LISA ROGGENBUCK
-Lisa, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today, both personally and as an artist.
As cliché as this sounds, I’ve gotten to where I am because of the people I know. It’s the people that I know that have pointed me in the right direction & secured me to opportunities. The art market is lacking where I live, so most of my connections came from going to school for my BFA & MFA. I had lacked means to travel, so the only way I was able to be exposed to professional artists was through the university.
-Any artist would tell you that their artwork is their voice. What did it take to find your voice as an artist?
To find my voice as an artist I had to learn about who I really was, what my values are, and where those values came from. How we think impacts our work as artists. Many thoughts that we have are not our own, but have been vetted for us. In other words; they’re conventional to some degree. For example, if one creates a painting with a prevalent composition, I would encourage that artist to reflect upon how that happened. Did they actually choose that composition? Or did the composition happen by default because that’s how paintings are “supposed” to look? Does the composition actually help connect the viewer to ideas behind the work? Or does the composition hinder this connection? It was only when I was able to identify where I was not actually making choices (or speaking) that I was able to find my voice. Then came the hard part, I had to be confident in my choices and stand behind them.
-What does it mean for you to push beyond your comfort zone?
It’s stressful! But all of my success has happened outside of the comfort zone, so I try to view the stress as a positive sign. If I’m too comfortable in the studio, then I’m probably doing something I’m already good at. Not every piece produced outside the comfort zone will triumph, but that’s the process of innovation. Sometimes you have to do something wrong to know how to do it right.