Lisa Bagwell (Visual Artist)

Lisa Bagwell

Lisa Bagwell has been building gardens where there was once grass (kill your lawn) or a vacant lot since 2004. She’s worked as a park system naturalist, managed the Long Branch Community gardens and labored with love for Jeff’s Organic Produce/E.R. and Son Farm. She currently manages Kula Farm in Asbury Park, a community driven urban farm. “There’s nothing she loves more than allowing the matrix of naturalized plants the opportunity to coexist with the beds of cultivated vegetables. She also loves building giant brush piles that eventually break down with the help of decomposers and is proud to manage a popular community compost pile. In both her work and art, she takes unwanted things, be it a vacant lot, rotting vegetables or a bottlecap and hopes to build something inspiring.

Lisa has exhibited her work in and around New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York, in galleries, festivals. She also works with environmental organizations and schools whenever possible to spread the word of anti-consumerism through creative arts.

--"We all have access to this work."

Lisa's Artist Statement

I am a self-taught artist and have been working with recycled materials for over 20 years hoping to spark curiosity and raise awareness of the waste we create in our lives and its persistence in the environment. I collect many objects for my work while picking up trash out on Sandy Hook while other materials are collected from my own use and that of about 10 people that save things for me.

I keep my collections organized and sorted and imagine how to use them in a sculpture that suits my sensibilities and works for the shape of the object I’m using. Sculptures range from tiny bottlecap pins to large outdoor installations; repeating themes are marine life, birds, cats, cakes and sandwiches. I find that I like to employ humor and lightheartedness to address a subject that depresses me.