Meet Lisa Polacheck

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lisa Polacheck a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lisa, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
Solo is how I roll — through driving trips, on near-daily walks, and even to social events like makers’ markets and concerts. I notice so many more visual details and have a fighting chance of remembering them when I’m not holding up my end of a conversation. I take lots of fast, unfocused snapshots of color combinations and interesting hardware, and keep a spiral notebook in the car for cryptic notes like “spicy mustard” and “chicken wire.

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 used to concentrate on carrying home fallen branches to wrap with yarn, producing pine cone swags, door/window arches, creosote wreaths, and spindly, outstretched sculptures for bookshelves and big walls.

This year, longer and more frequent road trips throughout the Southwest have introduced cactus skeletons and many breeds of tumbleweeds to the mix. As the raw materials increase in complexity, the way I approach them varies from moving meditation to delicate dance to wrestling match.

As a farewell gift for an Oregon-bound friend, I embellished a strong six-foot branch with yarn, a section of symbolic “infinity” weaving, a chunk of naturally perforated cholla wood, and 20+ binder clips to hold tons of individual good luck wishes.

And within the last month, I strayed from nature as supply store and applied a sampler of wrapping styles to an antique wire egg basket. It was a bodily break from sitting on the floor with an unwieldy piece of brush. Working in the luxury of my lap, I integrated finer touches like weeds and tiny beads. The piece is in a small-works show at Tucson’s Untitled Gallery through February 17, 2024!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I bring the resourcefulness of a Midwestern upbringing to this artwork, which means I’m not going into debt on materials while I chase the muse.

I’m finding that I have more patience than I expected; instances when pieces have broken after I’ve worked them over haven’t thrown me into a rage like they might’ve a decade ago.

And one of the greatest gifts in the Arizona Branch story arc has been the opportunity to exhibit and sell through the yoga studio/coffee shop hybrid of Blue Buddha Collective in Scottsdale. Healthy habits led to familiarity, which led to sharing of interests beyond heated stretching and iced coffee. The lesson here may be to let people in. Not all at once, and not in an overbearing way, but to gradually go beyond remarking about the weather.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

I’m stockpiling more branches and tumbleweeds than a patient homeowners’ association can overlook, and I’m finishing more pieces than I can place. Admiring and playing with all this desert detritus is good for my everyday happiness, but those goods are … closing in.

Thing is, despite another identity in public outreach, I am not confident with trying to talk a few shops into displaying a few pieces for sale. In multiples, they occupy a lot of space. It’s a big ask.

Ideal resolutions: I would like to collaborate with interior designers and event planners to bring embellished branches and big weedy balls into unexpected places. And, to boutique tastemakers throughout the desert Southwest, I say: Please contact me for cheerful, never-identical inventory plus personal, delicate delivery and installation — you know how I feel about road trips.

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