Noos-letter - Featured Artist: Lisa Star

What is your artform and/or vision?

I am a multi-media artist. My art began young, making the most of being raised without television. I got very inspired when my daughters attended a Waldorf School where art is central to everyday learning. I imitated what they were doing, working at child level experimentation myself. I guess that as a result I have a primitive approach, even still, to each artwork I undertake. I like using found objects, repurposing my children's discarded art pieces and projects, and culling strange discoveries from my nature walks. I have never made art to sell, not from some philosophical stance but rather attachment to my own creations. I love them, and tend to hoard them accordingly.

When I began following the Tzolkin and 13 moon calendars 17 years ago I slipped into an instant shamanic reverie where the distinction between art and spirituality fell away. I used the creative process to make conscious connections to god, the spirits behind the Mayan teachings. I expressed what I learned with my hands, on paper and in totems. And pretty quickly I became a teacher of the cycles so I used the Natural Time-inspired art for my own published calendars. Perhaps I will return to that enterprise in the future, but I have to admit that as my daughters grew up and their own education became more intellectual and cerebral, I have spent my creative hours on writing rather than making images and multi-media sculpture. So the offerings I present here are antiquated, nostalgic, rather than current endeavors. The words are brand new!

Who are your main artistic inspirations/influences?

I was raised with exposure to countercultural local artists and artisans in the community of coastal Marin County, California. They cared more about art for the expression of it, its beauty and accomplishment, than any commerce it generated. It was a pure era and I am imbued with its principles. I can think of children's books and their illustrators as truly inspirational, but more for the fantasia of mixing words with images as I have done ever since. I grew up to admire certain renowned artists, from Christo to Georgia O'Keeffe to the ubiquitous Frida Kahlo. I used to go to cities in Europe just to stand in their national art galleries and feel the healing energy of their collections. And that's what I still gravitate towards, art that feels entirely heart-based in its expression, that is someone's pure passion, a necessity for emotional purification and spiritual survival, and in its potent authenticity and nakedness can allow another person to be changed. That's sort of my slant when I make art, as well.

What does the phrase "Time is Art" mean to you?

I'm a pretty fervent disciple of Natural Time, so Time is Art means everything, much more than any collage media I present here. It's about living life as art, instead of for materialistic purposes. The phrase seems to have been a rejoinder to the old expression, 'Time is Money,' another demand for hurrying, producing, being automated. When Time is Art, life has moods and textures, undulations and interwoven outside influences, is a process and is a heartfelt expression. It changes, and it challenges. But when a passage resolves, it's a thing of beauty, and I am enriched, in awe of the creative process with Creator at its center. And others are likewise moved, as an audience.