About Sister Maresa Lilley, SND
I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and grew up in its suburbs. Always interested in artistic endeavors, I was supported by parents who encouraged the inclination with Christmas or birthday presents of arts and crafts.
Most of my education came from the Sisters of Notre Dame, and I later became a member of the Congregation. Destined to teach, the classroom provided a vent for producing art for many years with students, and there I enjoyed teaching principles of art in the elementary school.
Near the end of a career in the classroom, a gift set of oil paints sparked the fire to create paintings of landscapes, still lifes, and people. For many years, I have been painting and selling artwork in various fairs and art shows while tending other roles of administration. Fortunate to be nearby the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, I enrolled in night classes for continuing education in art and attended several sessions there. Other development came from workshops, daily practice, and my own reading about and teaching of oil painting in community centers. For me, subjects of all kinds beg to be memorialized in paint. The simplest things, whether an egg, a daisy, or a child, transmit the grace and the beauty of being. The passion of the painter is to find this essence and draw it out, usually in playful brushstrokes, to give mind and heart a lift for the viewer. May you enjoy these expressions of the ordinary and, like the painter, discover grace in the paint.
