Michele Tisdale

Fall is Michele Tisdale’s favorite time of year because it’s a great time of change. During this time of year she feels tremendous pressure to finish. She said, “There are so many things to paint and they’re going to be gone.”

Her studio is surrounded by her gardens, and she loves to bring flowers and plants inside to paint. She’s inspired by life and movement. She is working on a painting of a morning glory, climbing up a wall. She can only paint it during the short time of the day when the flower blooms. But it’s worth it to go back to the flower, instead of using the photograph that the layout of her drawing, because the photo doesn’t capture the light or the color the way she sees it.

Besides, she enjoys returning to the same places many times. It helps her capture the mood of a place. When she painted the gardens at Los Luceros, all the master gardeners were there and they were all talking. “There was this buzz in the air. It was wonderful.” She loves to paint areas where there is a farm, with pastures, like the place she grew up in Michigan and she love’s painting her friend’s home, which has tremendous warmth and beautiful spaces. Her painting at Chimayo includes a pilgrim, which was the most important thing to her, because she has done the pilgrimage to Chimayo a few times. “You keep seeing more and more. You can never get it all.”

About six years ago Michele had a head injury that turned her world upside down. She said, “I had perceptual problems, pain, difficulty reading and I was drawing everything backwards. My speech therapist said this might be an opportunity to change my life. To take a new direction. After years of dedication to watercolor I switched to oils.”

“The injury actually affected the way I see the world. Shapes are more apparent, colors are brighter and somehow different. Changing to oils was like taking a deep breath and feeling at home. I loved the texture of the paint, the vividness of the colors and the brush stokes. I felt I could render texture in my paintings and that finally I was achieving what I envisioned in color.”

“There are so many times when people are hurrying and there’s so much beauty around and they miss it. I want my paintings to help people pause. “

Like many people, Michele struggled to find time to be creative. But when she was thirty-nine she resolved to make it her top priority. “One day I just decided I could not wait another moment to devote more time to my art work,” she said. “I've never really slowed down since then. Painting is the driving force in my life. My brushes have mileage on them. There's a restlessness, a peacefulness and joy in the work. I'm always finding new things to learn and I know it is a never ending process I hope to continue as long as I live.”