Artist Spotlight: Lisa Lackey
In continuing the Maplewood Division of Arts & Culture mission of ensuring inclusive and accessible art for all, this week’s featured artist is Lisa Lackey with Art In Motion. Residents can safely enjoy public art while outdoors, maintaining physical distance.
Maplewood’s Grace
Fabric on plywood, 48” x 96
Photo by Lisa Lackey
Location: Maplewood Train Station Tunnel
“‘Maplewood’s Grace’ is a fabric-collaged image of commuters waiting on the platform for their train to NYC. This artwork is my tribute to this unique town, which embraces a wide berth of racial, religious, and social spectrums. I hope my piece will give pause to busy commuters and families alike who pass it, and will remind them to celebrate this special tenet of our town. We are a community with a strong moral code of courteous good will and respect for each other. The rainbow expresses the joy of our diversity and of Maplewood’s everyday grace with all its people.”
- Lisa Lackey
Book: Everyday Beauty is a collection of 32 paper collages celebrating the unexpected delight of moments where composition, color, pattern and light all coalesce into something striking.
Lisa Lackey is a professional artist, living in Maplewood. After many years of living in Washington Heights and teaching Art and Math in the NYC school system, it was time for more space and a bigger studio. Lisa moved to Maplewood for a welcome and wonderful change. The offerings of artistic culture, camaraderie, and diversity, drew her to buy a home and establish her studio here in 2017. She works in both fabric and paper collage memorializing glimpses of time, often fleeting and brief; a nanosecond of a gesture or interaction that everyday life reveals. She has published two books about her work, Composition of Family, and Everyday Beauty, both available through Amazon. Her most recent showings were at The Painting Center and Westbeth Gallery in New York City, as well as the Long Beach Island Foundation for Arts & Sciences, here in New Jersey. Lisa loves to participate in the SOMa Open Studios, and is looking forward to when they restart in 2021.
Book: The Composition of Family is a collection of Lisa Lackey’s sketches and some finished pieces, all themed around family and its ever-changing relationships.
“I work to capture an organic moment of everyday life, when the artistic constructs of color, depth, pattern, texture, and composition coalesce into a moment of beauty. I challenge myself to recreate that brief instant using commercially available fabrics and (in most cases, but not this one) traditional machine and hand sewing techniques.” —Lisa Lackey
Lisa Lackey shares her experience in working with the Maplewood Arts Council and the Art In Motion: “I was so elated to be chosen for inclusion in the Art in Motion project. I never thought I would move out of New York City. Was there even a place with a vibe anywhere close to the city’s? I had doubted it. And then I drove into Maplewood. It was love at first sight and I’ve never looked back. So, to have my work be included in part of the town’s public art program for the train station was quite welcoming. Getting to share what I love to do, with my new neighbors and townsfolk, is wonderful and heartwarming.”
MS 839: UP
Fabric and thread on canvas: 16” x 16”
Photo by June Vong
St. Nicholas Ave: Red
Fabric and thread on canvas, 24” x 24”
Photo by April Tracey
Sister’s Dog
Fabric and thread on canvas
Photo by June Vong
Dog Walk 2
Paper and fabric, 14” x 11”
Photo by Lisa Lackey
Sisters
Fabric and thread on canvas: 25” x 32”
Photo by June Vong
Eden
Fabric and thread on canvas, 25” x 19”
Photo by June Vong
Humanity is in Our Hands
Fabric and thread on canvas: 12” x 9”
Photo by June Vong
Lisa Lackey
”The Earth wihtout art is just eh.”
Photo by Carl Patterson
Email: LisaLackeyArtist@gmail.com
Website: www.LisaLackeyArtist.com
FB: Lisa Lackey Artist
IG: @LisaLackeyArtist
Art In Motion, presented by the Maplewood Arts Council (MAC), is a collection of eight paintings that hang on the tunnel walls of the Maplewood Train Station underpass. MAC received 100 applications solicited from artists living along the Morris and Essex train line. 100% of donations for Art In Motion went to paying the artists for their work, and for the installation and maintenance of the paintings. Major sponsors for Art In Motion: The Able Baker, [words] Bookstore, Pollock Properties Group, and Michael Choy & Shannon Moffet. Big thanks to NJ Transit, and Maplewood’s Department of Public Works.