I am interested in capturing my emotional attachment to a place, whether it is driven by personal connection or the unique beauty of the area. I welcome serendipity into my creative process and work to find a balance between luck and intention. Although my paintings are most often grounded in landscape, I work intuitively, taking advantage of unexpected color combinations and chance meetings of gesture and form. In each new painting is a discovery - and a bridge to the next. Over the past thirty years Lisa Onstad has worked as an art therapist, managed a letterpress print shop, and taught painting and book arts workshops in Oregon and California. These days, when she's not teaching or making art in her North Portland studio, she enjoys exploring the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Lisa has shown her work nationally, and her paintings and artist books can be found in private and public collections in the U.S. and abroad, including the Yale University Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle and the Atelier Vis-à-Vis, Marseille, France. She is represented by Waterstone Gallery in Portland, and RiverSea Gallery in Astoria, Oregon.