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Lisa Solomon
Oakland, CA
Lisa Solomon was born in Tucson Arizona, but has lived most of her life in California. She currently resides in Oakland with her husband, daughter, a pitbull, a small scruffy dachshund/terrier mutt, a 3 legged cat, a kitten, and many, many spools of thread [Gutterman is her favorite brand]. She received her BA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley in 1995 and her MFA from Mills College in 2003. Her work is shown internationally and is in numerous public and private collections.
Profoundly interested in the idea of hybridization [sparked from her Hapa heritage – she is ½ Japanese and ½ Caucasian], Solomon’s mixed media works revolve thematically around domesticity, craft, and masculinity/femininity, and often the pursuit of art as science/research. She is frankly obsessed with color/color theory and is drawn to found objects tending to alter them conceptually so that their meanings and original uses or intents are re-purposed. She often fuses “wrong” things together – re contextualizing their original purposes, and incorporating materials that inherently question and skirt the line between ART and CRAFT.
Ms. Solomon’s work was featured in a monograph entitled Hand/Made published by MIEL press in 2013.in August 2019 her latest book A Field Guide to Color - a watercolor workbook all about color and color theory was published by Roost Books. It quickly became the #1 watercolor book on Amazon. In 2012 she authored a book on embroidery published by Quarry press entitled Knot Thread Stitch, and has a new book with her illustrations entitled Draw 500 Everyday Things [Fall 2016]. This is a pocket follow up to her book 20 Ways to Draw a Chair and 44 other Magnificent Every Day Objects released in the Fall of 2015 . Her drawings and installations have been featured at numerous national and international venues. Please see her CV for an extensive list.
She regularly teaches Art at various colleges in the Bay Area –currently San Francisco State University. She has also taught at UC Berkeley, Mills College, CCA, and Cal State East Bay. She was also a member of the Curatorial Board of the Richmond Art Center from 2006-2008 and recently served on the advisory board for NIAD in Richmond, CA. She also regularly teaches workshops all over the world.
Quite interested in social practice and expanding her own studio work to include a larger community, Ms. Solomon has been participating in residencies and opportunities that allow for this development. In 2019 from January - March she was an AIR at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles where she worked on a community project: The Chorma Chronicles. In 2017 she and fellow maker Lea Redmond were AIRs at Little Paper Planes. In 2016 she was an AIR at the Palo Alto Art Center where via an Artist's Activating Communities grant from the California Arts Council Grant where she taught color meditation to local teens. In 2015 she was a resident at Kala Institute where as a recipient of a Sustainable Artist Residency Award for artists with children. In the Fall of 2015 at Irving Street Projects in San Francisco she completed The Keepsake Project during a 3 month residency. She was also the Underground Artist in Residence at the Ulrich Museum of Art in Wichita, KS in 2014 - where she installed her sen/1000 doily piece and also crowdsourced a companion 1000 doily drawing piece. To her absolute delight - both works were acquired by the museum. She was also Artist in Residence at the Oakland Museum of Art in conjunction with their we/customize show in 2013. Other notable grants include a travel award from the Komi-Machi Kougen Museum in 2007, a Herringer Family Foundation Grant, an Eisner Prize for Excellence in Fine Arts, as well as funding in 2010 to complete a site specific exhibition for Angles Gate – a non-profit art space in Southern California.
Profoundly interested in the idea of hybridization [sparked from her Hapa heritage – she is ½ Japanese and ½ Caucasian], Solomon’s mixed media works revolve thematically around domesticity, craft, and masculinity/femininity, and often the pursuit of art as science/research. She is frankly obsessed with color/color theory and is drawn to found objects tending to alter them conceptually so that their meanings and original uses or intents are re-purposed. She often fuses “wrong” things together – re contextualizing their original purposes, and incorporating materials that inherently question and skirt the line between ART and CRAFT.
Ms. Solomon’s work was featured in a monograph entitled Hand/Made published by MIEL press in 2013.in August 2019 her latest book A Field Guide to Color - a watercolor workbook all about color and color theory was published by Roost Books. It quickly became the #1 watercolor book on Amazon. In 2012 she authored a book on embroidery published by Quarry press entitled Knot Thread Stitch, and has a new book with her illustrations entitled Draw 500 Everyday Things [Fall 2016]. This is a pocket follow up to her book 20 Ways to Draw a Chair and 44 other Magnificent Every Day Objects released in the Fall of 2015 . Her drawings and installations have been featured at numerous national and international venues. Please see her CV for an extensive list.
She regularly teaches Art at various colleges in the Bay Area –currently San Francisco State University. She has also taught at UC Berkeley, Mills College, CCA, and Cal State East Bay. She was also a member of the Curatorial Board of the Richmond Art Center from 2006-2008 and recently served on the advisory board for NIAD in Richmond, CA. She also regularly teaches workshops all over the world.
Quite interested in social practice and expanding her own studio work to include a larger community, Ms. Solomon has been participating in residencies and opportunities that allow for this development. In 2019 from January - March she was an AIR at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles where she worked on a community project: The Chorma Chronicles. In 2017 she and fellow maker Lea Redmond were AIRs at Little Paper Planes. In 2016 she was an AIR at the Palo Alto Art Center where via an Artist's Activating Communities grant from the California Arts Council Grant where she taught color meditation to local teens. In 2015 she was a resident at Kala Institute where as a recipient of a Sustainable Artist Residency Award for artists with children. In the Fall of 2015 at Irving Street Projects in San Francisco she completed The Keepsake Project during a 3 month residency. She was also the Underground Artist in Residence at the Ulrich Museum of Art in Wichita, KS in 2014 - where she installed her sen/1000 doily piece and also crowdsourced a companion 1000 doily drawing piece. To her absolute delight - both works were acquired by the museum. She was also Artist in Residence at the Oakland Museum of Art in conjunction with their we/customize show in 2013. Other notable grants include a travel award from the Komi-Machi Kougen Museum in 2007, a Herringer Family Foundation Grant, an Eisner Prize for Excellence in Fine Arts, as well as funding in 2010 to complete a site specific exhibition for Angles Gate – a non-profit art space in Southern California.
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