Coloring the City with Lisa

Lisa Quine - Muralist & Illustrator Lisa Quine Inc

By: Woman Up Cleveland

Lisa has painted over 130 murals and is currently painting in 10 states and 2 countries!

When we think about jobs, there are often so many avenues we never consider exploring as a career or even as a hobby. Even thinking about a dream position often excludes niche and specific options simply because we can not fathom such a joyful or unique task being considered ‘work’. Being a muralist is the perfect example of this oversight of what passions could become a successful career in its own right.

Lisa Quine has been painting murals around Cleveland for 12 years and shows a dedication and understanding for the craft that can only be described as deeply special. We were lucky enough to see her magic in action as she was working on her latest project during our chat and gave us a true first hand look into the making of a masterpiece.

Growing up, Lisa wanted to be a Disney animator, creating movie magic for adults and children alike. Quickly realizing she may not have the patience for the meticulous and tedious nature of illustration animation, she sought out another path for artistic expression. Graduating high school in 2008 during a recession, Lisa knew if she wanted to pursue art, it had to be the kind that she could support herself with as well as feed her passions.

Ultimately going to college for graphic design, she quickly fell in love with this form of creation and more specifically, the detailed nature of typography. Following up her college years with an internship as Art Director working in downtown Cleveland, Lisa found herself with an itch to create more outside of her day job.

What started out as hand lettering just for fun, became an obsession. As this particular form of art began to blow up online, specifically through Instagram, Lisa continued to grow her skills and eventually found herself helping out family and friends with gift ideas. Finally, she fell into mural art with a request from a friend of a friend to do some lettering on an office wall.

Never seeing herself creating art of this scale, Lisa hadn’t imagined that murals would become a business offering for her, let alone an entire business itself. All it took was one ask to launch her into the career and passion that fit both her skills and desires equally. About the journey, she said, “I think I thought murals were just another business offering that I could have. I was doing a lot of book covers and other lettering commissions at the time and I'd do a mural every now and then. It just really picked up over the years.”

The natural and slow progression of her success felt like falling into it accidently and before she even had time to process this new found avenue, she was already on her way to being considered a muralist. Allowing herself to explore this medium and continue to let creativity guide her, Lisa eventually realized her talent for this art form. “150 murals later here we are, I just kept saying yes. My style of murals and love of typography looks like a graphic designer trying to be a muralist,” she told us.

Over the years, Lisa has honed in on the perfect process to create timeless and stunning artwork that gets displayed to the community in so many different ways. Her process from beginning to end of course keeps in mind that every project is different. With different requests and needs, the duration, materials, and other factors of the painting can vary dramatically.

She describes style as “modern contemporary cartoony” and has a love for black outlines and pops of color in her work. Now that she has years of experience and work, people know what to expect from Lisa’s artwork and style. Usually, people like a piece she's created in the past and come to her wanting something similar. Some clients come with their branding guide in hand and request a piece that emulates their brand voice and colors while remaining illustrative.

Staying true to her style, Lisa get’s to begin the first step of the project, creating mood boards. “The mood boards are my favorite part of the process. I love pulling inspiration and putting it into a theme. Sometimes I go overboard and present like 10 mood boards,” she told us. After the client chooses which direction they’d like to take, Lisa provides a design mockup for approval and revisions. She balances creative freedom so seamlessly with client needs and presents them with well thought out and visually interesting designs to choose from.

Once the client has signed off on a project concept, the real fun begins. Lisa uses metaquest goggles to trace an outline of the mural onto the material to use as a guide in her painting. Originally using a projector for this step, she is grateful for the technological advancements that have simplified this step for her, overall improving the process. From there, Lisa say’s it is essentially “paint by numbers.”

Using chalk that disappears when painted over, to create the outline for interior work and paint for exterior work, Lisa proved just how much she has learned from her time doing this work. With every project being different, she has become adaptable in her process to create the perfect blend of creativity and efficiency to ensure excellent work each time.

There are many factors that can ultimately change the nature of a project such as surface material for the mural, location and portability of the mural, and maybe most of all, whether the mural will be indoor or outdoor. Lisa told us that one of the biggest differences between creating outdoors is the commentary from others who come across her working saying, “A lot of people are super nice. I don’t know another job where you have a lot of eyes on you telling you if you’re doing a good job. The work itself is very meditative and then you add a layer of supportive passerbys and it’s a great job.”

Starting in graphic design, which uses a very consistent platform and system and then moving to various materials and obstacles with what are essentially live art installations, Lisa has truly been rolling with the punches in her career to remain equipt for any obstacle. She knows that what drives her is the pride of completion and confidence in her skills saying, “It's a sense of accomplishment. The work itself can be long but it is so fun.”

We asked about the idea of longevity when it comes to her art since many of her pieces are permanent fixtures to walls and buildings all throughout Northeast Ohio. This is a very specific and rather rare phenomenon for art, as many of her works are there for the long term to be admired, and critized by many. “I remember being in college and despising what I made in high school and knowing that I had grown so much. Now that I’m an adult, looking back at my college stuff, I think the same thing. But I can’t really do that with murals.” Lisa said, “I have a rule that if it’s not a ‘hell yes’ it's a no. Everything I make has to go through a filter. I just try to make the client happy and try to make it kind of timeless.”

She also recognized the futility of fighting trends and style saying, “Murals can be a time capsule too. When I am done creating a mural, I say it is now the nieghborhoods. It belongs to the nieghborhood, and they have ownership of it, so that helps mentally a lot.” Knowing that her work lives on far beyond its creation, Lisa simulatiously makes peace with the permanence of her work and the fleeting nature of how we all consume art of any kind.

With this, Lisa, along with her creations, is ingrained into the Cleveland community in more ways than one. She started her business in 2018, when the idea of women’s networks and girl gangs began popping up, especially in Cleveland. Lisa remembers the sense of security this boom provided as a female entrepreneur and talked about how a bit of the pressure and fear was lifted knowing that she wasn’t alone.

Claiming to have accidentally built a network trying to absorb everything she could, she quickly became an entrepreneur who valued community over competition in all forms and saw her admiration of Cleveland work in her favor. She said, “My two favorite places in the world are Disney World and Cleveland. I have been obsessed with Cleveland since I was a little girl. Driving from a suburb to a city was just magic to me.I loved these tall buildings and crazy ornate architecture.”

She went on to talk more about the city's unique community dynamic saying, “It's a small town feel in a big city. If you know anyone in Cleveland, you know everyone.” After years of good experiences here, Lisa admitsw she feels comfortable and secure in not only her business, but her connections to others. Most of all, she lives by the idea that “you get what you put in.” Lisa said, “As long as we are cheering for each other, it doesnt have to feel so competitive. We don’t have to compare everyone.”

This connection to Cleveland has not only improved her personal outlooks on entrepreneurship and success in the community for Lisa, but has opened doors to opportunities that she never could have dreamed would come to fruition. While talking with us, she was actively working on her latest project with the Cleveland Gaurdians for opening day.

Lisa is creating a mural backdrop for a photo opportunity at Progressive Field to be revealed on opening day and remain on display for the season. Featuring city highlights and incorporating the guardians statues, fans will pose in front of these metal panels to capture their joy and excitement watching their team play. 

Unsurprisingly, this isn’t Lisa’s first time collaborating with Progressive and the Gaurdians team.

The project she still considers to be her most exceptional was an assignment from the Guardians to design t-shirts for a handout day. This quickly instead became a full scale mural to celebrate the City Connect jerseys and after the team chose Lisa and one of her proposed designs, she began a three week journey to create 3 metal panels. 

She told us more about the collaboration saying, “They liked the mural so much that they asked me to make a t-shirt to give out the day the City Connect jerseys were revealed. So, I was painting a mural during the day and designing a tshirt at night. It felt like finals week when you’re just cramming. May 18th was the game and they gave me a bunch of tickets so my friends and family were able to come and I got to throw out the first pitch which was insane.”

Shortly after, Lisa got to do the same thing in July for another t-shirt giveaway and was invited again to throw out the first pitch as well. She knows so well that this is a unique and magical experience and see’s this collaboration as such a gift that has brought her even closer to the city and community she loves so much. “I’m really appreciative that the Gaurdians had so much faith in me and my work,” she said.

Lisa also noted that one of her most impactful projects has been painting a giant mural at the Cleveland Food Bank. She recalled how often people comment on the mural and how lots of people seem to come across and enjoy it when volunteering.

With work that is so highly visible, we asked Lisa if sometimes people she encounters recognize her or know her work. For an artform that is completely faceless, social media is the main way people can piece together who has created these works and connect the artist to the art. Though she may not be recognized as the artist behind murals people pass each day, she does sometimes get recognition from social media and people who have been following her story and her work since she began this journey.

We asked Lisa about the more challenging aspects of entrepreneurship, especially when it comes to being a woman with a creative career and being a full-time artist. She shared with us that right now, her toughest obstacle is balancing being a mom with running her own business full time. Keeping up with clients and projects is hard enough without the added layer of staying creative as someone who’s career is built around making art.

It can be so hard to avoid burn out and navigate a work life balance, especially with a creative career. Lisa’s awareness of this difficulty makes such a difference in the way she dedicates time to family, work, and her own creativity. Being mindful of this juggling act keeps her grounded and ensures that she can not only succeed, but thrive, in being excellent at all her roles.

Another difficulty that Lisa mentioned was quite the opposite of her internal struggles and came from much more external sources. Since starting her business over a decade ago, this year, she faced her first backlash with the revamp of the mural at the beloved Lakewood Malley’s location.

Many members of the community shared their outrage that the original decor of the space was renovated and replaced by Lisa’s artwork and were not shy in saying so.

Lisa recalls the sheer volume, on multiple platforms of backlash she was seeing. Although she was simply the muralist, and not the one who decided to renovate the location, the attacks online were personal. Even showing up on the local news, she was constantly seeing disapproval of her latest project and was forced to decide how to feel about this negative reaction. 

Overall, in the age of AI generated everything, it is a relief to know that businesses, especially local, are continuing to employ real artists to create real art for their needs instead of turning to options that feel cheaper and easier. It is impossible not to applaud Lisa for not only remaining positive and insightful when faced with such negativity, but for staying true to her style and creating such a beautiful tribute to a beloved institution.

She knows that criticism of art is something that goes hand in hand with creating art and is content in the knowledge that her work made people feel something. Lisa said, “It was amazing to me that I went this long without people telling me this was bad art. I am grateful in that sense that it took so long but I do feel like I went through a right of passage and can say I am a real artist now.”

Gratitude and humility are evident in all ways Lisa discusses her work and herself as an artist. She is truly in touch with just how lovely it can be to have a job that feeds your passions. She recalled a recent interaction that reminded her of her fortune saying, “I was out with my parents and the server said ‘ how amazing that you get to do what you love’ and I was thinking, ‘I was stressed out this morning but you know what you're right.’ I should really just take a step back and be grateful.”

At the end of every day, Lisa knows that her work is the kind that some dream about being able to create and that the seriousness of art is only what you make it out to be. She added, “It's just such a joke of a job! But I love it, and puts food on the table. I don't really care what other people think right now. I'm just going to focus on what I'm doing and make sure the people who appreciate it are happy with it.”

Throughout the years growing up and exploring her talents and creativity, Lisa still never saw herself doing what she does today. She couldn’t imagine this path for herself and though she has landed here now, she maintains that she has no idea what to expect from the future and its possibilities. She told us, “I dont know what to think of the future, I just go with the flow. I far exceeded all the expectations I had for myself and if this is as good as my career is going to get, then I’m good with that.”

It can be such a difficult thing for women to be happy where they are and proud of themselves for how far they’ve come. Being content and having pride while remaining ambitious and continuing to push boundaries seems impossible but women everywhere prove that it is more than achievable to feel all of this at once. Taking a moment to look back on how far we’ve come is a crucial part to continued growth and Lisa understands this essential reflection well.

The immediate exciting future for Lisa holds a showcase this November where she wil be displaying work at Second Studios in Canton, Ohio. While her dreams from here involve more time with her kids and loving family, painting more for her own enjoyment and personal creativity, and continuing to pursue her career goals. Lisa shared how grateful she feels to have a career and be a mom and is looking forward to how her life will grow and change as she continues to ride the wave.

Lisa Quine is a Cleveland treasure and is as passionate and dedicated as the city itself. Her work, appearing on buildings and walls all throughout the city is a testament to not only her sheer talent and eye for design, but her pride in community and love for its people. Creating joyful art, especially in a world that can dramtically benefit from more joy is an act of resistance and power. Lisa brings creativity, color, and kindness that lightens up not only the spaces her art occupies, but the rooms she finds herself in as well. It was a pleasure to hear about her work and get to know more about the skilled hands behind some of our city's most beautiful works of public art. We can’t wait to see where Lisa’s murals pop up next!