A fusion of mediums makes a lasting impression for this Chesapeake-based artist
After years of mastering different artist talents, Lisa Krentel’s fusion of traditional mediums brings a unique and lasting impression to familiar Chesapeake scenes.
What about life near the Chesapeake Bay enables you to see what others may not?
For years, the Chesapeake inspired me because it was such an influential part of my sailing life growing up. My family spent every weekend, every holiday, on a boat from April through Thanksgiving, and every winter stripping, sanding, and varnishing blocks and spars in the basement. These memories have instilled in me a desire to capture its beauty and majesty in my art.
Your series of Chesapeake skipjacks brings the working boat back to life. How did that come about?
Growing up, my family would always attend the Chesapeake Appreciation Day event at Sandy Point Light, a yearly skipjack race hosting skipjacks as far as you could see. Seems like there were 100s on the water when I was a little girl. For a budding photographer in the late 1960s, I would shoot them in black and white and develop the prints myself. Years later I came across the negatives, converted them to a digital format, and touched up the black and white ones with acrylic paints. The result is my tinted vintage skipjack series. Their importance to the Bay has never faded for me, and this is one way to keep their story alive.
How does using mixed mediums add to your style?
I’ve had a love affair with color, light, and water for as long as I can remember. As a painter and a photographer, I weave my materials to create visuals that surprise and delight. For example, in the “Blue Crab Series” each tile starts with a drawing I make of a blue crab which is digitally combined with a photograph of water, printed on canvas, stretched, and coated with a gloss polymer. The result is a surprisingly fun illusion of crabs underwater.
How has your practice changed over time?
I’ve always been drawn to visual imagery, but after receiving my first SLR camera, photography became my love. I took jobs from the dugout at Dodger Stadium to Tahiti and New Zealand. With the shift from the darkroom to the computer, I found my interest waned and started painting. I have two recent paintings, “Such a Pleasant Run” and “Lady Chesapeake,” that have everything to do with skipjacks and oystering on the Chesapeake. Lately, because my partner and I love traveling the country in a camper van that has limited space for art supplies, drawing on the iPad has become a new medium for me. The new show at Main Street Gallery in Cambridge, MD, showcases that effort.
What memorable responses have you had to your work?
The first time I won an art award made a huge impression on me. Prior to entering the Sedona Art Center’s Member’s Show with the very first painting of my Water Series and winning an Emerging Artist award, I never thought of myself as an official “artist.” Winning gave me the impetus to complete other paintings in that underwater series and keep going.
What’s next?
Although I did not make my living in fine arts, I was always involved in the visual arts and hoped to continue. It’s a fascinating journey to take years of experience and blend them together with new formats, mediums, and techniques. There’s always another way to convey a visual scene. Having lived in so many places during my life I have now retired to Cambridge, MD, with my partner Paul and our cat Flash. We have a land-cruising camper van that we use to explore all corners of the country.
How does someone learn more about your work?
I am a member of Main Street Gallery at 518 Poplar Street in Cambridge, the only cooperative member artist gallery on the Eastern Shore. Every two months a new show of member work is hung, and (you may find) my work there with that of other local artists. Check us out on Facebook or mainstgallery.net.
Interview by Gwen Mayes
About the interviewer: Gwen Mayes is a writer, life coach, workshop host, and docent for the Annapolis Maritime Museum and Park. Find more about her work at anchortoself.com.
