My parents say
that I have a gene that predisposed me to love horses. I also
inherited my mom’s artistic genes and have colored, sketched
and painted since I can remember.
 There are some verses in the
Bible where God describes His equine creation…I read these as
a horse-crazy little girl and immediately wanted to paint the
creature I imagined. Mom signed me up for art classes and I
learned art basics in Mrs. Templeton’s basement. Meanwhile,
I worked at a stable cleaning tack, exercising horses, feeding,
mucking stalls, doing anything I could just to be around horses
and later to earn the requisite half of my board for the horse
that somehow my parents scraped up enough money to afford. All
of this horsing around gave me an innate feel for their anatomy
that makes rendering them in paint natural for me. I have also
ventured into other subjects, usually with floral influence
in keeping with another passion of mine, gardening!
I continued with my art
through high school and then stopped for a while to get my Bachelor’s
degree in Nursing from Clemson University in South Carolina.
I worked as an RN at Children’s of Atlanta (Egleston) for almost
a decade before my painting made enough money so that I could
stop and pursue a part-time career as an artist.
During the years at Egleston,
I married my husband Ken and we now have four daughters. All
four girls like to ride and want to paint every time I do. (The
younger two especially enjoy body art right now!) My husband
prefers diesel trucks and loud dangerous machinery but is very
supportive of my art. He is great about letting me out of the
house for an evening a week so I can learn from Helen DeRamus.
Helen is an incredible artist, teacher, and friend for whom
I am extremely grateful.
I am still horse-crazy (“obsessed”
Ken says) and am striving to excel in dressage with the help
of trainer Gigi Nutter. She has the not –so-enviable job of
converting a former event rider who only did dressage to get
to the jumps into a dressage rider. She is incredible with young
horses and I consider her an artist herself in developing them
to the best of their ability while allowing their inherent character
to shine.
We live in Powder Springs,
GA on a 6 acre ‘farm-ette’. (Ken was raised on a 180 acre working
farm so he says ours isn’t a real farm). We have my horse Consonare,
the kids pony Lollipop, 3 cats, 5 chickens, 1 parrot, a dog
and numerous other animal visitors depending on the day. Most
of the chickens represented in my art are paintings of our own
while they peer in my window while I paint.
Thank you for your interest
in my work!
Sincerely,
Lisa Cantrell |
