Lisa's upbringing was based in a standard Judea Christian setting. Like most baby boomers of the sixties she enjoyed the outdoors and watching TV westerns like the Rifleman and Branded. Much like most people she believed the running myth of Manifest Destiny whereby it was a "right" to take land from the native American, the end justifying the means was all well and good as long as the end result was the old bromide, "a prosperous land for you and me".

But then in the early 1970's after moving to Minnesota, an older sister took an interest in the Wounded Knee tragedy. It became a watershed moment as her sister recounted the story in unglossed detail. The photos of the frozen people left nothing to the imagination. From that moment on, Lisa began to mistrust the tale of western expansion. It was only then that her sister revealed to her that he own Mother, was a full-blooded native American. Soon the blanks and missing pieces of life seemed to need to be found, identified and put back in their rightful spot. The dust of only a few generations was easily uncovered leaving a very stark tale of her and her family's true background.

In the 1980's Lisa was married and had a child and was for the most part living the idyllic American dream. She was a buyer at a dry goods store in Minnetonka Minnesota. She had friends, all the material trappings of a upwardly mobile "yuppie" lifestyle of the day. But one day she noticed a slight twitch in her right hand. As time progressed these twitches and numb feelings grew until they were prevalent most of the time. As fate would have it she was diagnosed with Lupus. Soon all the ephemeral gains, friends, money, quality of life diminished. It led to a deep inner soul searching much like those rainy days in Seattle Washington.

In the Early 1990's at the encouragement of a doctor she took an art course at Atelier Art School. The perceptive eye of her instructor who urged Lisa to take her art to a larger arena led to Lisa's instant success as an native American artist. From the moment of her first painting Lisa has been a solid and perennial favorite in galleries throughout the United States. Her paintings show worldwide. Her commission and mural work can be seen in government offices and lobbies throughout the United States.