Lisa LaTourette

Sensitive to a fault, though I've tried hard to cover it over the years. Writing was probably my first love, but art was a close second. I was brought up by stoic Irish parents who ingrained in me at a young age that ART was a gift you were born with; you either "had 'IT'" or you didn't, so for many years I stayed away from art, too scared to claim it. I got a fine arts degree in writing and teach high school English and college composition. I published lots of poetry, read by .0001% of the population, but I never cared. It was from love. After my divorce eight years ago, I picked up a pencil again and started to draw. Since then, I spend every spare moment making art that is often bad, sometimes good...creating art releases something in me that writing never could. Words are final, often based on memories that are painful, but art brings pure joy. Your art, if you let it, leads you down a road that may mean one thing while creating it; something else entirely months later, and then again something different to those who view it. After seven years, I'm still a beginner, I still make bad art, but sometimes it's beautiful and that tells me I'm on the right track.