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Island Expressions: Lisa Etre

Aug. 4, 2008 — St. John artist Lisa Etre's work can be found in any number of places, including the cover of the recently published Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of St. John's "Smart Guide to Island Housekeeping."
For several decades, shoppers at gift shops across the territory went home with prints, gift cards, mouse pads, prints, and more featuring Etre's distinctive local scenes. These pieces, she said, are "almost graphic design, with flat colors and hard-edged shapes" — stylized landscapes rendered as a mélange of pattern and shape.
But her newer work takes a different tack as Etre has switched from gouache to the complexity of oils on canvas and a markedly different palette and style: deep blues and purples for a moonrise over Maho Bay, indoor hues for a rare still life, brushy gestures and impastoed surfaces.
Relaxing on her porch amid St. John's turquoise sea and green hills — the inspiration for much of her work — Etre, 53, discussed the new direction her art has taken.
"I like to do anything I've never done before," she said. Now she's also creating handmade books, jewelry and masks.
Etre grew up on St. Croix when her family moved there in 1962 from New York. Art classes were in short supply when she attended St. Mary's and St. Dunstan's Schools on St. Croix, but once she had her first art class at American University in Washington, D.C., she was hooked.
"I went full tilt into art and I spent the rest of the time getting the requirements," she said.
After spending a year after graduation traveling through South America, she returned to St. Croix to work for her father. By this time, he owned a ship chandlery business called the Town Wheel.
While still living in St. Croix, Etre took time off to study at Mexico's Institute Allende in San Miguel de Allende, where she began to develop the distinctive style of her best-known work.
Etre and her parents stayed on St. Croix until 1980, when her parents headed to Santa Fe, N.M, and Etre, her sister and brother-in-law sailed from St. Croix to St. John with all Etre's possessions on board. She lived on the 40-foot-boat, Sandpiper, in Great Cruz Bay while she settled in to St. John.
In January 1984, she started commuting to Charlotte Amalie High School to teach art. In 1987, she and friend Kate Campbell opened Pink Papaya gift shop, with Campbell running the shop and Etre producing the artwork. Campbell and Etre have both moved on, but the store continues to sell her works.
Etre moved on to Ivanna Eudora Kean High School in Red Hook, a much easier commute from St. John. She's now the director of Kean's art department – and the recent recipient of the V.I. Humanities Council's $1,000 Heath Award, given to humanities educators at local schools for their outstanding contributions.
In 1994, her son C.J. was born. Soon to be an 8th grader at Antilles School, C.J. is Etre's top priority these days.
"But after he's out of the house, I'd like to go stay in one place for three or four months," Etre said — thinking ahead to how she'll continue to create art in the future.
Etre's work can also be seen by checking out her website.
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