Meet Lisa Merida-paytes

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lisa Merida-paytes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lisa below.

Lisa, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

Disease humbles all of us. Most of us are lucky and aren’t confronted with disease until later in life. But, disease can strike at anytime and age. Some diseases are curable but for those of us who are struck with and living with any debilitating, untreatable disease it wrecks havoc in our lives. In November 2017, I was diagnosed with an inherited and rare, incurable, progressive brain disease called Spinocerebellar Ataxia 5 (SCA 5). Spinocerebellar Ataxia is a rare form of disease that causes the brain’s cerebellum to atrophy which adversely affects motor skills, tremors, coordination, balance, speech, muscle weakness and stiffness, depression and anxiety. This progressive disease makes it difficult to use the distressed parts of the body and the prognosis is at best a cane, walker or wheelchair. Mentally, this disease not only affects thinking, mood and behavior, but just knowing you have a deteriorating disease that does not have a cure makes you feel an overwhelming hopelessness. Emotionally, suffering from and living with a disability is overwhelming every minute of every day but I think you have to decide is the cup half full or half empty. For me, the cup is half full. I refuse to let my physical disabilities define me.

I am a visual artist and even though his disease is terrible, it enabled me find my purpose as an artist and advocate. After reflecting on my career, my artwork has always been autobiographical, referenced my dad in some way and considered the essential structure of skeletal animal references. The first important body of work that illustrated this was when my work began to reference my father’s taxidermist and slaughterhouse business. Growing up, I used to hate my dad’s vocation but I had no idea how pivotal it would be. The overwhelming environment for me as a child, the scenes of hanging carcasses of deer, piles of sawed-off animal feet and freezers full of animal hides that presented a lack of empathy for life. Each series of work that I have created has led me to my current work which has become a vehicle to interpret transformative changes occurring in my body caused from the progression of the disease. Also, my work researches and brings awareness people living with disabilities while pushing the boundaries of contemporary art. My work discusses these concepts by focusing on movement’s copious flow, a manner of passage of the living body to one’s gait and gesture. This work drives examination and permits
curiosity uncovering aspects of human nature and wonder of origin. These juxtaposed ideas reveal blurred distinctions between connections and dysfunction exhibited in multi-media multivalent invocations of the body.

On a personal note, my neurologist has said many times that he thinks my artwork has saved me from the disease progressing as fast as it could have with other patients my age. I inherited this disease from my dad. When he was living, he did the worst thing possible…he gave up. I did not understand why he sat on the couch for 20 years but I do now.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I hold a M.F.A. from the University of Cincinnati 1997 and B.F.A. from the Art Academy of Cincinnati 1991. For the past 26 years, I have been focused on building my art career in various ways; exhibiting my artwork, securing my work in public and private collections, writing grants and authoring articles/books in publications nationally and internationally. During that time, I have taught at all levels throughout the Midwest and served in various professional positions which include Gallery Director at FUNKe FIRED ARTS 2011-07 and Art Director/Founder of the Kennedy Heights Art Center in 2004. I was appointed Co-Liaison for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA), Virtual Cincinnati Conference held in March 2021 and served as a NCECA Board Member 2020-2021. In June 2025, my work will be exhibited at the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, presented by ArtWave in Cincinnati, OH and will be exhibited/traveling for the next year to venues throughout the State of Ohio with Art Possible Ohio. Currently, my work was awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grant, 2025, 2023, 2023, ArtsWave Black & Brown Grant, 2025, 2024, Ohio Arts Council Artist with Disabilities Award, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and Summerfair Cincinnnati, Individual Excellence Award, 2024, 2021, 2018, 2006, 2001.

Recently, my work was on view in a group exhibition entitled, “Accessible Expressions Ohio” at the Cincinnati Art Museum, March 29–May 12, 2024, featured in a solo exhibition at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash, January 16 – February 23, 2024, Summerfair Select Exhibition at the Cincinnati Arts Association’s Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery at Aronoff Center for the Arts, Cincinnati, OH and Garrett Museum of Art. My work was featured in “Ceramics in the Garden”, Cincinnati, Ohio, January 23- June 18, 2023, “OKI Regional” at Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 10-April 7, 2023, ”Accessible Expressions Ohio” at Massillon Museum, Massillon, Ohio, March 25-May 7, 2023, “Nexus of Health” at the Ohio Arts Council’s Vern Riffe Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, October 29-January 6, 2023 a solo exhibition at the Springfield Museum of Art, April 16 – September 11, 2022, Antelope Valley College Gallery in Lancaster, California, October 9- November 4, 2022, selected works at Medici Museum of Art, Youngstown, Ohio, February 5 – May 15, 2022, Weston Art Gallery at the Aronoff Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, January 28 – April 3, 2022 and Indian Hill Gallery, April 1 – May 15, 2022.

My works are featured in an authored international article in Ceramics Ireland Magazine, Issue 45, 2021 and had a mixed-media installation on view at the Northwest Projects Gallery & Charles M. Blair Family Gallery in the Yellowstone Art Museum, July 01, 2021 – October 10, 2021, AC Hotel during Artprize 2021 in Grand Rapids, Michigan and works published in Artwalk Magazine Issue 02, September 2021. In 2024, 22, I was awarded National Grants from Cerf+ Emergency Grant and Foundation for Contemporary Art Emergency Grant. In 2021, I received a National Artist Relief Grant thanks to a generous lead gift from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation that was matched by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, The Willem de Kooning Foundation, DeWitt Stern, a division of Risk Strategies Company, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation COVID-19 Relief Effort, Imperfect Family Foundation, Kinkade Family Foundation, Carolee Schneemann Foundation, Lenore G. Tawney Foundation and Teiger Foundation. In October 2021 – January 2022, her work was included in the Ohio Arts Council’s 2021 Biennial Juried Exhibition at the Riffe Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, Art Design Consultant’s Art Comes Alive 2021 International Exhibition and an international review and interview published in 7th Review Me’s Observica Magazine.

A solo exhibition of my work was at Cincinnati Learning Collaborative and showcased in NCECA’s Virtual Conference in March 2021. This show debuted my new Flux Series which is created from sculpting, weaving and casting paper, along with various mixed media materials. This new series moved on to the Lois and Richard Rosenthal’s Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio in March 2021. I served as a moderator and panelist for a 2019 NCECA Discussion I organized entitled, FOCUS: Inspiration Matters held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 2016-17, I was awarded an AIA Summer Residency at Watershed, organized a group exhibition of that work in Portland, Oregon and wrote an article about the Residency and Exhibition that was published in Ceramics Ireland Magazine. I published my own curriculum, Special Studio Teaching Manual Series: Preserving Memories with Paperclay, an Art-to Art Palette Books publication. My work is included in 500 Figures in Clay Volume II 2014 and The Best of 500 Ceramics: Celebrating a Decade in Clay 2012 Lark Book’s publications. Additionally, my work was featured in articles published in Studio Ceramics: Advanced Techniques, (cover artist), The American Ceramics Society’s book in 2010, Pottery Making Illustrated, July / August 2009 issue (cover artist), Art-to Art Palette Journal in 2008, Raku, Pit & Barrel The American Ceramics Society’s book in 2007, Ceramics Monthly October 2006 issue, 500 Raku in 2010
and 500 Animals in 2006 Lark Book’s publications.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Three areas of knowledge most impactful on my journey was growing up in my father’s taxidermist/slaughterhouse business, attending Graduate School at the University of Cincinnati, DAAP, and my health diagnosis/COVID-19. The first pivotal event in my life that prompted a profound area of knowledge was interpreting my past personal experiences growing up in my father’s taxidermist / slaughterhouse business, an overwhelming environment with powerful images of hanging carcasses of deer, piles of sawed off animal feet and freezers full of animal hides.  These images presented a lack of empathy for life to me as a child. So, while attending undergraduate school at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, I learned how to translate these provocative references, imagery and concepts into two and three dimensional forms. However, turning 21 years old on April 29,1991 was the second pivotal event both personally and in my career that was impactful on my journey. A few weeks prior, I was inside a car that was struck and totaled by a drunk driver and I suffered major torn and soft tissue damage in my back and shoulder. After one surgical procedure done and four years of physical therapy, pain medication, acupuncture and massage, I was able to raise my arms again without intense pain. This was a very important time for me because when the car accident happened, I was a senior at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and at the time and was preparing to graduate. Also, in the fall of 1990, I applied to Cranbrook Academy of Art and was accepted into their MFA Sculpture Program to begin the following fall semester. Fortunately, I had my thesis finished and graduated the Art Academy of Cincinnati with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture. Unfortunately, I had to focus on my physical recovery and I was unable to go to graduate school that fall. It was the worst time in my life as an artist. I could not raise my arms without pain to create, I was finished with undergraduate school, not going to graduate school and had no idea what I was going to do I the future. Everyone around me saw the physical and mental pain that I was in so a friend gave me a bag of clay to move my hands and arms while strengthening my muscles. I had no idea how this material would change my life.

I loved working with this new material but the Art Academy did not offer ceramic classes at that time so I had no background with clay and I had to research how to work with this new material. I remember my first pit-firing at my grandma’s farm hooked me into a lifetime of experimenting and investigating clay’s many properties, techniques and firing options. After four years, I was physically healed, created a body of work and began researching MFA Ceramic Sculpture Programs in the United States. I wanted to learn everything about the material/process as a sculptural medium and was not interested in throwing on a traditional wheel. Therefore, when I read about the intensive Master of Fine Arts Program at the University of Cincinnati, DAAP and Professor Roy Cartwright, a leading National proponent of ceramic sculpture, who threw out the wheels in the Program to focus on ceramic sculpture I knew that was where I needed to apply. My artistic work/journey was lead in this new direction and I went onto receive a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Cincinnati, Design, Art, Architecture & Planning, DAAP and my thesis exhibition received the”Outstanding Graduate Student Award”. Also, in graduate school, I applied and was accepted into my first major group exhibition, “Of & About Clay”, at Galerie Hertz, Louisville, KY, January 11- February 28, 1998. In that show, my work was included with many of the artists that I was studying at the time, Thomas Bartel, Peter Callas, Judy Onofrio, Peter Voulkos, along with four amazing artists.

In November 2017 I had another pivotal event, I was diagnosed with a rare, incurable, progressive brain disease called Spinocerebellar Ataxia 5 (SCA 5). Spinocerebellar Ataxia 5 is a rare form of disease in the family of Parkinson Disease that affects the brain causing adverse affects with motor skills, tremors, coordination, balance, speech, muscle weakness and stiffness, depression and anxiety. This form of ataxia was found in one branch of Abraham Lincoln’s family and I am Lincoln’s cousin 7 generations removed.  This progressive disease makes it difficult to use the distressed parts of the body and the prognosis is at best a cane, walker or wheelchair. With that devastating newsI had to make accommodations to my work, studio and most importantly the materials that I had been using in my work. I could no longer lift the heavy bags of clay or sculpt with the same carving tools. I began using much lighter materials like paper and copper wire to become a vehicle to interpret transformative changes occurring in my body caused from the progression of the disease.

My advice that I have for people who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on their work as an artist is this….Everyone is an artist, why are you different? In other words, everything has been done…but not by you. I try and live my journey by remembering what Frida Kahlo said, “I am not sick, I’m broken, but I’m happy to be alive as long as I can paint.” So, internalize your journey and create your own path. Get into your studio, and create work for you. I know, I have saved a lot of money that I would have spent in a therapist’s office by working in the studio on ideas and struggles that I was experiencing in my life.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

The number one obstacle or challenge that I am currently facing is funding to support my work. Even though I am blessed to receive some public and private funding from various sources, I still can’t afford to hire a full-time studio assistant to help me in the studio, purchase materials, equipment and supplies to develop new possibilities with materials, techniques and skills that I will use in future venues and public work. The full-time studio assistant would not only help lift, position, attach, move climb a ladder and install work but continue prepping materials that I can use in work while I am writing grants for continued funding. A studio assistant’s help will be essential for me to realize my work because I would not be able to physically work on large scale projects without their assistance.  I am trying to resolve or overcome this challenge by paying friends a few hours a week or family members to help me prepare needed materials, install work or lift pieces when needed.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lisameridapaytes.com
• Instagram: @lisameridapaytes

Image Credits

Jay Bachemin