Lynn Sisler’s Stories, Lessons & Insights

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Lynn Sisler. Check out our conversation below.

Hi Lynn, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
I have been working out since I was 15, teaching aerobics in the 1980s and early ’90s. Exercise got me through a lot of tough times–mentally and physically. A couple of years ago, I began getting into serious weight training. I began to re-examine my health and longevity after my father passed away, and I was in the throes of menopause. I cut back on my cardio (I had been running 30 miles per week) and started lifting 4-5 times a week. Yes, weight training brings me joy! I look forward to my workouts — but more importantly, I know that lifting makes me stronger, more confident, and helps regulate my mental health and outlook.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am an artist and educator based in New England, working under the name Menagerie Fine Arts Studio. While “menagerie” traditionally refers to a collection of animals in captivity, I broaden the term to describe an interconnected assemblage of beings, energies, histories, and memories. In my practice, the menagerie is not limited to animals—it includes flora, pattern, color, lineage, and the unseen forces that shape a life. It is a widening system of kinship, where everything is in relation.

My work centers on animals—rabbits, birds, deer, horses—who serve as guides, guardians, and symbolic counterparts to our human experience. Yet the animals are only one part of the larger ecosystem I create. They are entangled with floral motifs that recall camouflage or wallpaper, visual environments that blur the line between creature and landscape. The blooms adorn the animals, and the animals, in turn, eulogize the flowers in a quiet, symbiotic exchange. Through this reciprocity, the definition of menagerie expands from captivity to coexistence.

I work primarily in oil on square wood panels, beginning with a colored ground that establishes the foundation and atmospheric space for each painting. I build from there—designing shapes, layering color and pattern, and highlighting the intersections where forms overlap. These intersections act as small thresholds, revealing an ever-present energy that hums just beneath the surface.

My work is often described as whimsical and surreal, with a palette that ranges from vibrant to subdued, chosen intuitively and emotionally. At its core, my practice is an exploration of interconnectedness—an ever-evolving menagerie of life, memory, ancestry, and imagination.

Okay, so here’s a deep one: What relationship most shaped how you see yourself?
When I had my son, my world shifted completely. Becoming a single mother focused my life around creating the best possible future for both of us. When Aidan was three, I returned to school to become a teacher—a path that would allow us to share the same schedule and give me a stable, meaningful career.

Teaching, with all its highs and lows, became essential to my growth. Balancing the demands of the classroom with motherhood pushed me to become stronger, more confident, and more grounded. Those years taught me resilience and showed me that I could take on challenges I never imagined. And it was that hard-won confidence that eventually gave me the courage to pursue my dreams of becoming a professional artist later in life.

Now that my son is grown, I look back with gratitude for the challenges that shaped me. They clarified my values, strengthened my priorities, and ultimately led me to the creative life I had always wanted.

When you were sad or scared as a child, what helped?
As a child, I was surrounded by stuffed animals, model horses, and my beloved cat, Stormy. I spent hours curled up in an oversized green chair, reading about the natural world and fiction featuring personified animals, such as Felix Salten’s Bambi. I drew animal characters, crafting stories from the sanctuary of my bedroom. Animals and nature offered me friendship, connection, and a deep sense of belonging. I felt safe. I felt true to myself.

As a result, my current artistic practice responds to life’s profundities—love, loss, connection, and memory. The decline and passing of my father brought me face-to-face with mortality. In the midst of grief, I searched for ancestral ties, beauty, and a sense of both protection and being protected. I began revisiting the emotional terrain of my girlhood, foraging the past for comfort and emotional shelter.

Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
I know that I am, at my core, an artist—and artists are in it for life. We play the long game. An art practice isn’t something you retire from; it’s something that evolves with you. It deepens, grows more honest, and becomes more fully itself as the years pass, even as trends and insecurities fall away.

Last year, I joined an online community of dedicated artists, and it affirmed what I already knew: I am part of a larger creative ecosystem. At this stage in my life, I have the confidence, resilience, and clarity to pursue ambitious goals and to be fully immersed in that wider world.

Being an artist is a lifestyle, one shaped over time through experience, persistence, and inner truth. It is who I am, fundamentally and without hesitation. I wouldn’t want to do—or be—anything else.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I hope people will say that I lived a life devoted to creativity, care, and connection. That I followed the calling of being an artist with honesty and persistence, even when it was hard, and that I poured that spirit into everything I touched. I hope they remember me as someone who paid attention to animals, to other people, to stories, to the quiet magic in the world—and transformed that attention into images that made others feel something true and familiar.

I hope people will tell the story of someone who raised her son to be a good person with love and resilience, who built a life from strength and intention, and who never stopped growing. Someone who brought beauty into the world not for recognition, but because it was her way of understanding and honoring life.

Most of all, I hope they say I lived fully as myself: an artist to the end, committed to wonder, connection, and the continual unfolding of what it means to be human.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lynnsisler.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lynnsislerart/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/menageriefineartstudio