell to anatomy to breath, each surface is compressed between two layers of acrylic not unlike a microscopic slide, specimen and its coverslip. Informed by Cubism where all sides of an object are flattened against a picture plane, this act of compression and translucency points to a longtime interest in drawing as seeing through to a transcendent other (side). For this virtual exhibition, the piece 72” x 24” is displayed “in-situ” and is presented along with layer details. Included are close ups of both obverse and reverse.

Two-sided drawing: pastel, charcoal, acrylic/glassine

Two-sided drawing, embroidery on silk, repeat pattern printed on plexiglas

Reverse of the above
Mock-up 24″ x 72

Having completed an exploration of the lungs, I have been working towards a diptych—lungs and heart.

Detail of a weeping heart

These “cells” (Japanese papers, grasscloth, cork, photocopies on velum and painted paper) further my explorations of lung and heart cell/organoid motifs. 6 shown out of 100, they will be installed in a scatter motif on a gallery wall with the heart and lung panels suspended before the wall as a threshold. 2020 -2022.

7.5″ x 5.5″ digital imagery, watercolor / hand-made papers

re-mysticalDownload

Oscar

Posted on by
Reply

 

Oscar showed up today (yay) at the All Saints Parish Monday Meal. I told him that in his clothing order there was something special that I had saved for him and that he would wear it well. Donated was a 44L Etro blazer in sumptuous green velvet lined with 2 separate green silk prints.  I told him to feel the velvet.  He said that he hadn’t worn velvet before.  I told him to put it on and it fit him perfectly. I told him I’d dry clean it for him when the time came.