Lisa Gist Walker, Mixed Media
On a little mountain, situated between Carrboro and Pittsboro, North Carolina, Lisa lives a happily middle-aged life. She shares the mountain with her brilliant husband, breathtaking sons, ever-busy honeybees, one dozen chickens (professional comedians, all), a senior dog and 3 cats, each a walking feline cliché. In the evening, after all those creatures have settled in, Lisa’s thoughts turn to what she might make next.
Reared in the rural deep American south, Lisa has a native interest in the potential afterlife of the material world’s stuff. Her grandparents and parents, depression-era survivors, were committed to second, third, or thirteenth chances for all things: string, wrapping paper, rubber bands, broken glass or pottery, junk mail, beyond-repair overcoats and work boots. Everything was a candidate for a new life, a new purpose!
While Lisa still worries about where dead appliances go when they die and what will happen to all those foam take-out boxes that are being tossed out right this minute, she is happy to create something smile-worthy from the contents of the trash and recycling bins. Lisa knows that somewhere, in her own spectacular afterlife, Aunt Burchell is pleased that her niece will give a second chance to whatever-it-is-you’re-about-to-throw-out.
