Wyoming fiber artist Lisa Charles considers herself an unconventional painter—instead of using oils she paints with thread. Charles works slowly and meticulously, often-applying stitches using the hand wheel of her domestic sewing machine. Because color is key to her work, the selection of thread for each stitch can, at times, take hours. She creates intricate layers by incorporating both natural and manmade threads to achieve the depth, gradation, and fluidity that make her paintings vibrate with life.

Charles first discovered thread painting at the Alegre Retreat, which has moved from Santa Fe, NM and is now held in Gateway, CO. Prior to Alegre, she had been creating fabric puppets and toys for children. During a seminar on thread painting, however, she realized this was what she’d been looking for: an art form that combined the tactile feel of fabrics and sewing, with the subtleties of color and design. The mesmerizing combination piqued her creative aesthetic and became her sole art form.

Since taking up thread painting, Charles has studied with many notable artists, including Carol Shinn, who was instrumental in helping her explore the vast possibilities that could be conjured through unusual thread combinations. And Katie Pasquini Masopust who helped Charles develop a more painterly approach to composition and design.

Charles’ process, which is akin to completing a jigsaw puzzle, starts before she sits down at her machine. She must first see into the myriad layers of color within each image and formulate how they will come together in thread. Interestingly, Charles is dyslexic. For an artist, this means she can access both hemispheres of her brain—the artistic and the engineering—at the same time. This ability gives her the unique perspective at the sewing machine of being able to see the entire visual surface and how each stitch interacts with the whole composition, all while anticipating where to land the next one.

In her work, Charles strives to add to the cannon of fiber art, an often overlooked art form with roots in humble, functional items. Like the medium itself, Charles started out creating functional works. Today, she maintains a playful mindset, which she couples with a vivid imagination and unabiding love of color to tell off-beat, whimsical stories in thread.

Award-wining artist, Lisa Charles’ thread paintings have been exhibited in museums and can be found in both corporate and private collections.