Lisa Waltuch
Schooled in graphic design and art history, Waltuch worked for many years in interactive media and research. In her design work, Waltuch has won numerous awards for her creative direction of graphic and interactive projects, including the first major web site for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a redesign of the highly-acclaimed web site of the Discovery Channel, and the establishment of Wal-Mart's first trend department in New York City.
Waltuch has served as Creative Director for Choosing Success, a series of interactive CD-ROMs made by and for at-risk teens. She is also a founding board member of Women's Law, the leading website helping victims of domestic violence.
Waltuch holds a BA from Stanford University in Design and Art History and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Graphic Design.
A California native, Waltuch lives with her husband and son in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
Collecting Stones is a concept devised by Brooklyn–based designer Lisa Waltuch, in which she creates personalized artworks that tell the story of people's lives.
Waltuch’s first Collecting Stones project grew out of her graduate work at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she wove a tapestry that captured the life of poet Lynore Banchoff. Waltuch was deeply moved both by the process of getting to know Lynore and by seeing the poet’s emotional reaction to the final piece. The experience led to a lifelong friendship with Lynore, who eventually persuaded Waltuch to turn two decades of working on these pieces on a one-off basis into a full-time venture.
Through an intensive collaborative process, Lisa explores the lives of her clients, producing memorable works that are remarkable both for their aesthetic appeal and their biographical qualities.
Commissioned pieces include:
Burnished and Smooth Recollections: this large tapestry reflects the life of a California poet by using fabric fragments from her prom dress, wedding towels, trousseau and her son’s first bib.
A Little Boat that Floats: this piece is a Ketubah, or Jewish wedding contract, in the form of a 36–inch–diameter paper sculpture that was created for two Oregon doctors. It was made from handmade paper with artifacts from family members.
“To Answer Thy Best Pleasure”: this work consists of five handmade folios representing the different life stages of a prominent opera singer.
“The Words are Your Own”: this piece is made up of a set of ten panels adorned with text excerpts imprinted on ribbons for a New York-based professor, author and playwright.
“All the While, I Will Know That You are There”: this is an appliquéd canvas wall–hanging using colored silhouetted faces, for Valentino Achak Deng, the Sudanese refugee profiled in Dave Eggers’s book,
“What is the What?”
A Collecting Stones piece might capture a life history that could be presented at a birthday celebration. It could reflect a slice of someone’s life to mark their professional retirement or tell the story of a union, for either a wedding or an anniversary. It could represent a fully lived life after a passing or it could celebrate the birth of a child.
The pieces can be any size and take any form, from a framed work that hangs on a wall or a series of objects that could be displayed on a mantel to an installation that fills a room or covers a wall.
Anyone can commission a Collecting Stones piece, from close friends, family members or colleagues wanting to give a unique and unusual gift, to an individual who wants to commemorate an aspect of his or her life. Institutions with long and rich histories, such as universities, art museums or theater companies, are also perfect subjects for Collecting Stones pieces.