Packing up the pollinators
January 2025
“It’s only when you risk failure that you discover things. When you play it safe, you’re not expressing the utmost of your human experience.”
~Lupita Nyong’o
Hi! How are you? I’m so glad you’re here.
"This activity is funded in part by a grant from the Five Wings Arts Council with funds provided by the McKnight Foundation.”
In the Spring of 2023 I wrote a grant request to my regional arts council to ask for funds to help me develop my art practice. I hoped to make some large collages focused on pollinators.
I have learned so much.
I have learned that working large in my collage style takes a lot of papers, much more than I thought. It takes a lot of paint to print those papers, much more than I thought. Working large works best if the surface is flat, because gravity, but working flat means my perspective is a little off thanks to my bifocals. Ordering large wood panels in the mail means some arrive broken, and there’s some back and forth with shipping. Working large is time-consuming. Cutting so many pieces, and working with so much paper is tough on my hands. Large wood panels are not mobile and I must carve out time in the studio to work, always a challenge with my life.
But the hardest thing about working large on these panels is this… my large pieces don’t have the same charm as my small pieces do. The scale is off. They feel cartoony instead of quirky. They don’t feel…like me, in some way.
And while I don’t love that, I am so incredibly grateful that I had this experience to teach me more about what I want to do and where I will focus my energy. I found out what colors I favor, and I do think there are parts of each that I do like. I’m quite sure I’m a better artist for having done this project.
I’m calling them done. For now. I’m putting them in their boxes and giving myself a little break from them until I can look at them again with fresh eyes. Then we’ll see.
In the meantime, I’m sharing them here for accountability, and to publicly thank Five Wings Arts Council for giving me this opportunity, and to thank my loved ones for managing to live among the paper mess for this long.
With gratitude, Lisa
I made thousands of prints to build my library of papers
Smaller panels allowed me to practice textures and color combos. I went through many, many glue sticks, and sometimes my dog, Beans, wasn’t able to wait patiently for me to finish working.
Milkweeds are an important food source for Monarch caterpillars. This was my take on Swamp Milkweed, which is native to MN.
Are you familiar with Longhorned Bees? So cute, and important pollinators.
These panels are 30” x 40” each, or 5’ across when arranged as a dyptich.
The Rusty-patched Bumblebee is on the endangered list.
Pink, orange, aqua, and green is one of my favorite color combos.
This was the largest of the bunch at 3’x4.
Did you know fireflies are pollinators? Yarrow is a favored plant of night pollinators because its little white flowers and silvery stems make it visible in the moonlight.
So many pieces of paper.
So many lessons learned.
Thank you for reading. It means the world to me.
I’ll be back next month with more updates. If you think someone else may enjoy my work, I’d be grateful if you’d share this with them or encourage them to visit my website where they can sign up for my newsletter, consider workshops, and peruse my work.
Thank you!
Have questions? Email me at lisa@lilfishstudios.com
