Elisa Sheehan Makes the Move From Business to Full-Time Artist
SARATOGA SPRINGS – She’s all in.
Local, extraordinary artist Elisa Sheehan, the founder of a 13 year-old design business (Lis Design) has made the decision to transfer that business and pick up her brushes (which were never far away) to pursue fine art full time. This is great news for admirers of her nature-inspired artistic talent.
And this, of course, takes a tremendous leap of faith, for Lis Design had established itself as a branding, graphic and website development powerhouse – with a national and international clientele. Locally you can see Elisa’s calming and cheerful work on the websites of several leading businesses and organizations, including: N. Fox Jewelers, Hattie’s Restaurant, Park Side Eatery, Root Canal Experts (yes, it has to be a talent to bring calming cheerfulness to root canal!), Lily Saratoga and Saratoga Arts. She established Lis Design in 2004 upon relocating to this area from Boston with her husband Kevin. The couple have two children – Quinn (7) and Nola (5) – and they appear to be extremely clean…
Her Lis Design clients will be transitioned to Studio136 in Albany, the creative division of the Association Development Group. “Over the past several years, I have had the pleasure of working with the talented designers at Studio136,” Elisa noted in a release about the transition. “…I have found a creative culture similar to Lis Design, with the added benefit of expanded services such as web design and development, video and video animation, copywriting and the kind of marketing strategy clients have been asking for.” Indeed, a glance at Studio136’s portfolio shows artwork that could very well be described as Sheehan-esque. Some of their leading clients are the Albany Convention and Tourism Bureau and the New York State Veterinary Society.
Elisa the artist described the genre she works in as ‘Botanical Abstract,’ and her artist statement speaks to her personal approach within that: “My works are my personal reaction to my own existence and my relationship to the natural world. I am interested in the line between representational and abstract in my work. I am constantly walking that line. There are certainly elements of work that can be recognized as shapes found in nature, where I draw so much inspiration from and where I feel most at home, but there is also a certain freedom from the literal that brings my work to the edge of the abstract.”
— Source: https://elisasheehan.com/pages/about-elisa
As a fine artist, Elisa is transitioning herself as well. She is now her Number 1 client! Developing strategies regarding doing notecards, perhaps calendars, prints, and of course commissioned originals, all the way up to industrial applications such as hotels and hospitals (her calming artwork has to be something any medical facility would consider, I believe), gallery showings, retail space, etc. – and the outreach and strategies related to each.
All in all, a huge leap of faith, but if anyone has the requisite skill-sets to cross the abyss, and land on her feet safely on the other side, it’s this smiling lady.
She’s a very easy person to root for. And, like myself – a marketer who knows how to ask for the sale….
So buy something from her, OK? Thank you very much.
To pick out something nice for that empty wall Click here.
Arthur Gonick
November 20, 2017
