Nelson navigates artistic map quest
Since 2014, the Arts Council of the Brazos Valley and the City of Navasota, through the Navasota Artists in Residence Program, have provided artists the opportunity to put their everyday lives on hold for six months to focus on their art.
The current occupants of the historic Horlock House are artists Saskia Becker and Lisa Nelson. The pair will display the fruits of their Navasota labors at an Open House entitled “Strange New World,” Friday, Feb. 4, from 4-7 p.m. at the Horlock House Art Gallery & History Museum, 1215 E. Washington Avenue in Navasota.
The exhibit will then be available for viewing during regular gallery hours Thursday – Sunday, noon – 5 p.m. and close with a reception from 4-6 p.m. Thursday, March 3.
Examiner photo by Connie Clements: Nelson’s “Navasota in Bloom,” created from an old map of downtown Navasota and Cedar Creek, will be featured at the Feb. 4 open house.
Navasota artist in residence Lisa Nelson graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration in 1998 but felt like an artist "from the getgo," drawing before she could talk. Animals, maps, old books, places steeped in history and family it1spire her map art.
Nelson's mother painted abstract acrylics as a young woman but now resides in a nursing home, coloring instead ofpaintit1g. She's excited about her daughter's residency, and according to Nelson, tile staff affectionately refer to her as "their artist in residence."
Nelson's fatller was a master of navigating fun, family cross-country trips the old-fashion way witll road maps.
She said, "I've always loved maps and it probably comes from going cross county. He'd be so armoyed at tile GPS thing because it would take away from his awesome talent."
Opportunity knocks
Nelson attended college and worked during a pivotal titne for illustration and the book and magazine industry. Comic books were reemerging, and graphic novels were bursting on the scene.
Enhancing her options, Nelson obtained her Graphic Design certification and was hired by CFO Magazit1e ill Boston as a graphic designer and event plarmer. While the work didn't tap into that creative side that initially drew her to art school, she witnessed significant events in Boston history, traveled extensively and was mentored by a great designer. Then the magazine it1dustry "imploded," followed by tl1e pandemic.
Nelson said, "The pandemic made a lot of people look at their life. I always thought I'd come back to illustration and paintirtg when I retired, but I said 'Okay, this it!"'
She took advantage of the Zoom boom, the wealth of knowledge at her fingertips in the New England rut community and mapped a new direction for her life.
New England inspired Nelson's love of maps rn1d the separation forced by the pandenlic inspired her early map art.
Nelson said, "I started doing these paintings of where fanlily members who couldn't be with us live. We can't spend Christmas togetller, but we can in my parntings."
She prefers to work from physical maps and has a cache of museum floor maps, town f01-est walking maps and old road trip maps.
As for technique, Nelson said, "If it's an abstract map, I freehand draw but if you're drawing a map ofTexas, you need to be precise with the shape or it will look off. I look for old maps that I can tmce and then simplify it until I like the shape."
Nelson has been painting in watercolor for 35 years and describes is as "completely unpredictable."
She said, ''My color choices are not usually planned ahead too much but I certainly keep in nlind my color theory studies from college."
Many of Nelson's paintings are inspired by old maps she finds in antique shops or museums. A couple of historical map art pieces displayed at the Horlock House are the Charleston Navy Yard and a commemoration of the 1917 suffragette march ill Washington, DC in the suffragette colors gold, violet and white.
Others like "Thoreau's Creatures," are created by a call for art and feature small wildlife creatures juxtaposed against a map of Concord, the home ofRalph Waldo Emerson and birthplace of America's environmental movement.
Nelson said, "I love Thoreau 's writings. All three of these anitnals have lived on our property."
Mapping the future
Nelson spoke fondly of their reception by Navasota locals, saying, "We've been adopted by the garden club and by members of the theater who make sure to invite us to every production. I've never seen anything like Lanterns and Legends. City Hall takes tile best possible care of us. And I don't know of any residency in the United States where you live ill a Victorian house."
Her residency wraps up March 3 and as she heads home to Ayr, Massachusetts, she looks forward to fulfilling commission requests and plannillg her June wedding.
As for her 5-10-year plan, she said, "I want to get my work into museums, do a solo show at an urban gallery."
Creating her own life map includes residencies across "this beautiful country" for even greater inspiration.