The Wonder of What We Stand to Lose

I’m so excited to share with you my cover story, The Wonder of What We Stand to Lose, for the winter issue of Venü Magazine 2017/18.

In this issue, I cover the work of pastel artist Zaria Forman. Zaria creates large-scale drawings inspired by her trips to the Arctic and Antarctic aboard the National Geographic Explorer and NASA’s Operation IceBridge. Zaria’s story is not only about creating beautiful work, but it also shares her personal story and her mission to spread awareness on the very real concerns of global warming.

Venü Magazine Cover Story by Lisa Mikulski

Here is an excerpt from the story:

Changing and shifting, the exact subject matter of Zaria Forman’s art can never be captured again. Unlike paintings or photos of landscapes or landmarks – those places where an artist can return again and again – the icebergs of the Arctic and Antarctic are melting and the waters of the Maldives are raising. By the time Forman has completed a drawing, the natural landscape that once existed has diminished and transformed.

Forman has made it her life’s mission to provide us with stunning large-scale artworks of icebergs, glaciers, and the sapphire blues of thousand-year-old ancient ice. In addition to providing us with these highly detailed and majestic views – she creates her work using only her fingers – the work serves to call attention to the urgency that climate change is having upon some of the world’s most vulnerable regions.

Traveling with NASA and National Geographic Explorer, she has passionately sought to capture the story of what we stand to lose. However, rather than bringing to us the tragedy of what is unfolding in these areas, Forman brings the beauty of what she has seen.

“There is, of course, all kinds of bad news out there about climate change. There’s the fact that the past three years have been the hottest on record, extreme weather is wreaking havoc all over the world, the polar bear population in the Arctic is in rapid decline, and now we’re faced with an administration that ignores these problems – contributing to environmental decline with their denial of it,” says Forman.

Resources for writers

As I began rebuilding my writing career here in the States, there were a number of things I needed to do in order to better position myself for success. New writers, and even experienced ones, benefit from updating their skills, learning new strategy, and revamping their branding. For me I had been marketing to and writing for European publications for nearly five years. It was time to reintroduce myself to the American market.

Along with tweaking a few pages on my website and refreshing my resume, I spent considerable time researching freelance writing rates, best practices, and ways to polish my professional brand. Here are some great articles and resources for writers that I have unearthed so that you don’t have to.

How I became a writer (and the single life)

It’s autumn now. The leaves turn gold and red. The Morning Glory vines have shriveled and turned brown, the chilly nights altering their assent toward the roof of the porch. Autumn makes me self-reflective and I’ve been thinking about where I’ve been and where I’m going. I consider the paths and opportunities available to me and these ideas remind me of my youth when all things were possible. I became a writer partly because of my mother’s insistence that I become a reader. She told me that books would “take me away” to far away lands, introduce me to interesting people, and teach me about the world.

My mother would strategically put books in places for me – on the back seat of the car and on the tank of the toilet. Always a book and a Reader’s Digest. This was pretty good thinking on her part because where else could I go when in a car or in the loo? But as a young girl, I wasn’t interested in books. I was interested in bugs and hanging around in the woods with my dog.

Writing for Artscope Magazine

The September/October 2017 issue of Artscope magazine is hitting the streets now. I’m pleased to share with you my piece on legendary graphic designer, Vaughan Oliver – Walk of Life, which has been selected as the cover story for the issue.

The work of Vaughan Oliver reminds me why I love graphic design: it’s wizardry.

The Assault of Digital Distraction

Living in the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election is akin to being tangled up in a domestic violence situation. No matter how much or how loud you plead for the abuse to stop, it continues. It’s noisy. There is word salad, and chaos, and confusion. One tends to constantly re-examine one’s grasp on reality – checking and re-checking to ensure that what we just heard or what we just read makes sense. Or not. It’s emotional abuse on a grand scale.

The Importance of Place

The New York Times ran a piece on their Learning Network, October 22, 2013, entitled How Much Does Your Neighborhood Define Who You Are? While the post was written several years ago, the notion of it stayed with me in particular because of the country where I was living at the time.

No, Sweden was not for me and the culture – while I had always dreamed of embracing it and did so while living outside the country – in reality, I found that it countered everything I held dear. The inability of being able to authentically express myself in word and deed stymied me profoundly both personally and professionally. The ways I went about marketing my business were no longer truisms in that Scandinavian country. I often felt as if my IQ was being systemically drained because very few people, while they were smart and well read, were willing to discuss what they read or how they felt about it. Debating ideas is not conversational fare at your typical Swedish diner party.

But, intelligence is not only based on how much one knows but also in how one expresses it. Or not. Gone were the days of healthy political debate and intellectual conversation. I missed them dearly.

All of this begged the question, would I – would we – be different people if we were born and raised elsewhere?

Hello Boston – writing and photography from Lisa

I’m thrilled to write that after five long years in Sweden, I’ve returned to the place I call home. Now based in Boston – a city of art and culture – everything feels deliciously new. There are bright opportunities, new friends and new points of view, but there is also the benefit of looking at and building upon the tapestry of past experiences.

Over the years, I have been fortunate to have worked as a regular features and editorial contributor for several US and European publications. Much of my work in the US focused on art, design, and culture and I endeavor to once again provide these services along with photography for my clients.

In Sweden, my work took a decided turn toward news writing and current events and those areas provide me with the experience to write about our present state of national madness and also how to best care for ourselves, and others, during such madness. These are dark times for our country but they are also times of renewed focus and activism.

Your Daily List of Desires

Tasks on a To-Do list can grow like the snakes on Medusa’s head. No one likes a To-Do list and yet we make them in attempt to keep our lives and our goals on track. But the thing about the To-Do list is that is becomes rather counter-productive as you check one item off and add four more. We begin to get the sense that, despite our best intentions, these lists don’t benefit us in any way except to remind us of how much we have to do and mostly how much we haven’t done.

Several years ago I wrote a post which suggested replacing the To-Do list with something that I considered a better idea – a Done list. That post received quite a nice reception so I thought I’d share the idea here again but with some refinements.