Seams Good Studio reflects a lifetime career beginning with teaching, then making art, then teaching art, all with caregiving, life coaching and accounting blended in along the way. The more I learn and experience, the more I see how everything interconnects.
A quilt with many patches.
Teaching inspires me. It requires detailed preparation that allows flexibility, and holding a strong container while getting out of the way. Sewing and quilting carry memories. Knowing hearts, working hands, life’s scraps made into something beautiful.
Beauty inspires me. Not necessarily pretty or nice, but authentic, made with skill and care. True, even raw beauty may seem uneven, undone, unpredictable, unordered. Yet anything that expresses honesty and earnest effort transforms my heart and gives me hope.
I am inspired by nature,
astronomy, geological history, the creative people in my life, and those wise and caring ones who came before and flow through all of us. I love thinking about the profound shifts and transformations of my home in Oregon, on Clackamas and Tualatin Kalapuyan Land, once under oceans full of whales, salmon and sharks, now nestled within the third generation of the Cascade mountain range, with great rivers carrying those memories back to the Pacific.
Hi, I’m Lisa.
she/her
My Grandma Margaret taught me to sew at age 7. My Grandpa Paul helped cut out her dressmaker designs and my Barbie clothes patterns. The safe space they provided together to learn and create was foundational for me. I hope to create a similar space for my students, to develop their skills in their unique way.
In addition to fiber, I’ve experimented in ceramics, photography, drawing, painting, collage, mixed media, sculpture, dance and music. My mixed media quilts have been exhibited on both US coasts, including Quilts for Arts Sake in Montclair NJ, and The Biennial at Oregon College of Art & Craft.
For nearly four decades, I’ve facilitated groups for artists, held workshops and retreats for creative and spiritual communities, and coached individuals to achieve their personal, professional and vocational goals.
I hold a masters degree in Humanities/Quilt History, and have been teaching youth continuously since 1986—as a teacher assistant, private school instructor, artist-in-residence, college prep and life skills coach, language arts and history tutor, sewing and creativity educator — with extensive experience working with students in alternative schools and students with disabilities.
I’m continually learning and updating. Current times require more adaptability and grounded compassion in teaching modes than ever before and I’m up for it! What was once accepted as “fixed and certain”—in US history, in our society, in defining who we are and what our potential will be—is often questioned now. More and more we are collectively creating a new, more equitable way.
My Grandmother’s Hands by Dr. Resmaa Menakem, Heal Your Way Forward by myisha t. hill, How Not To Be Afraid by Gareth Higgins, Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown and Already Enough by Lisa Olivera have been especially helpful guides.