Written By Evan Balkan
In Lisa Sheppard’s studio, hundreds of dual-toned pastel sticks lie ready, like a psychedelic candy shop display.
But the explosion of color is not necessary to trigger Lisa’s creative juices. That process has begun much earlier, when the artist is involved in the necessary activities of life, such as family and work (she makes a living as an interior designer).
“I am a daughter/sister/mother/wife first,” she said. “Work has to come next. By the time I get down to art, there’s not a whole lot of time left.”
But while Lisa is engaged in the other responsibilities that tug on her, she is visualizing her next piece. By the time she is able to steal a few hours, she sets about actualizing the work she has already created mentally, a means of development that never shuts off. Which is not to say that there is no revelation involved – that is an integral part of art.
She is not alone in the act of discovery; indeed, many longtime Uniontown residents were amazed to find that the beauty they saw in Lisa’s first gallery show, “Intimate Views of Uniontown,” existed right under their noses.
But that is what all good artists do. They show us the beauty that lies within everyday events. Nevertheless, Lisa’s motive for choosing such subjects is never a desire to wake people up; she simply chooses to depict the places she loves. These places, invariably, are found in Uniontown, a place she calls “my town.”
“There’s a lot of unique architecture in Uniontown,” she said. “And I know this place; I know the moldings and the cornices. I know how porches wrap around. The majority of my images can be found within a five-mile radius of my home.”
That home is on a working family farm, almost 300 acres flanking the south side of Uniontown. Once the
largest Black Angus farm in Maryland, it first turned to hogs, then egg-laying hens, and now produces soybeans, corn and wheat.
The farmstead has been in Lisa’s family for two generations, and four branches of the family live on houses scattered throughout the property. The farm is in the Land Preservation Program, and Lisa sees a parallel track in her painting – “preserving” neighboring farms by committing them to paper.
The artistic preservation involves Lisa working on a pastel on one side of her family room-studio while the rest of the house’s occupants – husband Alan, son Louis, 18, and daughter Lillie,12 – often occupy the other side.
Far from being a distraction, their presence is a great comfort to her as she works. From time to time, they also provide criticism. Lillie, Lisa said, has an “amazing eye, a fantastic visual memory.”
As for her husband, when he says that he likes something, she knows it is working. Together, they live in a house that they built themselves – literally. From pulling the lumber off the truck to fashioning the home’s interior, the Sheppards have created a place that Lisa describes as “a happy, isolated home where we entertain ourselves.”
Part of this entertainment for Lisa is her art. But the word “entertainment” is misleading. What Lisa does is certainly much more than a hobby. She is a serious artist. She needs to produce her pastel compositions. It is, she said, “grueling and frustrating, but completely necessary,” although she asserts that she is relieved that it is not her occupation, because then she would be pressured by the whims of customers.
Now, she paints what she wants and shows the pieces in Ain’t That A Frame’s gallery in Westminster, where eager shoppers snap them up. Ain’t That A Frame owner Lou Willet-Chang has noticed that Lisa’s work appeals to a wide spectrum of viewers – from casual observer
to the art connoisseur.
“I think,” she said, “that is because of her unique use of light and shadow. Other artists use more shade and smudging of color. Lisa is careful to get a Ôsofter’ look by stroking the pastel. People really respond to the highlights and detail.”
The process can be complicated. Many people mistake pastel for simple chalk, because they look similar. But pastel is raw pigment mixed with tiny amounts of binder to hold it in stick form. Although very old oil paintings can crack, degrade and discolor, a pastel work will not. The result is that a pastel from the 19th century done by one of Lisa’s favorite artists (such as Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot or Mary Cassatt) will look as arresting today as when it was executed.
A pastelist doesn’t mix colors on the paper; doing so would create what Lisa calls “mud.” Rather, the artist mixes colors optically by placing two hues next to one another (say, blue and yellow to create the illusion of green). Further, selecting paper involves more than just choosing a workable medium. First, the artist creates underpainting, resulting in a wash of color on the paper; some spots will be left intentionally free so that the paper itself becomes part of the final image. The artist may use a darker paper for shadow.
For her underpainting, Lisa uses a “hard” pastel, which contains
more binder and can be ground into the paper. Then she works
with a medium pastel for the body of the image. For the final highlights, she goes to soft pastel, which she said is “like velvet or
the smoothest butter.”
Finally, the image is ready for framing. Sadly, one of the primary attractions of the medium suffers in the preservation: pastel possesses a three-dimensionality, created by the actual chunks of color left on the page. Once a glass is applied to the picture, it flattens those chunks. The result always fills Lisa with ambivalence: it means the piece is finished, but those little morsels of pigment – “jewels,” as she calls them – get compressed.
But the minute loss of depth is not enough to prevent the awards from rolling in, however. In 2004, for example, Lisa took first prize in Pastel, Best of Show, and Best Maryland Entry at the Howard County Fairgrounds’ Sheep and Wool Festival. Last fall, she won an award for Artistic Excellence at the Carroll County Arts Council’s Tevis Gallery. And just recently, she was accepted into the Maryland Pastel Society, which requires a juried appraisal by a board of professional artists. Most people who see her work are shocked when they find out that she has been at it for only a few years.
Lisa graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 1982 with a degree in interior design. After working eight years in the field, she left to raise her two children. She then spent a few years pursuing watercolors. She began working in pastels in 2003 when she started drawing with her son’s set. After several drafts, she decided one was suitable for framing.
As with everything in her life, when Lisa sets her sights on
something, she pursues it with zeal. In three short years, she has become an accomplished and respected artist, although it must be noted that the title of “artist” has applied for years. The many studio hours at MICA, as well as her later work in interior design, have given Lisa the critical eye and precision of hand necessary for executing
her award-winning pastels.
Lisa will continue to pursue pastel because she feels she must. But in the end, she has no “message” that she needs to impart to her viewers. It is enough, she said, to be “worthy of the viewer . . . When people choose to purchase one of my paintings and put it in their home, that’s an affirmation that’s difficult to adequately describe.”
