Two Artists Sharing A Passion And A Studio In Downtown Renton

The friendship was borne from a tweet. Of the Twitter variety.

The partnership was formed from a shared business sense and love of  art.

Lisa Lamoreaux and Jennifer Phillips are two incredible artists sharing studio space in downtown Renton, around the corner from .

The two artists were following each other on the social media website Twitter. Lisa sent a cheeky message out, which Jennifer picked up on. She sent Lisa back an equally amusing message; it turns out they were both headed to the same festival. And because Jennifer’s picture was on her Twitter page, Lisa reached out and said, “Aren’t you Jennifer?”

An almost immediate friendship  developed, and the business partnership followed soon after.

The women are as lively, witty and charming in person as is their art.

Lamoreaux works in mixed media. Phillips works in arboreal landscapes, and develops unique jewelry. Their work is separate, but complementary.

Lamoreaux's work is multi-dimensional. It starts with a base layer of paper, is then developed with layers of acrylic, and finished with oils. The art displayed at the studio is breathtaking.

Lamoreaux is now launching a new product that she calls “commissioned heirloom paintings.” A painting might commemorate a person or an event that she will develop with the person’s special event or loved one in mind.

Armondo Pavone, local restaurateur, and his wife, Angela, have five of Lamoreaux’s works and were among her earliest supporters. They have one of her heirloom paintings—commissioned on the occasion of their honeymoon to Italy and Paris.  “We gave Lisa a lot of meaningful items from our honeymoon, including menus, and tickets, and photos (including the Eiffel Tower), and she was able to create a unique painting for us based upon that.”

Lamoreaux incorporated their mutual “A” initials into the Eiffel tower image. She is able to commission a unique painting from anything that is important to the customer. She is working on commemorating the life of an Italian mother for a client in Park City, Utah, with images, fabrics and pictures important to her surviving children.

Lamoreaux’s work ranges in cost from $135 for the smallest paintings to $5,000 or more for commissioned work.

Eric Lawson, a UW employee, has several of Lamoreaux's pieces.

"The power of Lisa's work comes from a forced relationship of incongruous states: calm and excitement.  Her subjects, often symbols of the serene:  birds, flowers, Chinese lanterns,  are rendered with charged passion. The tactile papers, leaves, and materials that she affixes to the canvas and paints right over, call out to be touched.  Her palates are aggressive and emotional without melodrama, like a forced marriage where husband and wife actually like each other," Lawson said via email.

"Her paintings are not for broccoli-eaters--they are definitely truffles.  Her paintings are voluptuous sirens meditating under banyan trees."

Phillips was born in Chicago and has lived in Seattle since 1999. She trained in Georgia, worked at other studios, and decided to quit her job four years ago to follow her passion. She is enjoying learning more about Renton, with Lamoreaux as her tour guide.

“Lisa and I share the same ideals for running a business,” Phillips said. “I have painted more in the past two months since I started sharing space with Lisa because we share ideas and feed off of one another.”

Lamoreaux has been in downtown Renton, painting and operating her studio since last summer. Jennifer Phillips joined her two months ago.

The two painters are true media mavens.  

As an artist, Lamoreaux is fairly unique in her discipline to detail and deadlines orientation. She starts her day with the business of the day—and sends her marketing messages to Twitter and Facebook. “By 12:30, I have a paintbrush in hand.”  She then works until 4 p.m. or later, but acknowledges that she is unique that she works to deadline. Not many artists work in this manner.

For Phillips, her work evolved on many trips to and from Pullman, visiting her husband who was in veterinary school there. She became obsessed with shapes and trees and tree portraits. Her work concentrates on the abstract shapes she views.

Denise Cole, owner of the Cole Gallery, said about Phillips' work: "Jennifer brings a fresh, contemporary mood to her intriguing oils on board. With layers of transparent painting against atmospheric background, her arboreal themed pieces range from mysterious and austere to glowing, light filled landscapes in which you can almost feel the warmth of the sun breaking through."

But after the work is complete, Phillips said, “Once I put down the brush, my paintings become a part of your experience,” Phillips said.

Her work is unique in that she is able to transfer it from really large paintings to very small jewelry made out of old Scrabble tiles that she textures and paints similar to her larger art work. She gets many of the old tiles from the Fremont market rummage sales.

Their art work is displayed in many local galleries and festivals, but much of their business is operated via their websites.

Lamoreaux and Phillips will open a new exhibit March 17 at the Cole Gallery in Edmonds. The exhibit runs through April 30.

The artists will have an Open Studio, scheduled for April 23 in downtown Renton. Specific details, times and location will be announced at a later date.

For complete views of the artists work, see:

http://www.lisalamoreaux.com.

http://www.jenniferphillipsart.com